Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated nine days before national elections
Fortuyn, an openly gay populist who criticized Islam and immigration, was shot by an animal rights activist in a parking lot. He was the first Dutch p...
May 6 in History
Significant events that happened on this day.
Historical Events
2002
1997
The Bank of England was granted independence from political control to set interest rates
Chancellor Gordon Brown announced the historic change just days after Labour's landslide election victory. The move ended centuries of political inter...
1994
The Channel Tunnel officially opened, connecting England and France with a 31-mile undersea rail tunnel
MajorQueen Elizabeth II and French President François Mitterrand presided over the ceremony. The project took six years and cost £9 billion, making it one...
1960
Princess Margaret married photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones in the first televised royal wedding
An estimated 300 million people worldwide watched the ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Armstrong-Jones became the first commoner to marry a British king...
1954
Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes
MajorThe British medical student ran the mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds at Oxford University's Iffley Road Track. For decades, experts believed breaking th...
1935
The Works Progress Administration was created as part of Roosevelt's New Deal
The WPA employed millions of unemployed Americans during the Great Depression to build public infrastructure. Workers constructed 650,000 miles of roa...
1933
The German Student Union conducted mass book burnings in Nazi Germany
MajorStudents burned over 25,000 books deemed "un-German" in coordinated raids across university towns. Works by Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Helen Kell...
1915
Babe Ruth hit his first major league home run as a member of the Boston Red Sox
The 20-year-old pitcher hit the homer off Jack Warhop of the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds. Ruth started his career as a pitcher and won 89 gam...
1889
The Eiffel Tower officially opened to the public during the Paris Exposition
MajorGustave Eiffel's iron lattice tower was initially criticized by Parisian artists and intellectuals as an eyesore. It was meant to be temporary and nea...
1877
Chief Crazy Horse surrendered to United States troops in Nebraska
The legendary Lakota warrior led his band of 1,000 starving followers to Fort Robinson after months on the run following the Battle of Little Bighorn....
1861
Arkansas became the ninth state to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy
The secession came after President Lincoln called for troops to suppress the rebellion following Fort Sumter. Despite significant Unionist sentiment i...
1682
Louis XIV moved the French court to the Palace of Versailles
The Sun King transformed a former hunting lodge into the most opulent palace in Europe. The move was partly to keep the nobility under his watchful ey...
1527
Spanish and German troops began the Sack of Rome, pillaging the city for weeks
Mutinous troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V stormed Rome and ransacked it with unprecedented brutality. Pope Clement VII barricaded himself in Cas...