TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – APRIL 6
0648 BC- Earliest total solar eclipse; chronicled by Greeks
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 Joseph Smith and five others organize the Church of Latter-Day Saints in Seneca, New York.
1868 Brigham Young marries his 27th & final wife
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 and Matthew Henson became the first to reach the North Pole.
1909 1st credit union established in US
1917 US declares war on Germany, enters World War I
1930 Hostess Twinkies invented by bakery executive James Dewar
1938 The United States recognizes Nazi Germany’s conquest of Austria.
1965 Early Bird, The first commercial communications satellite is launched
1973 America launches the Pioneer 11 (Pioneer G) probe to study Jupiter & Saturn
1980 Post It Notes 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 Rwandan Genocide begins with the assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira with their plane being shot down by surface-to-air missiles, abruptly ending peace negotiations. Those responsible have never been identified.
1998 Citicorp and Travelers Group announced that they would be merging. The new creation was the largest financial-services conglomerate in the world. The name would become Citigroup.
2016 First baby born with DNA from 3 parents through mitochondrial transfer in Mexico
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
