April 4:

Events

• 1879 - The Ryūkyū Clan is abolished and Okinawa is born.
• 1890 - Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, known in Japan as Koizumi Yakumo after gaining Japanese citizenship, first arrives in Japan.
• 1899 - The Tokyo University of Foreign Studies is founded.
• 1905 - The Waseda Baseball Club travels abroad for the first time.
• 1978 - The female singing trio known as Candies play their final concert at the Kōrakuen Stadium.

Births

• 1884 - Isoroku Yamamoto (d. 1943), admiral
• 1946 - Katsuaki Satō, martial artist and coach
• 1957 - Nobuyoshi Kuwano, singer and trumpet player
• 1974 - Shōei, actor
• 1990 - Yūki Mihara, model
• 1991 - Yui Koike, model and actress
• 1994 - Shunsuke Nishikawa, actor
• 1994 - Risako Sugaya, singer and actress
• 1999 - Miki Nishino, singer, dancer, and actress

Film and television

• 1983 - Oshin begins airing on NHK, starring Ayako Kobayashi, Yūko Tanaka, Nobuko Otowa, Pinko Izumi, Shiro Itō, Masatoshi Nakamura, and Tsunehiko Watase