1221 Dominic, founder of the Dominican Order, was in Bologna, northern Italy, planning to set off on a mission to Hungary when he fell fatally ill, worn out by continuous travels on foot, little food and lack of sleep. The saint died in Bologna on August 6, 1221. Dominic was canonized in 1234 and his feast day is August 8th.
1538 Bogotá, originally called Bacatá by the Muiscas, was the center of their civilization before the Spanish conquest, and sustained a large population. The European urban settlement was founded in August 6, 1538, by Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. "Bacatá" had become the modern "Bogotá" by the time it was made the capital of the vice-royalty of New Granada, and the city soon became one of the centers of Spanish colonial power and civilization in South America.
1637 English playwright and poet Ben Jonson died aged 65 on August 6, 1637. He was better known than Shakespeare in his day. Jonson was buried in the north aisle of the nave in Westminster Abbey, with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson" (sic) set in the slab over his grave ("rare" coming from the Latin "rarus" meaning remarkable.) The space allocated for Rare Ben's burial was too small. He'd asked King Charles 1 for a mere square foot after he died, so he was buried in a sitting position.
1809 The poet Alfred Tennyson was born on August 6, 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England. Alfred's father, the Reverend George Tennyson, had fallen out with his family and been disinherited; he drank heavily, was an opium addict and had become mentally unstable. Alfred and two of his elder brothers, Charles and Frederick were writing poetry in their teens. A collection of poems by Alfred and Charles entitled Poems by Two Brothers, was published locally when Alfred was seventeen.
1538 Bogotá, originally called Bacatá by the Muiscas, was the center of their civilization before the Spanish conquest, and sustained a large population. The European urban settlement was founded in August 6, 1538, by Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. "Bacatá" had become the modern "Bogotá" by the time it was made the capital of the vice-royalty of New Granada, and the city soon became one of the centers of Spanish colonial power and civilization in South America.
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| The Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada |
1637 English playwright and poet Ben Jonson died aged 65 on August 6, 1637. He was better known than Shakespeare in his day. Jonson was buried in the north aisle of the nave in Westminster Abbey, with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson" (sic) set in the slab over his grave ("rare" coming from the Latin "rarus" meaning remarkable.) The space allocated for Rare Ben's burial was too small. He'd asked King Charles 1 for a mere square foot after he died, so he was buried in a sitting position.
1809 The poet Alfred Tennyson was born on August 6, 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England. Alfred's father, the Reverend George Tennyson, had fallen out with his family and been disinherited; he drank heavily, was an opium addict and had become mentally unstable. Alfred and two of his elder brothers, Charles and Frederick were writing poetry in their teens. A collection of poems by Alfred and Charles entitled Poems by Two Brothers, was published locally when Alfred was seventeen.
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| Somersby Rectory, where Tennyson was raised and began writing |
1846 7 ft 11 in (2.41 m) Canadian Anna Swan was born on August 6, 1846. Swan toured in a circus with fellow giant 7 ft 9 in (2.36 m) Martin Bates. They fell in love and married. The Bates' home and furniture was built to their specifications, with 8ft doorways and 14ft ceilings. Anna Swan and Martin Bates gave birth in 1879 to the largest baby ever. He weighed 23 pounds 9 ounces (10.7 kg) and was nearly 30 inches tall (75 cm). Tragically the baby only lived 11 hours.
1890 Convicted axe murderer William Kemmler was the first person to be executed by electrocution in the electric chair. The procedure was undertaken at Auburn State Prison in New York on August 6, 1890 and took eight minutes. Kemmler's executioner was Edwin Davis, who had been given the official title of “State Electrician” for performing the job. Davis went on to perform 240 executions, including that of the first woman victim Martha M Place in 1899.
1901 The British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–04, led by Robert Falcon Scott, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since James Clark Ross's voyages between 1839-1843. They set sail for the Antarctic on The Discovery on August 6, 1901. Scott and his men were the first people penetrate the interior of Antarctica. They returned to Britain in September 1904. The expedition caught the public imagination, and Scott became a popular hero.
1911 Actress and comedienne Lucille Ball was born to Henry and Desiree Ball in Jamestown, New York on August 6, 1911. Her father contracted typhoid fever and died when she was three. Ball recalls little from the day she lost her father, only fleeting memories of a picture falling and a bird getting trapped in the house. Ever since that day she had an intense bird phobia. She banned all pictures of birds from her house and any hotel room she was staying in.
1914 President Woodrow Wilson's first wife Ellen Wilson died of Bright's disease at the White House on August 6, 1914. Helen Woodrow Bones, Woodrow Wilson's first cousin, became a "surrogate First Lady" for 16 months between the death of his first wife and his second marriage to Edith Galt.
1926 American Gertrude Ederle was just 20-years-old when she became the first woman to swim the English Channel on August 6, 1926. Not only did she swim the channel, but by swimming from Cap Gris Nez, France to Kingsdown, England in 14 hours 31 minutes she broke the existing men's record by nearly two hours..Her record was not broken until 1950.
