Sunday, May 6, 2018

TODAY IN HISTORY ― MAY 6

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

NATIONAL BEVERAGE DAY  

1527  Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. 147 Swiss Guards, including their commander, die fighting the forces of Charles V in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape into Castel Sant'Angelo.

1682  Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles.

1833 
― The John Deere company manufactures its first steel plow.

1861 
 Arkansas and Tennessee become the 9th and 10th states to secede from the Union prior to the Civil War.


1861  President Jefferson Davis approves a bill declaring war between the United States and the Confederate States of America.


1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville ends with the defeat of the Army of the Potomac by Confederate troops. The victory, a product of Lee's audacity and Hooker's timid decision making, was tempered by heavy casualties and the mortal wounding of Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson by friendly fire, a loss that Lee likened to "losing my right arm."



1864 
 In the U.S. Civil war General William Tecumsah Sherman begins his advance to Atlanta, Georgia.

1882 
 The Chinese Exclusion Act is passed: the U.S. Congress ceases Chinese  immigration. It was finally repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943.


1906 
 Tsar Nicolas II of Russia claims the right to legislate by decree and restricts the power of the Duma, the Russian Parliament. He will be the final Tsar of Russia as he and his family are killed during the 1917 Russian Revolution.


1910 
 George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert) becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII. He and Nicolas II of Russia are cousins who will lead their countries against Germany and Austria-Hungary in WWI.


1933  On this day in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA was just one of many Great Depression relief programs created under the auspices of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, which Roosevelt had signed the month before. 



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.

1941  Joseph Stalin became premier of Russia, replacing Vyacheslav Molotov.


1942 – World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese. They will be transferred to a POW camp on Bataan in what will become known as the Bataan Death March.


1945  In World War II, Axis Sally (Millard Gillars) delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (the first was on December 11, 1941).


1954  England's Roger Bannister of Britain breaks 4 minute mile (3:59:4).

1960  United States President Dwight Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960.


1962  The first nuclear warhead was fired from Polaris submarine, the USS Ethan Allen (SSBN-608).

1975 – During a lull in fighting, 100,000 Armenians gather in Beirut to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.


1994  In a ceremony presided over by England’s Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterand, a rail tunnel under the English Channel was officially opened, connecting Britain and the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age.


1996  The body of former CIA director William Colby is found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared.

2013  Wal-Mart becomes the largest company by revenue on the Fortune 500 list.

2013 – Three women missing for more than a decade are found alive in the U.S. city of Cleveland, Ohio. Their captor, Ariel Castro, is taken into custody.


BORN TODAY

1758 – Maximilien Robespierre, French lawyer and politician (d. 1794)

1861 – Motilal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician, President of the Indian National Congress (d. 1931)

1916 – Robert H. Dicke, American physicist and astronomer (
astrophysics, atomic physics, cosmology and gravity) (d. 1997)

1943 – Andreas Baader, German terrorist, co-founded the Red Army Faction (d. 1977)

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

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