September 6Birthdays & History

On this day: September 6 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 394Battle of the Frigidus: Roman emperor Theodosius I defeats and kills Eugenius the usurper. His Frankish magister militum Arbogast escapes but commits suicide two days later.Europe
2. 1492Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.EuropeLatin America
3. 1522The Victoria returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition and the first known ship to circumnavigate the world.Europe
4. 1620The Pilgrim Fathers sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America. (Old Style date; September 16 per New Style date.)EuropeNorth America
5. 1622The Spanish treasure galleon Atocha sinks during a hurricane off Key West in the Straits of Florida, taking 40 short tons (36 t) of gold and silver and 260 of its 265 passengers and crew to the bottom.EuropeNorth America
6. 1628Puritans settle Salem, which became part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.North America
7. 1634Thirty Years' War: In the Battle of Nördlingen, the Catholic Imperial army defeats Swedish and German Protestant forces.Europe
8. 1781American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Groton Heights takes place, resulting in a British victory.North AmericaEurope
9. 1803British scientist John Dalton begins using symbols to represent the atoms of different elements.Europe
10. 1859Imam Shamil surrenders to the Russians, bringing the Caucasian Imamate to an end.Europe
11. 1861American Civil War: Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant bloodlessly capture Paducah, Kentucky, giving the Union control of the Tennessee River's mouth.North America
12. 1863American Civil War: Confederate forces evacuate Battery Wagner and Morris Island in South Carolina.North America
13. 1870Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.North America
14. 1885Eastern Rumelia declares its union with Bulgaria, thus accomplishing Bulgarian unification.Europe
15. 1901Leon Czolgosz, an unemployed anarchist, shoots and fatally wounds US president William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.North America
16. 1914World War I: The First Battle of the Marne, which would halt the Imperial German Army's advance into France, begins.Europe
17. 1915World War I: The first tank prototype, developed by William Foster & Co. for the British army, is completed and given its first test drive.Europe
18. 1930Democratically elected Argentine president Hipólito Yrigoyen is deposed in a military coup.Latin America
19. 1936Spanish Civil War: The Interprovincial Council of Asturias and León is established.Europe
20. 1939World War II: The British Royal Air Force suffers its first fighter pilot casualty of the Second World War at the Battle of Barking Creek as a result of friendly fire.Europe
21. 1939World War II: Union of South Africa declares war on Germany.AfricaEurope
22. 1940King Carol II of Romania abdicates and is succeeded by his son Michael. General Ion Antonescu becomes the Conducător of Romania.Europe
23. 1943The Monterrey Institute of Technology is founded in Monterrey, Mexico as one of the largest and most influential private universities in Latin America.Latin AmericaNorth America
24. 1943Pennsylvania Railroad's premier train derails at Frankford Junction in Philadelphia, killing 79 people and injuring 117 others.North America
25. 1944World War II: The city of Ypres, Belgium is liberated by Allied forces.Europe
26. 1944World War II: Soviet forces capture the city of Tartu, Estonia.Europe
27. 1946United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes announces that the U.S. will follow a policy of economic reconstruction in postwar Germany.North AmericaEurope
28. 1952A prototype aircraft crashes at the Farnborough Airshow in Hampshire, England, killing 29 spectators and the two on board.Europe
29. 1955Istanbul's Greek, Jewish, and Armenian minorities are the target of a government-sponsored pogrom; dozens are killed in ensuing riots.Middle EastEurope
30. 1962Archaeologist Peter Marsden discovers the first of the Blackfriars Ships dating back to the second century AD in the Blackfriars area of the banks of the River Thames in London.Europe
31. 1962The United States government begins the Exercise Spade Fork nuclear readiness drill.North America
32. 1965India retaliates following Pakistan's Operation Grand Slam which results in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 that ends in a stalemate followed by the signing of the Tashkent Declaration.Asia
33. 1966Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, is stabbed to death in Cape Town, South Africa during a parliamentary meeting.Africa
34. 1968Swaziland becomes independent.Africa
35. 1970Two passenger jets bound from Europe to New York are simultaneously hijacked by Palestinian terrorist members of the PFLP and taken to Dawson's Field, Jordan.EuropeNorth AmericaMiddle East
36. 1971Paninternational Flight 112 crashes on the Bundesautobahn 7 highway near Hamburg Airport, in Hamburg, Germany, killing 22.Europe
37. 1972Munich massacre: Nine Israeli athletes die (along with a German policeman) at the hands of the Palestinian "Black September" terrorist group after being taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games. Two other Israeli athletes were slain in the initial attack the previous day.EuropeMiddle East
38. 1976Cold War: Soviet Air Defence Forces pilot Viktor Belenko lands a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States; his request is granted.EuropeAsiaNorth America
39. 1983The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, stating that its operatives did not know that it was a civilian aircraft when it reportedly violated Soviet airspace.EuropeAsia
40. 1985Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105 crashes near Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing all 31 people on board.North America
41. 1986In Istanbul, two terrorists from Abu Nidal's organization kill 22 and wound six congregants inside the Neve Shalom Synagogue during Shabbat services.Middle East
42. 1988End of the last stage of the Anfal campaign of Ba'athist Iraq against its Kurdish population, which resulted in major destructions and major civilian losses.Middle East
43. 1991The Russian parliament approves the name change of Leningrad back to Saint Petersburg. The change is effective October 1.Europe
44. 1991The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.Europe
45. 1992A group of hunters at the Stampede trail near Healy, Alaska come across a male corpse in abandoned bus, later identified as Christopher McCandless.North America
46. 1995Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking a record that had stood for 56 years.North America
47. 1997Royal Brunei Airlines Flight 839 crashes in the Lambir Hills National Park while on approach to Miri Airport in Malaysia, killing 10.Asia
48. 1997The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales takes place in London. Well over a million people line the streets and 21⁄2 billion watch around the world on television.Europe
49. 2003Mahmoud Abbas resigns from his position of Palestinian Prime Minister.Middle East
50. 2007Israel executes the air strike Operation Orchard to destroy a nuclear reactor in Syria.Middle East
51. 2009The ro-ro ferry SuperFerry 9 sinks off the Zamboanga Peninsula in the Philippines with 971 persons aboard; all but ten are rescued.Asia
52. 2012Sixty-one people die after a fishing boat capsizes off the İzmir Province coast of Turkey, near the Greek Aegean islands.Middle EastEurope
53. 2013The first Minotaur V rocket is launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, carrying NASA's LADEE spacecraft.North America
54. 2013Forty-one elephants are poisoned with cyanide in salt pans, by poachers in Hwange National Park.Africa
55. 2018Supreme Court of India decriminalises all consensual sex among adults in private, making homosexuality legal on the Indian lands.Asia
56. 2018Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro survives a stabbing at a campaign rally in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais.Latin America
57. 2022Russo-Ukrainian war: Ukraine begins its Kharkiv counteroffensive, surprising Russian forces and retaking over 3,000 square kilometers of land, recapturing the entire Kharkiv Oblast west of the Oskil River, within the next week.Europe
58. 2022Boris Johnson resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and is replaced by Liz Truss. Their meetings with Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle were the Queen's final official duties before her death two days later.Europe
59. 202621 Air Flight 7598, a Boeing 767 freighter operating on behalf of Amazon Air, overruns the runway upon landing at Miami International Airport, striking multiple ground vehicles, killing at least five people, and injuring five others.North America

Source: Wikipedia "September 6" / CC BY-SA 4.0