July 6
Today is
Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of
Ramadan.
The
Festival of San Fermín (including
The Running Of The Bulls) begins today in Pamplona, Spain.
1189 –
Richard I "The Lionheart" accedes to the English throne.
1483 –
Richard III is crowned King of England.
1484 – Portuguese sea captain
Diogo Cão finds the mouth of the Congo River.
1777 – American Revolutionary War:
Siege of Fort Ticonderoga: After a bombardment by British artillery under General John Burgoyne, American forces retreat from
Fort Ticonderoga, New York.
1854 – In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the
United States Republican Party is held.
1865 – The first issue of
The Nation magazine is published.
1885 –
Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against
rabies on
Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.
1892 – Three thousand eight hundred striking steelworkers engage in a day-long battle with Pinkerton agents during the
Homestead Strike, leaving ten dead and dozens wounded.
1917 – World War I: Arabian troops led by
T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") and
Auda ibu Tayi capture Aqaba from the Ottoman Empire during the
Arab Revolt.
1940 –
Story Bridge, a major landmark in Brisbane, as well as Australia's longest cantilever bridge is formally opened.
1942 – Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the
"Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.
1944 –
Jackie Robinson refuses to move to the back of a bus, leading to a court-martial.
1947 – The
AK-47 goes into production in the Soviet Union.
1957 –
Althea Gibson wins the Wimbledon championships, becoming the first black athlete to do so.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time, as teenagers at Woolton Fete, three years before forming the Beatles.
1988 – The
Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions and fires. One hundred sixty-seven oil workers are killed, making it the world's worst offshore oil disaster in terms of direct loss of life.
1990 –
Electronic Frontier Foundation is founded.
1995 – In the
Bosnian War, under the command of General Ratko Mladić, Serbia begins its attack on the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, and
kills more than 8000 Bosniaks, in what then- UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called "the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War".
1999 – U.S. Army private
Barry Winchell dies from baseball-bat injuries inflicted on him in his sleep the previous day by a fellow soldier, Calvin Glover, for his relationship with transgender showgirl and former Navy Corpsman
Calpernia Addams.
2003 – The
70-metre Yevpatoria Planetary Radar sends a
METI message (Cosmic Call 2) to five stars: Hip 4872, HD 245409, 55 Cancri (HD 75732), HD 10307 and 47 Ursae Majoris (HD 95128). The messages will arrive to these stars in 2036, 2040, 2044, and 2049, respectively.
2013 – A Boeing 777 operating as
Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashes at San Francisco International Airport, killing three and injuring 181 of the 307 people on board.
A 73-car oil train
derails in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec and explodes into flames, killing at least 47 people and destroying more than 30 buildings in the town's central area.
Births
1747 – John Paul Jones (no, not Led Zep's bass player, there was another one); 1887 – Marc Chagall; 1907 – Frida Kahlo, George Stanley (designed the
flag of Canada); 1914 – Vince McMahon, Sr.; 1918 – Sebastian Cabot ('Mr. French' in
"Family Affair"); 1921 – Nancy Reagan; 1922 – William Schallert; 1925 – Merv Griffin, Bill Haley; 1927 – Janet Leigh, Pat Paulsen; 1931 – Della Reese; 1936 – Dave Allen

; 1937 – Ned Beatty, Gene Chandler (The Duke Of Earl); 1940 – Jeannie Seely; 1945 – Burt Ward ('Robin The Boy Wonder'); 1946 – George W. Bush, Fred Dryer, Sylvester Stallone; 1951 – Geoffrey Rush; 1954 – Allyce Beasley (receptionist on "Moonlighting"); 1966 –
Brian Posehn; 1975 – Curtis Jackson (50 Cent); 1978 – Tamera & Tia Mowry; 1979 – Kevin Hart; 1980 – Eva Green; 1982 – Misty Upham
Deaths
893 – Guy de Maupassant; 1962 – William Faulkner; 1971 – Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong; 1973 – Otto Klemperer; 1998 – Roy Rogers (real name Leonard Slye); 1999 – Barry Winchell; 2002 – John Frankenheimer; 2003 – Buddy Ebsen; 2005 – Ed McBain; 2007 – Kathleen E. Woodiwiss; 2009 – Robert McNamara; 2015 – Jerry Weintraub