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August 6 is the 218th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (219th in leap years), with 147 days
remaining.
Events
- 1806 - Francis I, the last Holy Roman Emperor, abdicates, thus ending the Holy Roman Empire.
- 1825 - Bolivia gains independence from
Peru.
- 1861 - British annexation of
Lagos, Nigeria.
- 1862 - American Civil
War: The Confederate ironclad
CSS Arkansas is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering damage in a battle with the USS Essex near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
- 1890 - At Auburn Prison in New York, the first execution by electric chair is performed (murderer William
Kemmler was the subject).
- 1915 - World War I: Battle of Sari Bair begins - The Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay.
- 1926 - Gertrude Ederle
becomes first woman to swim the English Channel.
- 1926 - In New York, the Warner Brothers' Vitaphone system premieres with the movie
Don Juan
starring John Barrymore.
- 1945 - World War II: An atomic bomb codenamed Little
Boy is dropped by the American B-29 Enola Gay on the city of Hiroshima in Japan at 8:16 a.m., killing 80,000 outright (another 60,000 will die by the end of the year due to fallout sickness).
- 1960 - Cuban Revolution:
In response to a United States embargo, Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.
- 1962 - Jamaica becomes independent.
- 1965 - US President Lyndon
B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of
1965 into United States law.
- 1985 - In Hiroshima, tens of thousands
mark the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city.
- 1990 - Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council orders a
global trade embargo against
Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait
- 1991 - Tim Berners-Lee
releases files describing his idea for the "World Wide Web"
- 1993 - Louis Freeh is confirmed by
the United States Senate to be the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
- 1996 - NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms
- 1997 - Microsoft buys a $150 million
worth of shares of financially troubled Apple Computer
- 1997 - A Korean Air Boeing
747-300 crashes into the jungle on Guam on approach to airport, killing 228
- 2001 - President George W. Bush receives
President's Daily Briefing entitled Bin
Ladin Determined To Strike in US
- 2002 - Marquis de
la Fayette is made Honorary Citizen of the United States
- 2002 - Manindra Agrawal et al prove the long standing conjecture "Primes in P"
Births
- 1766 - William
Hyde Wollaston, noted English chemist (d. 1828)
- 1776 - Amedeo Avogadro,
chemist (d. 1856)
- 1809 - Alfred Lord
Tennyson, poet: In Memoriam (d. 1892)
- 1844 - James Henry
Greathead, engineer (d. 1896)
- 1868 - Paul Claudel, poet (d.
1955)
- 1880 - Hans Moser, actor (d. 1964)
- 1881 - Alexander
Fleming, scientist (d. 1955)
- 1881 - Leo Carrillo, actor (d. 1961)
- 1881 - Louella Parsons, gossip columnist (d. 1972)
- 1892 - Hoot Gibson, cowboy actor (d.
1962)
- 1892 - Lowell Thomas,
travel writer (d. 1981)
- 1900 - Cecil H. Green,
Texas Instruments founder (d. 2003)
- 1902 - Dutch Schultz,
bootlegger, gangster (d. 1935)
- 1904 - Jean Desses, French couturier (d. 1970)
- 1911 - Lucille Ball, actress,
comedian (d. 1989)
- 1916 - Richard
Hofstadter, historian (d. 1970)
- 1917 - Robert Mitchum, actor:
Night of the
Hunter, Cape Fear (1961
version) (d. 1997)
- 1918 - Otto Wolff von Amerongen, industrialist
- 1922 - Sir Freddie Laker,
entrepreneur
- 1928 - Andy Warhol, artist (d.
1987)
- 1928 - Jan Kucera, author
- 1928 - Chung Se Yung,
cofounder of the Hyundai Motor Company
- 1932 - Howard Hodgkin,
painter and print-maker
- 1943 - Jon Postel, creator of
DNS
- 1946 - Roh Moo-hyun, President of
South Korea
- 1946 - Masaaki Sakai,Japanese comedian
- 1963 - Kevin Mitnick, computer
cracker
- 1970 - M. Night
Shyamalan, film director, writer, producer, actor
- 1971 - Merrin Dungey,
actress
- 1972 - Geri Halliwell,
singer
- 1976 - Melissa George,
actress
- 1990 - JonBenét Ramsey,
young beauty queen and young victim of crime (d. 1996)
Deaths
- 258 - Saint Pope Sixtus II
- 523 - Saint Pope Hormisdas
- 1221 - Saint Dominic
- 1458 - Pope Callixtus
III
- 1904 - Eduard Hanslick,
music critic
- 1931 - Bix Beiderbecke,
jazz musician (b. 1931)
- 1946 - Tony Lazzeri, Major League Baseball player
- 1959 - Preston Sturges,
playwright, screenwriter, director
- 1964 - Sir Cedric
Hardwicke, actor
- 1966 - Cordwainer Smith,
writer
- 1973 - Fulgencio
Batista, Cuban dictator
- 1978 - Pope Paul VI
- 1991 - Harry Reasoner, reporter
- 2001 - Jorge Amado, Brazilian
writer
- 2002 - Edsger Dijkstra,
computer scientist (b. 1930)
Holidays and observances
August 5 - August 7 - July 6 - September 6 -- listing of all days
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