Today in History highlights notable events that occurred on August 4 across the centuries.

1558 — The first printed edition of the Zohar is published in Spain, significantly popularizing the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. The Zohar, a medieval commentary on the Torah written primarily in Aramaic, became one of the foundational texts of Jewish mysticism. Before this printed edition, the text had circulated in manuscript form for roughly three centuries, and its wider dissemination helped spur the development of Lurianic Kabbalah in the following decades.

1821 — A Russian Antarctic expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen returns to Kronstadt, completing a voyage during which the expedition is widely recognized as the first to circumnavigate Antarctica. Bellingshausen's expedition had sighted the Antarctic ice shelf in January 1820, just days before a British expedition under Edward Bransfield also reported sighting Antarctic land.

1914 — U.S. President Woodrow Wilson issues his "Proclamation of Neutrality," formally declaring the United States' intent to remain outside the escalating conflict in Europe that would become known as World War I. The declaration reflected broad public sentiment against involvement in a European war, though neutrality would face mounting pressure from events such as the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. The United States would maintain neutrality until April 1917, when Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram prompted Congress to declare war.

1942 — The first transport train carrying Jews departs from the Mechelen transit camp in Belgium, bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp. This marked the beginning of systematic deportations from Belgium during the Holocaust. The Mechelen camp served as the main SS transit point for the deportation of Jews and Roma from Belgium, with a total of approximately 25,000 people deported from the site between 1942 and 1944.

1944 — Anne Frank is arrested in Amsterdam by the German Security Police, also known as the Grüne Polizei, following a tip-off from an informer whose identity has never been definitively established. She and her family had been in hiding in the annex at Prinsengracht 263 for more than two years. Her diary, later published as The Diary of a Young Girl, became one of the most widely read accounts of the Holocaust and has been translated into more than 70 languages.

1993 — Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis sign a peace agreement in Arusha, Tanzania, known as the Arusha Accords, aimed at ending the Rwandan Civil War and establishing a power-sharing government. The accords were the product of negotiations that began in 1992 between the government of President Juvénal Habyarimana and the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which had launched an offensive from Uganda in 1990. The accords were undermined the following year by the outbreak of the Rwandan genocide, which began in April 1994 following the assassination of President Habyarimana.

Source: The Korea Times