Today in History
6th February
Joseph Priestley
Pages printed by Aldus Manutius
in Venice circa 500 years ago
Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
|
||
|
||
6th February |
||
| 1189 Riots of Lynn in Norfolk spread to Norwich England | ||
| 1508 Maximilian I crowned Holy Roman Emperor | ||
| 1515 Aldus Manutius, Italian editor and printer, died; he produced the first paperbacks and invented italics. | ||
| 1577 King Henri de Bourbon of Navarra becomes leader of Huguenots | ||
| 1626 Huguenot rebels & French sign Peace of La Rochelle | ||
| 1665 Anne Stuart, queen of England (1702-14) was born | ||
| 1685 Charles II, king of Great Britain and Ireland, died; James II acceded to the throne. | ||
| 1716 England & Netherlands renew alliance | ||
| 1778 England declares war on France |
|
|
| 1778 France and America signed treaties allowing the United States to conquer Canada and Bermuda; France was allowed to take the British West Indies. | ||
| 1778 Ugo Foscolo, Italy, poet (Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis) was born | ||
| 1788 Mass becomes 6th state to ratify constitution | ||
| 1783 Lancelot "Capability" Brown, a noted English landscape gardener, died. | ||
| 1788 Massachusetts became the 6th of the United States. | ||
| 1793 Pietro Rovelli, composer was born | ||
| 1793 Carlo Goldoni, Italian comic playwright, died; he was considered the founder of Italian realistic comedy. | ||
| 1804 Joseph Priestley, English cleric, chemist and one of the discoverers of oxygen, died. | ||
| 1815 NJ issues 1st US railroad charter (John Stevens) | ||
| 1819 Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founds freeport harbor Singapore | Joseph Priestley |
|
| 1820 1st organized emigration of blacks back to Africa (NY to Sierra Leone) | ||
| 1832 1st appearance of cholera at Edinburgh, Scotland | ||
| 1832 US ship destroys Sumatran village in retaliation for piracy | ||
| 1836 HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin reach Diemen's Land (Tasmania) | ||
| 1838 During the Boers Great Trek, Boer leader Piet Retief was murdered by the Zulu king Dingane's warriors. | ||
| 1840 Waitangi Day; treaty signed between Britain & Maoris of NZ | ||
| 1840 The Treaty of Waitangi was signed under which New Zealand's Maori population accepted Queen Victoria's sovereignty in their lands. | ||
| 1862 Gen Ulysses S Grant captures Fort Henry in Tennessee | ||
| 1862 Ulysses S Grant begins military campaign in Mississippi | ||
| 1899 The Treaty of Paris was ratified by the U.S. Senate by one vote, ending the Spanish-American War. | ||
| 1904 Russian-Japanese war began | ||
| 1911 Great fire destroys downtown Constantinople/Istanbul Turkey | ||
| 1918 Women over 30 and men over 21 won the right to vote in Britain as the Representation of the People Act received royal assent. |
Pages printed by Aldus Manutius |
|
| 1921 "The Kid," starring Charlie Chaplin & Jackie Coogan, released | ||
| 1922 The Washington Conference between the United States, France, Japan, Italy and Britain ended with agreement on restricting use of poison gas and submarine warfare. | ||
| 1922 Cardinal Achille Ratti was elected to succeed Pope Benedict XV as Pius XI. | ||
| 1932 Fascist coup in the Memel territory | ||
| 1933 The 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted, allowing the president to take office in January instead of March. | ||
| 1933 Highest recorded sea wave (not tsunami), 34 m, in Pacific hurricane | ||
| 1935 "Monopoly" board game goes on sale for 1st time | ||
| 1935 1st election to allow women to vote in Turkey | ||
| 1936 4th Winter Olympic games open in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany | ||
| 1939 Spanish govt flees to France | ||
| 1941 Battle of Beda Fomm: Italian 10th army destroyed | ||
| 1941 British troops conquer Bengazi, Libya | ||
| 1943 1st Spitfire in action above Darwin, Australia, Mu Ki-46 shot down | ||
| 1943 Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander-in-chief of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in North Africa. | ||
| 1945 8th Air Force bombs Magdeburg/Chemnitz | ||
| 1945 Russian Red Army crosses the river Oder |
|
|
| 1948 1st radio-controlled airplane flown | ||
| 1951 "Broker Special" train crashes in Woodbridge NJ, killing 84 | ||
| 1952 King George VI of Great Britain and Northern Ireland died and was succeeded by his daughter, Elizabeth II. | ||
| 1952 England replaces King George VI stamp series with Queen Elizabeth II | ||
| 1953 US controls on wages & some consumer goods were lifted | ||
| 1956 Chicago's Daily Defender, begins publishing | Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles |
|
| 1958 Seven members of Britain's Manchester United football team were among 21 killed in a plane crash in Munich. Nicknamed the "Busby Babes" after their manager, Matt Busby, they were returning from a European Cup match. | ||
| 1959 Fidel Castro is interviewed by Edward R Murrow | ||
| 1964 France & Great-Britain sign accord over building channel tunnel | ||
| 1967 Cultural Revolution in Albania | ||
| 1968 10th Winter Olympic games opens in Grenoble, France | ||
| 1968 Dutch 2nd Chamber condemns US bombing of North Vietnam | ||
| 1968 Former Pres Dwight Eisenhower shot a hole-in-one | ||
| 1973 40,000 civil servants demonstrate against higher pension contribution | ||
| 1974 Dutch speed limit set at 100km due to oil crisis | ||
| 1974 US House of Reps begins determining grounds for impeachment of Nixon | ||
| 1976 In the United States, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation admitted it had bribed officials in the Netherlands, Japan, Sweden and Italy. | ||
| 1979 Supreme court of Lahore affirms death sentence against premier Bhutto | ||
| 1984 Moslem militiamen take over West Beirut from Lebanese army | ||
| 1987 No-smoking rules take effect in federal buildings (U.S.A.) | ||
| 1988 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR | ||
| 1989 Lech Walesa begins negotiating with Polish govt | ||
| 1993 U.S. tennis great Arthur Ashe, the first black man to win the Wimbledon men's title, died of pneumonia resulting from AIDS. He was 49. | ||
| 1994 Defense Minister Elisabeth Rehn of the Swedish People's Party conceded defeat to Martti Ahtisaari of the opposition Social Democrats in Finland's presidential election. | ||
| 1994 Togo held its first multiparty election for parliament. | ||
| 1994 Jos‚ Maria Figueres elected president of Costa Rica | ||
| 1994 Martti Ahtisaari elected president of Finland | ||
| 1996 Heidi Fleiss scheduled to begin her 7 year jail sentence | ||
| 1997 Ecuador's Congress voted to oust embattled President Abdala Bucaram on grounds of mental incompetence. | ||