History of 6 August
1914 – Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia. Serbia declared war against Germany.
1926 – Gertrude Ederle became the first American woman to swim the English Channel. She was 19 years old at the time. The swim took her 14 1/2 hours.
1926 – Warner Brothers premiered its Vitaphone system in New York. The movie was “Don Juan,” starring John Barrymore.
1939 – Dinah Shore started her own show on the NBC Blue radio network.
1945 – The American B-29 bomber, known as the Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb on an inhabited area. The bomb named “Little Boy” was dropped over the center of Hiroshima, Japan. An estimated 140,000 people were killed. (8:16 am Japanese time)
1949 – Chicago White Sox player Luke Appling played in the 2,154th game of his 19-year, major league career.
1952 – Satchel Paige, at age 46, became the oldest pitcher to complete a major league baseball game.
1960 – Nationalization of U.S. and foreign-owned property in Cuba began.
1962 – Jamaica became an independent dominion within the British Commonwealth.
1965 – The Voting Rights Act was signed by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
1969 – The first fair ball to be hit completely out of Dodger Stadium occurred. Willie “Pops” Stargell, of the Pittsburgh Pirates, hit the ball 506 feet from home plate.
1981 – Firefighters in Indianapolis, IN, answered a false alarm. When they returned to their station it was ablaze due to a grease fire.
1981 – Lee Trevino was disqualified from the PGA Championship in Duluth, GA when he had his scorecard signed by Tom Weiskopf instead of himself.
1985 – The 40th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing brought tens of thousands of Japanese and foreigners to Hiroshima.
1986 – William J. Schroeder died. He lived 620 days with the Jarvik-7 manmade heart. He was the world’s longest surviving recipient of a permanent artificial heart.
1986 – Timothy Dalton became the fourth actor to be named “James Bond.”
1989 – Jaime Paz Zamora was inaugurated as the president of Bolivia.
1990 – The U.N. Security Council ordered a worldwide trade embargo with Iraq. The embargo was to punish Iraq for invading Kuwait.
1993 – The U.S. Senate confirmed Louis Freeh to be the director of the FBI.
1993 – Morihiro Hosokawa was elected prime minister of Japan.
1995 – Thousands of glowing lanterns were set afloat in rivers in Hiroshima, Japan, on the 50th anniversary of the first atomic bombing.
1996 – NASA announced the discovery of evidence of primitive life on Mars. The evidence came in the form of a meteorite that was found in Antarctica. The meteorite was believed to have come from Mars and contained a fossil.
1997 – Apple Computer and Microsoft agreed to share technology in a deal giving Microsoft a stake in Apple’s survival.
1998 – Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky spent 8 1/2 hours testifying before a grand jury about her relationship with U.S. President Clinton.
2012 – The Mars rover Curiosity landed on the floor of Gale Crater. The Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, on November 26, 2011.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Diána Póth, Hungarian figure skater
- 1983 – Neil Harvey, English-Barbadian footballer
- 1983 – C. J. Mosley, American football player
- 1983 – Robin van Persie, Dutch footballer
- 1984 – Vedad Ibišević, Bosnian footballer
- 1984 – Jesse Ryder, New Zealand cricketer
- 1985 – Viktoria Baškite, Estonian chess player
- 1985 – Mickaël Delage, French cyclist
- 1985 – Bafétimbi Gomis, French footballer
- 1985 – Garrett Weber-Gale, American swimmer
- 1986 – Mehmet Akgün, Turkish footballer
- 1986 – Raphael Pyrasch, German rugby player
- 1988 – Spencer Matthews, British TV personality
- 1991 – Jiao Liuyang, Chinese swimmer
- 1992 – Tara Moore, a British tennis player
- 1995 – Rebecca Peterson, a Swedish tennis player
- 1995 – Kareem Hunt, American football player