TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – AUG 6
1661 The Treaty of The Hague is signed whereby the Dutch Republic sells New Holland (Brazil) for 63 tonnes of gold to Portugal
1806 The Holy Roman Empire ended with the abdication of Emperor Francis II.
1854 Congress passes Confiscation Act
1863 The CSS Alabama captures the USS Sea Bride near the Cape of Good Hope.
1888 Martha Turner is murdered by an unknown assailant, believed to be Jack the Ripper, in London, England.
1890 William Kemmler becomes the first man to be executed by the electric chair.
1934 US troops leave Haiti, which had been occupied since 1915
1935 In Hollywood, California Dr. Ralph Willard, a doctor who came from the state of Georgia in Russia, has successfully frozen a monkey named Jekal and brought it back to life.
1944 Deportation of 70,000 jews from Lodz Poland to Auschwitz begins
1945 Paul Tibbets, the commander of Enola Gay, drops the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. It was the second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, that induced the Japanese to surrender.
1962 Jamaica becomes independent, after 300 years of British rule.
1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, outlawing the literacy test for voting eligibility in the South.
1977 President Carter got approval in the house for a new energy bill which called for a move away from foreign oil and a more efficient use of energy by Americans. The goal was to save 2-3 million barrels a day.
1985 In Tel Aviv, Israel, a suicide bomber astride a donkey exploded near a pro-Israeli site in Southern Lebanon. According to Israel Army Radio both the burrow and the bomber were killed and one Lebanese person was wounded.
1988 A melee that became known as the Tompkins Square Park Police Riot in New York City leads to NYPD reforms.
1991 Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet
1997 Microsoft announces it will invest $150 million in troubled rival Apple Computer, Inc.
1997 British prime minister Tony Blair and Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams meet—the first time in 76 years that a British leader and an IRA ally meet.
2002 Small pox vaccinations were given 30 years ago, so scientists worry that the modern generation does not have any immunity to this disease which is fatal in 30% of the cases.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
