Tuesday, June 6, 2017

THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― JUNE 6

June 6 is the 157th day of the year (158th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 208 days remaining until the end of the year.

D-DAY 


1944  The invasion of Europe to defeat Germany is launched on D-Day in WWII. Landings at five beaches in Normandy, France (designated Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah and Omaha). The American landings, at Omaha and Utah, were the most highly defended by the Nazis and cost the most lives during the invasion. By the end of the day all the beaches were secured and roughly 156,000 combined troops were on French soil. Americans landed a total of 73,000 troops: 23,250 on Utah Beach, 34,250 on Omaha Beach, and 15,500 airborne troops.


1002 ― German King Henry II the Saint is crowned Holy Roman Emporer.

1536 ― Mexico begins its inquisition.

1683 
― The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world's first university museum.

1775  On this day in 1775, Marinus Willett and a small group of Sons of Liberty confront British soldiers and seize five wagon loads of weapons as the Redcoats evacuate New York City.


1809  Sweden declares independence, constitutional monarchy established with a new constitution empowering the Riksdag (legislature) after 20 years of absolute monarchy.

1861 
― President Abraham Lincoln's cabinet declares Union government will pay for expenses once states have mobilized volunteers.

1900 
 US Congress pass an act authorizing a civil code and government for the territory of Alaska after gold discoveries bring lawlessness and disorder to the area.


1918 ― The Battle of Belleau Wood is fought, resulting in the first U.S. victory of WWI.

1925 ― Walter Percy Chrysler founded Chrysler Corp (future Chrysler CEO, Lee Iacocca, is 8 months old).

1932 
― A U.S. Federal gas tax is enacted, ALSO to pay for FDR's New Deal programs.

1942 
 Japanese troops land on Kiska, Aleutians, diversion for attempted invasion of Midway Island. In the battle of Midway four large Japanese aircraft carriers are sunk, crippling their navy for the remainder of WWII.

1949 
― "It Pays To Be Ignorant" game show debut on CBS-TV. They should bring this back since we have more "ignorant" people now than ever.


1966 ― Civil rights activist, James Meredith, is wounded by a white sniper in Mississippi.


1966 
― NASA's Gemini 9, with astronauts Thomas P. Stafford and Eugene A. Cernan, completes 45 orbits after rendezvous with "angry alligator" (ATDA satellite). 

1972 ― An explosion at then the world's largest coal mine, in Wankie, Rhodesia, kills 427.

1977 
― The U.S. Supreme Court tosses out automatic death penalty laws in rape cases, based on the Eighth Amendment, holding that the death penalty is an unconstitutional punishment for rape of an adult woman when the victim is not killed.

1981 ― A passenger train travelling between Mansi and Saharsa, India, jumps the tracks at a bridge crossing the Bagmati river. The government places the official death toll at 268 plus another 300 missing; however, it is generally believed that the actual figure is closer to 1,000 killed.

1985 ― The body of SS Nazi concentration camp doctor, Josef Mengele, is located and exhumed.


1994 
― A 6.0 earthquake/avalanche destroys Toez, Colombia, killing and estimated 1000 people. ― USGS

1999 ― At the Putim maximum security prison in Brazil, 345 prisoners run from the main gate in the largest jailbreak in Brazilian history, marking the 10th escape for the three-year-old facility. In the ensuing manhunt, two fugitives are killed and five innocent bystanders are accidentally jailed.

2002 
― Eastern Mediterranean Event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 metres 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 
 The United States Supreme Court votes to ban medical marijuana in Gonzales v. Raich.


2012 
― NASA's Solar Impulse completes the world's first intercontinental flight powered by the sun.


BORN TODAY

1553 Bernardino Baldi, Italian mathematician and author (d. 1617)

1599 Diego Velázquez, Spanish painter and educator (d. 1660)

1867 David T. Abercrombie, American surveyor and businessman, founded Abercrombie & Fitch (d. 1931)

1868 Robert Falcon Scott, English sailor and explorer (d. 1912)

1875 Thomas Mann, German author and critic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955)

1903Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer and conductor (d. 1978)

1948 Arlene Harris, American entrepreneur, inventor ("First Lady of Wireless")
 , investor and policy advocate

From Wikipedia and Google (images), ex as noted. 

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