June 6
Today is
Western Australia Day.
1508 –
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, is defeated in
Friuli by
Venetian troops.
1762 –
Seven Years' War: British forces begin a siege of Havana, Cuba, and temporarily capture the city in the
Battle of Havana.
1808 –
Joseph Bonaparte, brother to Napoleon, is crowned King of Spain.
1833 – Andrew Jackson becomes the first U.S. President to ride on a train.
1844 – The
Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London.
1882 – More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay, India are killed when a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into the harbour.
1889 – The
Great Seattle Fire destroys all of downtown Seattle, Washington.
1892 – The
Chicago "L" commuter rail system begins operation.
1912 – The eruption of
Novarupta in Alaska begins. It is the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.
1932 – The
Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon sold.
1933 – The first
drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey, United States.
1934 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the
Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
1939 – Judge Joseph Force Crater, known as the "Missingest Man in New York", is declared legally dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Force_Crater
1942 – World War II:
Battle of Midway. U.S. Navy dive bombers sink the Japanese cruiser
Mikuma and four Japanese carriers.
1944 -
Operation Overlord commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the
Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.
1946 – The
National Basketball Association (NBA) is created with eleven teams.
1960 -
Bing Crosby was presented with a
Platinum disc to commemorate his 200 millionth record sold. The sales figures were a combined total of 2,600 recorded singles and 125 albums. Crosby's global lifetime sales on 179 labels in 28 countries totaled 400 million records.
1962 - The first
Beatles recording session took place at
Abbey Road studios.
The group recorded four tracks, one of which was
'Love Me Do' the four musicians received payments for the session of £7.10 ($12.07) each.
1965 -
The Rolling Stones released the single
'(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' in the US, which went on to give the band their first No.1.
1966 -
Roy Orbison's first wife, Claudette,
was killed when a truck pulled out of a side road and collided with the motorbike that she and her husband were riding on in Gallatin, Texas, she was 25.
1968 –
Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Robert F. Kennedy
Democratic Party senator from New York and brother of 35th President John F. Kennedy, dies from gunshot wounds inflicted on June 5.
1971 – A midair collision between a Hughes Airwest
Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a United States Marine Corps
McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II jet fighter near Duarte, California, claims 50 lives.
1982 – A British Army Air Corps
Gazelle helicopter
is destroyed in a
friendly fire incident, resulting in the loss of four lives.
1984 –
Tetris, one of the best-selling video games of all time, is first released in the USSR.
1985 – The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is opened in Embu, Brazil; the exhumed remains are later proven to be those of
Josef Mengele,
Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February 1979.
1997 –
Prom Mom incident: While attending her senior prom in Lacey Township, New Jersey, Melissa Drexler gives birth in a bathroom stall, leaves the baby to die in a trash can and then returns to the prom.
2002 –
Eastern Mediterranean event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at ten meters in diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the
Nagasaki atomic bomb.
2005 – In
Gonzales v. Raich, the United States Supreme Court upholds a federal law banning cannabis, including medical marijuana.
Births
1755 – Nathan Hale; 1756 – John Trumbull; 1799 – Alexander Pushkin; 1867 – David T. Abercrombie(founded
Abercrombie & Fitch); 1868 – Robert Falcon Scott; 1917 – Kirk Kerkorian; 1923 – V. C. Andrews; 1936 – Levi Stubbs; 1939 – Gary U.S. Bonds; 1945 – David Dukes (the actor, not the racist); 1945 –
Arthur Shawcross (the Genesee River Killer); 1947 – Robert Englund; 1954 – Harvey Fierstein; 1955 – Sandra Bernhard, 1955 – Sam Simon (developer, director, producer, writer The Simpsons); 1956 – Björn Borg; 1959 – Jimmy Jam; 1960 – Steve Vai; 1963 – Eric Cantor; 1967 – Paul Giamatti; 1972 – Natalie Morales; 1974 – Uncle Kracker
Deaths
1799 – Patrick Henry; 1865 –
William Quantrill (
Quantrill's Raiders); 1878 – Robert Stirling (invented the
stirling engine); 1941 –
Louis Chevrolet; 1961 – Carl Jung; 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy; 1976 – J. Paul Getty; 1979 – Jack Haley; 1991 – Stan Getz; 1997 – Magda Gabor (Zsa Zsa & Eva's older sister); 2002 – Robbin Crosby (Ratt); 2005 – Anne Bancroft, 2005 – Dana Elcar (
MacGyver); 2006 –
Billy Preston; 2010 – Marvin Isley (The Isley Brothers); 2013 – Esther Williams; 2015 – Vincent Bugliosi; 2015 – Ronnie Gilbert (The Weavers); 2016 – Viktor Korchnoi