December 4 belongs to Owner 339

On December 4, 1998, the space shuttle Endeavour launched the first American module of the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral — Unity — which docked with the Russian Zarya module launched a month earlier. It was the first step in the orbital construction of the largest space cooperation project in history, which would host crew continuously from 2000.

On December 4, 1563, the Council of Trent closed — the largest council in the history of the Catholic Church, begun eighteen years earlier in response to the Protestant Reformation. The council defined dogmas such as transubstantiation, established the Catechism, reformed clerical discipline and created seminaries for the training of priests. It was the axis of the Counter-Reformation.

On December 4, 1956, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash spontaneously gathered at Sun Studio in Memphis in what went down in history as the Million Dollar Quartet. The session, which lasted a few hours, was accidentally recorded and not released until 1981. It is one of the most legendary gatherings in rock and roll history.