June 6: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

June 6 is the 157th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (158th in leap years), with 208 days remaining.

Events

• 1508 - Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, is defeated in Friulia by Venetian forces; he is forced to sign a three-year truce and cede several territories to Venice
• 1513 - Italian Wars: Battle of Novara. Swiss troops defeat the French under Louis de la Tremoille, forcing the French to abandon Milan. Duke Massimiliano Sforza is restored.
• 1523 - Gustav Vasa is elected King of Sweden, marking the end of the Kalmar Union.
• 1654 - Christina, reigning queen of the Protestant nation Sweden, abdicates the throne and secretly converts to Catholicism. Charles X succeedes his abdicated cousin Queen Christina to the Swedish throne.
• 1683 - The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world's first university museum.
• 1752 - A devastating fire destroys one-third of Moscow, including 18,000 homes.
• 1809 - Sweden promulgates a new Constitution, which restores political power to the Riksdag of the Estates after 20 years of Enlightened absolutism.
• 1813 - War of 1812: Battle of Stoney Creek - A British force of 700 under John Vincent defeat an American force three times its size under William Winder and John Chandler.
• 1832 - The Barricades fall and the Student Uprisings of 1832 end.
• 1833 - U.S. President Andrew Jackson becomes the first President to ride a train.
• 1844 - The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London.
• 1857 - Sophia of Nassau marries the future King Oscar II of Sweden-Norway.
• 1859 - Australia: Queensland is established as a separate colony from New South Wales (Queensland Day).
• 1862 - American Civil War: Battle of Memphis - Union forces capture Memphis, Tennessee, from the Confederates.
• 1882 - More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay are killed as a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into the harbour.
• 1912 - Eruption of Novarupta in Alaska begins. Second largest volcanic eruption in historic time.
• 1925 - The Chrysler Corporation is founded by Walter Percy Chrysler.
• 1932 - The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon (26 ¢/L) sold.
• 1933 - The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey, United States.
• 1934 - New Deal: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
• 1944 - World War II: Battle of Normandy begins. Operation Overlord, code named D-Day, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.
• 1946 - The Basketball Association of America is formed in New York City.
• 1950 - Turkey: The Adhan in Arabic is legalized.
• 1956 - David Marshall, Singapore's first Chief Minister, resigns.
• 1962 - The Beatles audition for EMI.
• 1964 - Under a temporary order, the rocket launches at Cuxhaven, Germany, are terminated, though they never resume.
• 1966 - James Meredith, civil rights activist, is shot while trying to march across Mississippi.
• 1968 - Robert F. Kennedy dies.
• 1971 - Soyuz program: Soyuz 11 launches.
  • A midair collision between a Hughes Airwest Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a U.S. Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom jet fighter near Duarte, California claims 50 lives.
  • The Ed Sullivan Show goes off the air.
• 1972 - David Bowie releases the classic album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
• 1974 - A new Instrument of Government is promulgated making Sweden a parliamentary monarchy.
• 1981 - A passenger train travelling between Mansi and Saharsa, India, jumps the tracks at a bridge crossing the Bagmati river. The government places the official death toll at 268 plus another 300 missing; however, it is generally believed that the actual figure is closer to 1,000 killed.
• 1982 - 1982 Lebanon War begins: Forces under Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invade southern Lebanon in their "Operation Peace for the Galilee," eventually reaching as far north as the capital Beirut.
• 1984 - The Indian Army attacks the Golden Temple in Amritsar in an effort to flush out terrorists, following an order from Indira Gandhi. Official casualities are 576 combatants killed and 335 wounded; independent observers estimate that thousands of unarmed Sikh civilians are also killed in the crossfire.
• 1985 - The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is exhumed in Embu, Brazil; the remains found are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February 1979.
• 1990 - U.S. District court judge Jose Gonzales rules that the rap album As Nasty As They Wanna Be by the 2 Live Crew violates Florida's obscenity law; he declares that the predominant subject matter of the record is "directed to the 'dirty' thoughts and the loins, not to the intellect and the mind."
• 1991 - George and Barbara Loeb, members of the Church of the Creator, are arrested and charged with murder.
  • Former Diff'rent Strokes child star Dana Plato is given a six-year suspended sentence for robbing a Las Vegas video store five weeks earlier.
• 1993 - Mongolia holds its first direct presidential elections.
• 1999 - At the Putim maximum security prison in Brazil, 345 prisoners run from the main gate in the largest jailbreak in Brazilian history, marking the 10th escape for the three-year-old facility. In the ensuing manhunt, two fugitives are killed and five innocent bystanders are accidentally jailed.
• 2002 - The United States House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee announces it is probing Martha Stewart's ImClone stock sales.
  • A near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 metres diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.
  • The Wye Oak, Maryland's honorary state tree, is destroyed in a thunderstorm.
• 2005 - United States Supreme Court says no to medical marijuana.

