Portal:History of science/Selected anniversaries/January 4
- 1493 - Christopher Columbus leaves the New World, ending his first journey
- 1643 - Birth of Sir Isaac Newton, English mathematician and natural philosopher (d. 1727)
- 1752 - Death of Gabriel Cramer, Swiss mathematician (b. 1704)
- 1761 - Death of Stephen Hales, English physiologist (b. 1677)
- 1813 - Birth of Isaac Pitman, English inventor (Pitman shorthand) (d. 1897)
- 1882 - Death of John William Draper, English scientist, photographer (b. 1811)
- 1940 - Birth of Brian Josephson, Welsh physicist, Nobel laureate
- 1945 - Birth of Richard R. Schrock, American chemist, Nobel laureate
- 1961 - Death of Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist, Nobel laureate (b. 1887)
- 1990 - Death of Harold Edgerton, American electrical engineer (b. 1903)
- 2005 - Death of Frank Harary, American mathematician (b. 1921)