Historical Events on 6 Aug

Historical Events on 6 Aug

1538 - Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada.
1661 - The Treaty of The Hague is signed by Portugal and the Dutch Republic.
1787 - Sixty proof sheets of the Constitution of the United States are delivered to the Constitutional Convention.
1806 - Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, abdicates ending the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
1819 - Norwich University is founded in Vermont as the first private military school in the United States.
1825 - Bolivia gains independence from Spain.
1845 - The Russian Geographical Society is founded in Saint Petersburg.
1861 - The British annex Lagos, Nigeria.
1862 - American Civil War: the Confederate ironclad CSS Arkansas is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering damage in a battle with USS Essex near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
1870 - Franco-Prussian War: Battle of WÅ"rth is fought, resulting in a decisive Prussian victory.
1890 - At Auburn Prison in New York murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair.
1901 - Kiowa land in Oklahoma is opened for white settlement, effectively dissolving the contiguous reservation.
1909 - Alice Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip.
1912 - The Bull Moose Party meets at the Chicago Coliseum.
1914 - Denis Patrick Dowd Jr. enlists in the French Foreign Legion, becoming the first American to fight in World War I.
1914 - World War I: Serbia declares war on Germany; Austria declares war on Russia.
1914 - World War I: First Battle of the Atlantic - two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Helgoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea.
1915 - World War I: Battle of Sari Bair - the Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay.
1917 - World War I: Battle of Mărăşeşti between the Romanian and German armies begins.
1923 - Henry Sullivan swims the English Channel.
1926 - Harry Houdini performs his greatest feat, spending 91 minutes underwater in a sealed tank before escaping.
1926 - In New York, the Warner Brothers' Vitaphone system premieres with the movie Don Juan starring John Barrymore.
1926 - Gertrude Ederle becomes first woman to swim across the English Channel.
1942 - Queen Wilhelmina becomes the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the United States Congress.
1945 - World War II: Hiroshima is devastated when an atomic bomb, "Little Boy", is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people were killed instantly, and some tens of thousands died in subsequent years due to burns and radiation poisoning.
1956 - After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network makes its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena.
1958 - Australian runner Herb Elliot breaks the world record for the mile at the Morton Stadium in Dublin, with a time of 3:54.5.
1960 - Cuban Revolution: in response to a United States embargo, Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.
1961 - Cosmonaut Gherman Titov makes the second successful manned orbital flight for the (USSR).
1962 - Jamaica becomes independent.
1964 - Prometheus, the world's oldest tree, is cut down.
1965 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law.
1966 - Braniff Airlines Flight 250 crashes in Falls City, NE killing all 42 on board.
1976 - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto lays the foundation stone of Port Qasim, Karachi.
1986 - A low-pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328 millimeters (13 inches) of rain in a day on Sydney.
1988 - The Tompkins Square Park Police Riot in New York City spurs reform of the NYPD, who were responsible for the melee that transpired the night of August 6-7.
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. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet.
1991 - Doi Takako, chair of the Social Democratic Party (Japan), becomes Japan's first female speaker of the House of Representatives.
1993 - According to a Japanese government and Tokyo Broadcasting System networks report, heavy rains and debris kill 72 in the Kagoshima and Aira areas, of Kyūshū, Japan.
1996 - NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms.
1997 - Korean Air Flight 801, a Boeing 747-300, crashes into the jungle on Guam on approach to airport, killing 228.
2008 - Access 31 TV stops broadcasting in Perth, Western Australia.
2008 - A military junta led by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz stages a coup d'etat in Mauritania, overthrowing president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi