TODAY HISTORY LESSON: APRIL 6
648 BC Earliest total solar eclipse; chronicled by Greeks
46 BC Julius Caesar defeats Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) in the battle of Thapsus.
1199 English King Richard I is killed by an arrow at the Siege of the Castle of Chalus in France.
1607 An expedition led by Captain Christopher Newport arrived at the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico for supplies before continuing on their journey. On May 14, they went ashore and founded Jamestown, Virginia, as the first permanent English colony in America.
1652 Cape Colony, the 1st European settlement in South Africa, established by Dutch East India Company under Jan van Riebeeck
1722 Peter the Great ends tax on men with beards
1789 The First U.S. Congress begins regular sessions at Federal Hall in New York City.
1814 Granted sovereignty in the island of Elba and a pension from the French government, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates at Fontainebleau. He is allowed to keep the title of emperor.
1830 Relations between the Texans and Mexico reached a new low when Mexico would not allow further emigration into Texas by settlers from the U.S.
1830 Joseph Smith and five others organize the Church of Latter-Day Saints in Seneca, New York.
1862 The Battle of Shiloh in the American Civil War began.
1868 Brigham Young marries his 27th & final wife
1893 Andy Bowen & Jack Burke box 7 hours 19 minutes to no decision in St Louis (111 rounds, longest bout in boxing history)
1896 The Modern Olympics begin in Athens with eight nations participating.
1903 French Army Nationalists are revealed to have forged documents to guarantee a conviction for Alfred Dreyfus.
1909 Robert Peary allegedly becomes the first person to reach the North Pole
1938 The United States recognizes Nazi Germany’s conquest of Austria.
1954 TV Dinner is 1st put on sale by Swanson & Sons
1965 U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized the use of ground troops in combat operations in Vietnam.
1965 The first commercial communications satellite is launched. Intelsat I, also known as Early Bird, facilitated the first live TV broadcast of a spacecraft splashdown when Gemini 6 landed in the Atlantic Ocean.
1968 Race Riots continue in cities throughout the US following the assassination of black civil rights leader Martin Luther King on 4 April. Curfews have put in place around the country and National Guard Soldiers have been mobilized to keep control.
1973 US launches Pioneer 11 to Jupiter & Saturn
1975 Inspired by the American efforts to bring Vietnamese Children in need to the US code-named ‘Operation Babylift’ , A Boeing 747 chartered by the British Daily Mail carrying 99 Vietnamese orphans has landed at Heathrow airport.
1980 Post It Notes are introduced
1983 The U.S. Veteran’s Administration announced it would give free medical care for conditions traceable to radiation exposure to more than 220,000 veterans who participated in nuclear tests from 1945 to 1962.
1992 US Supreme Court rules a Nebraska farmer was entrapped by postal agents into buying mail-order child pornography
1994 Plane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira is shot down by surface-to-air missiles, abruptly ending peace negotiations and sparking the Rwandan Genocide. Those responsible have never been identified.
2001 Pacific Gas and Electric ( PG&E ) file Chapter 11 Bankruptcy when they are unable to sell electricity to consumers for more than they buy it on the open market.
2010 : The Muslim cleric, Anwar al-Aulaqi, that is tied to the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner has become the first U.S. citizen to be added to the list of suspected terrorists that the C.I.A. is authorized to kill.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
