May 6

May 6 is the 126th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (127th in leap years). There are 239 days remaining.

Events

• 1527 – Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance.
• 1536 – King Henry VIII orders Bible be placed in every church.
• 1682 – Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles.
• 1816 – The American Bible Society is founded in New York City.
• 1835 – James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Arkansas secedes from the Union.
• 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville ends, with a defeat of the Army of the Potomac under General Joseph Hooker by Confederate troops under Stonewall Jackson.
• 1877 – Realizing that his people were weakened by cold and hunger, Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
• 1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.
• 1910 – George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII.
• 1935 – New Deal: Executive Order 7034 creates the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
• 1937 – Hindenburg disaster: The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people are killed.
• 1940 – John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.
• 1941 – At California's March Field Bob Hope performs his first USO show.
• 1942 – World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.
• 1945 – World War II: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (first was on December 11, 1941).
• 1954 – Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.
• 1966 – Myra Hindley and Ian Brady are sentenced to life imprisonment for the Moors Murders in England.
• 1981 – A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Ying Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries.
• 1994 – Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand inaugurate the opening of the Chunnel – a tunnel under the English Channel linking England and France for the first time since the end of the Great Ice Age.
• 1998 – The body of former CIA director William Colby was found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he’d disappeared.
• 1999 – In New York, a parole board votes to release Amy Fisher, in prison for the last 7 years for shooting her lover's wife.
• 2002 – Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is assassinated during the 2002 Dutch national election campaign by Volkert van der Graaf.
• 2002 – Jean-Pierre Raffarin becomes Prime Minister of France.
• 2002 – The World Wrestling Federation announces that they have changed their name to World Wrestling Entertainment after losing a court battle with the World Wildlife Fund.
• 2004 – The last episode of the popular television sitcom Friends airs.

Births

• 1501 – Pope Marcellus II (d. 1555)
• 1574 – Pope Innocent X (d. 1655)
• 1758 – Maximilien Robespierre, revolutionary (d. 1794)
• 1758  – André Masséna, French soldier (d. 1817)
• 1769 – Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1824)
• 1797 – Joseph Brackett, Shaker religious leader and composer (d. 1882)
• 1856 – Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist, founder of psychoanalysis (d. 1939)
• 1856  – Robert Peary, explorer (d. 1920)
• 1861 – Rabindranath Tagore, author (d. 1941)
• 1868 – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (d. 1918)
• 1868  – Gaston Leroux, writer (d. 1927)
• 1871 – Christian Morgenstern, author (d. 1914)
• 1879 – Bedřich Hrozný, Czech orientalist and linguist (d. 1952)
• 1880 – Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, painter (d. 1938)
• 1882 – Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany, heir of Kaiser Wilhelm II (d. 1951)
• 1895 – Rudolph Valentino, actor (d. 1926)
• 1902 – Max Ophüls, director (d. 1957)
• 1902 – Harry Golden, U.S. journalist (d. 1981)
• 1904 – Moshe Feldenkrais, founder of the Feldenkrais method (d. 1984)
• 1915 – Orson Welles, director (d. 1985)
• 1915  – Theodore H. White, writer (d. 1986)
• 1920 – Ross Hunter, producer (d. 1996)
• 1920  – Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, first Prime Minister and later President of Fiji (d. 2004)
• 1921 – Erich Fried, author (d. 1988)
• 1925 – Hanns Dieter Hüsch, cabaretist
• 1931 – Willie Mays, Baseball Hall of Famer
• 1937 – Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, boxer
• 1945 – Bob Seger, rock music singer
• 1945 – Jimmie Dale Gilmore, musician
• 1947 – Martha Nussbaum, philosopher
• 1953 – Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• 1955 – Tom Bergeron, game show host
• 1960 – John Flansburgh, musician
• 1961 – George Clooney, actor
• 1964 – Dana Hill, actress
• 1970 – George Rivas, Texas 7 ringleader
• 1972 – Martin Brodeur, hockey player
• 1980 – Kate Lawler, Big Brother contestant

Deaths

• 680 – Muawiyah I, Umayyad caliph (b. 602)
• 1502 – James Tyrrell, executed; alleged murderer of the Princes in the Tower (b. c. 1450)
• 1555 – Pope Marcellus II (b. 1501)
• 1859 – Alexander von Humboldt, German naturalist and explorer (b. 1769)
• 1862 – Henry David Thoreau, author and philosopher (b. 1817)
• 1902 – Bret Harte, American author (b. 1839)
• 1910 – King Edward VII of the United Kingdom (b. 1841)
• 1911 – George Maledon, the "Hanging Judge" of Arkansas
• 1919 – L. Frank Baum, writer (b. 1856)
• 1949 – Maurice Maeterlinck, poet, playwright, essayist (b. 1862)
• 1952 – Maria Montessori, educator (b. 1870)
• 1961 – Lucian Blaga, Romanian poet, playwright, philosopher (b. 1895)
• 1987 – William Casey, head of the Central Intelligence Agency (b. 1913)
• 1992 – Marlene Dietrich, actress (b. 1901)
• 2002 – Pim Fortuyn, Dutch politician, assassinated (b. 1948)

Holidays and observances

• Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel (2005)
• Feast day of the following saints in the Roman Catholic Church:
  • Evodius (d. 69)
  • Saint Justus (d. 168)
  • Maurelius (d. 542)
  • Bonizella Piccolomini Cacciaconti
  • Saint Prudence (d. 1492)
  • Edward Jones and Anthony Middleton, martyrs of England and Wales.
• No Pants Day in 2005

External links

• BBC: On This Day
• ThisDayThatYear.com on May 6

May 5 – May 7 – April 6 – June 6 – listing of all days