1236 to 1899

• 1236 - Wen Tianxiang, Chinese prime minister (d. 1283)
• 1436 - Regiomontanus, German mathematician (d. 1476)
• 1502 - King John III of Portugal (d. 1557)
• 1519 - Andrea Cesalpino, Italian philosopher, physician, and botanist (d. 1603)
• 1542 - Richard Grenville, English soldier and explorer (d. 1591)
• 1553 - Bernardino Baldi, Italian mathematician (d. 1617)
• 1576 - Giovanni Diodati, Swiss protestant clergyman (d. 1649)
• 1580 - Godefroy Wendelin, Flemish astronomer (d. 1667)
• 1599 - Diego Velázquez, Spanish painter (d. 1660)
• 1606 - Pierre Corneille, French dramatist (d. 1684)
• 1622 - Claude-Jean Allouez, French Jesuit missionary and explorer (d.1857)
• 1714 - King Joseph I of Portugal (d. 1777)
• 1755 - Nathan Hale, American writer and patriot (d. 1776)
• 1756 - John Trumbull, American painter (d. 1843)
• 1799 - Alexander Pushkin Russian poet (d. 1837)
• 1810 - Friedrich Wilhelm Schneidewin, German classical scholar (d. 1856)
• 1829 - Shusaku Honinbo, Japanese Go player (d. 1862)
• 1850 - Karl Ferdinand Braun, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1918)
• 1857 - Aleksandr Lyapunov, Russian mathematician (d. 1918)
• 1862 - Henry John Newbolt, English author (d. 1938)
• 1868 - Robert Falcon Scott, English explorer (d. 1912)
• 1872 - Tsarina Alexandra of Russia (d. 1918)
• 1875 - Thomas Mann, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955)
• 1890 - Ted Lewis, American bandleader (d. 1971)
• 1898 - Ninette de Valois, Irish dancer (d. 2001)
• 1900 - Manfred Sakel, Polish psychiatrist (d. 1957)

1900 to 1999

• 1901 - Sukarno, first President of Indonesia (d. 1970)
• 1903 - Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer (d. 1978)
• 1906 - Max August Zorn, German-born mathematician (d. 1993)
• 1907 - Bill Dickey, baseball player, coach, manager, and scout (d. 1993)
• 1916 - Henriette Roosenburg, Dutch journalist (d. 1972)
• 1918 - Edwin G. Krebs, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 1924 - Jinyong, Chinese novelist
• 1926 - Klaus Tennstedt, German conductor (d. 1998)
• 1929 - Sunil Dutt, Indian actor and politician
• 1933 - Heinrich Rohrer, Swiss physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1934 - King Albert II of Belgium
• 1936 - Levi Stubbs, American musician (The Four Tops)
• 1939 - Louis Andriessen, Dutch composer
• 1939 - Gary U.S. Bonds, American musician
• 1940 - Larry Lujack, American disc jockey
• 1943 - Richard Smalley, Americah chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1944 - Phillip Allen Sharp, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 1945 - David Dukes, American actor (d. 2000)
• 1947 - David Blunkett, English politician
• 1947 - Ada Kok, Dutch swimmer
• 1949 - Robert Englund, American actor
• 1954 - Harvey Fierstein, American actor
• 1954 - Cynthia Rylant, American author
• 1955 - Sandra Bernhard, American actress and comedian
• 1956 - Björn Borg, Swedish tennis player
• 1959 - Colin Quinn, American comedian
• 1960 - Gary Graham, American actor
• 1960 - Steve Vai, American musician
• 1961 - Tom Araya, Chilean musician (Slayer)
• 1963 - Wolfgang Drechsler, German social scientist
• 1966 - Murdoc Niccals, Bassist for the Gorillaz
• 1970 - Anthony Norris, American professional wrestler
• 1972 - Cristina Scabbia, Italian singer
• 1975 - Staci Keanan, American actress
• 1978 - Carl Barat, English singer and guitarist (The Libertines)
• 1978 - Judith Barsi, American actress (d. 1988)

1393 to 1899

• 1393 - Emperor Go-En'yu of Japan (b. 1359)
• 1480 - Vecchietta, Italian artist and architect
• 1548 - Juan de Castro, Portuguese explorer (b. 1500)
• 1563 - Ikeda Nagamasa, Japanese samurai commander (b. 1519)
• 1583 - Nakagawa Kiyohide, Japanese warlord (b. 1556)
• 1740 - Alexander Spotswood, British governor of Virginia Colony
• 1784 - Joan van der Capellen tot den Pol, Dutch politician (b. 1741)
• 1799 - Patrick Henry, American revolutionary (b. 1736)
• 1813 - Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, French architect
• 1832 - Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher (b. 1748)
• 1840 - Marcellin Champagnat, French priest, Saint (b. 1789)
• 1843 - Friedrich Hölderlin, German poet, novelist, and dramatist (b. 1770)
• 1861 - Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1810)
• 1865 - William Quantrill, American Confederate raider (b. 1837)
• 1878 - Robert Stirling, Scottish inventor (b. 1790)
• 1881 - Henri Vieuxtemps, Belgian composer (b. 1820)
• 1891 - Sir John A. Macdonald, first Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1815)

1900 to 1999

• 1916 - Yuan Shikai, Chinese military official and politician (b. 1859)
• 1922 - Lillian Russell, American actress (b. 1861)
• 1941 - Louis Chevrolet, American automotive pioneer and race car driver (b. 1878)
• 1946 - Gerhart Hauptmann, German dramatist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1862)
• 1961 - Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist (b. 1875)
• 1968 - Robert F. Kennedy, United States Attorney General and Senator from New York (b. 1925)
• 1976 - J. Paul Getty, American industrialist (b. 1892)
• 1976 - Victor Varconi, Hungarian actor (b. 1891)
• 1979 - Jack Haley, American actor (b. 1898)
• 1981 - Carleton S. Coon, American anthropologist (b. 1904)
• 1984 - A. Bertram Chandler, Australian author (b. 1912)
• 1991 - Stan Getz, American musician and composer (b. 1927)
• 1996 - George Davis Snell, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1903)
• 1999 - Anne Haddy, Australian actress (b. 1930)

2000 onwards

• 2004 - Iona Brown, British violinist and conductor (b. 1941)
• 2005 - Anne Bancroft, American actress (b. 1931)

• Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) - Israel
• National holiday of Sweden
• Queensland Day
• South Korean Memorial Day
• Samantha Smith Day - Maine (first Monday of June)
• Teacher's Day - America
• National Yo-yo Day - America
• D-Day landings - Europe

June 5 - June 7 - May 6 - July 6 -- listing of all days