TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MAY 6
1527 Spanish & German Imperial troops sack Rome; ending the Renaissance. Libraries are destroyed, the Pope is captured and thousands are killed
1626 Dutch colonist Peter Minuit organizes the purchase of Manhattan Island from Native Americans for 60 guilders worth of goods, believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Lenape
1851 Dr John Gorrie patents a “refrigeration machine”
1861 Arkansas & Tennessee become 9th & 10th states to secede from US
1864 In the second day of the Battle of the Wilderness between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet is wounded by his own men.
1877 Chief Crazy Horse surrenders to U.S. troops in Nebraska. Crazy Horse brought General George Custer to his end.
1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act (US Congress ceases Chinese immigration) over President Chester A. Arthur’s veto.
1889 Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in Paris opens with the recently completed Eiffel Tower serving as the entrance arch
1919 Paris Peace Conference disposes of German colonies; German East Africa is assigned to Britain & France, German Southwest Africa to South Africa
1937 The dirigible Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
1945 Axis Sally makes her final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.
1960 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
1967 400 students seize administration building at Cheyney State College
1981 US expels Libyan diplomats
1987 Gary Hart denies affair with model Donna Rice
1994 Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait sets fire to the couch on Tonight Show
1994 The Channel Tunnel linking England to France is officially opened.
1997 NHL Hartford Whalers become Carolina Hurricanes
1999 Scotland elected its first separate parliament in three centuries.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
