How many days and weeks until May 4th?

On May 4th 1979 Margaret Thatcher arrived at 10 Downing Street as the first woman Prime Minister in British history, and quoted on the step a prayer attributed to St Francis of Assisi: ‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.’ She had won 339 seats. She held the office for eleven and a half years, longer than anyone else in the twentieth century.

On May 4th 1471 the Yorkists destroyed the Lancastrian army at Tewkesbury and Edward IV’s throne was secure. Prince Edward of Westminster, the seventeen-year-old heir of Henry VI, was killed in the battle or immediately after it, the only heir to the English throne to die in battle. Henry VI himself died in the Tower seventeen days later.

The pun that became Star Wars Day is British and political in origin. On May 4th 1979, the day Thatcher took office, her party is said to have placed a notice in the London Evening News reading ‘May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations.’ The film industry took another thirty years to notice.

Audrey Hepburn, who became one of Hollywood’s most enduring leading actresses, was born on May 4th 1929 in a suburb of Brussels, spent the war in occupied Arnhem, and trained as a ballet dancer in London before anyone put her in front of a camera. Eric Sykes, the comedian and writer beloved of generations of British television viewers, was born the same day in 1923 in Oldham. The American artist Keith Haring, known for his bold, graffiti-inspired pop art, shares the date too.

Born on May 4th: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

Audrey Hepburn and Eric Sykes — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a May 4th birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — emerald for the stone, Taurus for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

May birthstone necklace

A simple pendant in the actual May birthstone colour, from a long-running UK jewellery brand.

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Taurus constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Taurus for a May 4th birthday.

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Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the May birthstone and the lily of the valley — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

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Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on May 4th, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

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