4 MARCH

1879 - Rosa Sevilla Alvero, oustanding Filipina patriot and educator, is born in Tondo, Manila; Alvero will be one of the two women staffers of La Independencia, a wartime newspaper published by Gen. Antonio Luna in September 1898 during the second phase of the Revolution against Spanish colonial rule; during the height of the Philippine-American War, she will establish the Instituto de Mujeres, the first Filipino-run school for girls offering primary to collegiate courses.

1238 - The Battle of the Sit River is fought between the Rus' people and the Mongols during the full-scale Mongolian invasion of what are today's Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus; the forces of Grand Prince Yuri II will lose succumb to Batu Khan's hordes and the Mongol World Empire will dominate the region for some 200 years.

1915 - Negotiations for the Constantinople Agreement, the wartime secret arrangements among the Entente powers for the partition of the Ottoman Empire, begins; the part stating Russia will get control of Istanbul will never be implemented because the Dardanelles campaign during the First World War failed and because the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution led Russia to drop out of the agreement.

1980 - Robert Mugabe is elected prime minister of Zimbabwe (the former Rhodesia), becoming the first black leader in the African country's modern history; Mugabe is a left-left leaning nationalist who jointly led the Patriotic Front guerrillas' operations against the white-dominated government during the the 1975-1979 civil war.