1928 The artist Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola to Slovakian emigrants Ondrej and Julia Warchola on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Andrew developed Sydenham's chorea (also known as St. Vitus' Dance) in Third Grade, causing his extremities to move involuntarily, and he spent much of his childhood in bed listening to music.Andrew Warhola started signing his pictures ‘Andy Warhol’ in 1942, when he was 14.
1945 Hiroshima is the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became the first city in history to be targeted by a nuclear weapon when the US Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on the city at 8:16 a.m. on August 6, 1945, near the end of World War II. There were 343,000 inhabitants of Hiroshima on the day the first atom bomb was dropped in 1945, killing 80,000.Tens of thousands died in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning.
1945 Hiroshima doctors figured out what kind of bomb had been dropped on August 6, 1945 when their x-ray film was exposed by the radiation. They knew that conventional bombs could not cause this kind of damage, so they concluded that it must have been an atomic bomb.
1952 Satchel Paige at age 46 became the oldest pitcher to throw a complete game on August 6, 1952 when he blanked the Detroit Tigers 1-0 in 12 innings. In 1971 he became the first black League player to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1962 August 6th is Independence Day in Jamaica, celebrating their independence from the the British-protected Federation of the West Indies on August 6, 1962. The flag of Jamaica was adopted the same day. Jamaica is the only country with no red, white or blue in its flag which is green, yellow and black symbolizing the land, sun and strong people.
1964 On August 6, 1964 American researcher Donald Currey had a bristlecone pine tree known as Prometheus cut down in the Wheeler Bristlecone Pine Grove at Great Basin National Park near Baker, Nevada, only to find that it was the oldest known non-clonal organism ever discovered at the time, with the age of 4,862 years.
1978 At the age of 80, Pope Paul VI died at Castel Gandolfo, Italy on August 6, 1978, from a heart attack, after 15 years as pontiff. Pope Paul VI was beatified on October 19, 2014 at Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City, by Pope Francis after the recognition of a miracle attributed to his intercession. His liturgical feast is celebrated on the date of his birth on September 26.
1991 Tim Berners-Lee released files describing his idea for the World Wide Web, a publicly available service on the Internet on August 6, 1991. This date also marked the debut of the Web as a publicly available service on the Internet, although new users could only access it after August 23rd. In December 1993 there were just 623 websites on the internet.
1991 The first ever website to be built was http://info.cern.ch. While inventing and working on setting up the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee spent many of his working hours in Building 31 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN. The first web page went live on August 6, 1991. Built by Berners-Lee, it was dedicated to information on the World Wide Web project and ran on a NeXT computer at CERN.
1952 Satchel Paige at age 46 became the oldest pitcher to throw a complete game on August 6, 1952 when he blanked the Detroit Tigers 1-0 in 12 innings. In 1971 he became the first black League player to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1962 August 6th is Independence Day in Jamaica, celebrating their independence from the the British-protected Federation of the West Indies on August 6, 1962. The flag of Jamaica was adopted the same day. Jamaica is the only country with no red, white or blue in its flag which is green, yellow and black symbolizing the land, sun and strong people.
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| Jamaican flag |
1964 On August 6, 1964 American researcher Donald Currey had a bristlecone pine tree known as Prometheus cut down in the Wheeler Bristlecone Pine Grove at Great Basin National Park near Baker, Nevada, only to find that it was the oldest known non-clonal organism ever discovered at the time, with the age of 4,862 years.
1978 At the age of 80, Pope Paul VI died at Castel Gandolfo, Italy on August 6, 1978, from a heart attack, after 15 years as pontiff. Pope Paul VI was beatified on October 19, 2014 at Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City, by Pope Francis after the recognition of a miracle attributed to his intercession. His liturgical feast is celebrated on the date of his birth on September 26.
1991 Tim Berners-Lee released files describing his idea for the World Wide Web, a publicly available service on the Internet on August 6, 1991. This date also marked the debut of the Web as a publicly available service on the Internet, although new users could only access it after August 23rd. In December 1993 there were just 623 websites on the internet.
1991 The first ever website to be built was http://info.cern.ch. While inventing and working on setting up the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee spent many of his working hours in Building 31 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN. The first web page went live on August 6, 1991. Built by Berners-Lee, it was dedicated to information on the World Wide Web project and ran on a NeXT computer at CERN.
2005 Creme Puff, the oldest cat ever recorded, died on August 6, 2005 aged 38 years and 3 days. Creme Puff lived with her owner, Jake Perry, in Austin, Texas. Perry also owned Granpa, who died in 1998, aged 34. Both cats lived off a diet of bacon, eggs, broccoli and coffee.
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| Creme Puff Wikipedia Commons |
2005 The largest ever bank robbery involved thieves digging a 256 foot-long tunnel 13 foot below street level, which ended directly underneath the Banco Central in Fortaleza, Brazil, on August 6, 2005. The thieves seized 3.5 tons of bank notes worth about R$ 160 million. In the aftermath of the burglary, of the 25 persons thought to be involved, just eight had been arrested, and about R$20 million recovered.
2015 In August 2014, construction was launched to expand and widen the Ballah Bypass for 35 kilometres (22 mi) to speed the Suez Canal's transit time. The expansion was planned to double the canal's capacity from 49 to 97 ships a day. The "New Suez Canal" was opened with great fanfare in a ceremony on August 6, 2015.
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