May 6
May 6 is the 126th day of the year in the
Gregorian Calendar (127th in
leap years). There are 239 days remaining.
\n
Events
\n*1527 - Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. \n*1682 - Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles.\n*1835 - James Gordon Bennett publishes the first issue of the New York Herald. \n*1861 - American Civil War: Arkansas secedes from the Union.\n*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. \n*1889 - The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.\n*1910 - George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII.\n*1935 - New Deal: Executive Order 7034 creates the Works Progress Administration (WPA).\n*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. \n*1940 - John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.\n*1941 - At California's March Field Bob Hope performs his first USO show. \n*1942 - World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.\n*1945 - World War II: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (first was on December 11, 1941). \n*1954 - Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.\n*1966 - Myra Hindley and Ian Brady are sentenced to life imprisonment for the Moors Murders in England.\n*1981 - A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Ying Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries.\n*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. \n*1999 - In New York, a parole board votes to release Amy Fisher who had been in prison for 7 years for shooting her lover's wife.\n*2002 - Jean-Pierre Raffarin becomes Prime Minister of France.\n*2004 - President Bush apologizes for the humiliation suffered by Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. troops.\n* 2004 - The last episode of the popular television sitcom Friends airs.
Births
\n*1501 - Pope Marcellus II (d. 1555)\n*1574 - Pope Innocent X (d. 1655)\n*1758 - Maximilien Robespierre, revolutionary (d. 1794)\n* 1758 - André Masséna, French soldier (d. 1817)\n*1856 - Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist, founder of psychoanalysis (d. 1939)\n* 1856 - Robert Peary, explorer (d. 1920)\n*1861 - Rabindranath Tagore, author (d. 1941)\n*1868 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (d. 1918)\n* 1868 - Gaston Leroux, writer (d. 1927)\n*1871 - Christian Morgenstern, author (d. 1914)\n*1879 - Bedřich Hrozný, Czech orientalist and linguist (d. 1952)\n*1880 - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, painter (d. 1938)\n*1882 - Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany, heir of Kaiser Wilhelm II (d. 1951)\n*1895 - Rudolph Valentino, actor (d. 1926)\n*1902 - Max Ophüls, director (d. 1957)\n*1904 - Moshe Feldenkrais, founder of the Feldenkrais Method (d. 1984) \n*1915 - Orson Welles, director (d. 1985)\n* 1915 - Theodore H. White, writer (d. 1986)\n*1920 - Ross Hunter, producer (d. 1996)\n* 1920 - Kamisese Mara, first Prime Minister of Fiji (d. 2004)\n*1921 - Erich Fried, author (d. 1988)\n*1925 - Hanns Dieter Hüsch, cabaretist\n*1931 - Willie Mays, Baseball Hall of Famer\n*1937 - Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, boxer\n*1945 - Bob Seger, rock music singer\n*1945 - Jimmie Dale Gilmore, musician\n*1947 - Martha Nussbaum, philosopher\n*1953 - Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom\n*1961 - George Clooney, actor\n*1970 - George Rivas, Texas 7 ringleader
Deaths
\n*680 - Muawiyah I, Umayyad caliph (b. 602)\n*1502 - James Tyrrell, executed; alleged murderer of the Princes in the Tower (b. c. 1450)\n*1555 - Pope Marcellus II (b. 1501)\n*1859 - Alexander von Humboldt, German naturalist and explorer (b. 1769)\n*1862 - Henry David Thoreau, author and philosopher (b. 1817)\n*1902 - Bret Harte, American author (b. 1839)\n*1910 - King Edward VII of the United Kingdom (b. 1841)\n*1911 - George Maledon, hangman of 60 men\n*1919 - L. Frank Baum, writer (b. 1856)\n*1949 - Maurice Maeterlinck, poet, playwright, essayist (b. 1862)\n*1987 - William Casey, head of the Central Intelligence Agency (b. 1913)\n*1992 - Marlene Dietrich, actress (b. 1901)
Holidays and observances
May 5 – May 7 – April 6 – June 6 – listing of all days
\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nzh-cn:5月6日
