What Happened on April 6
Historical Events
- 46 BC Julius Caesar defeats Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) in the battle of Thapsus.
- 1652 Cape Colony, the 1st European settlement in South Africa, established by Dutch East India Company under Jan van Riebeeck
- 1917 US declares war on Germany, enters World War I
- 1994 Plane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira is shot down by surface-to-air missiles, abruptly ending peace negotiations and sparking the Rwandan Genocide. Those responsible have never been identified.
- More Historical Events
Apr 6 in Film & TV
- 1889 George Eastman begins selling his Kodak flexible rolled film for the first time
- 1906 World's 1st animated cartoon is released, "humorous phases of Funny Faces" by J. Stuart Blackton
Apr 6 in Music
Apr 6 in Sport
- 1896 First modern Summer Olympic Games open in Athens, Greece; American athlete James Connolly becomes first modern Olympic champion when he wins triple jump (then 2 hops and a jump); later 3rd in long jump, 2nd in high jump
Did You Know?
Catherine the Great Empress of Russia, ends tax on men with beards, enacted by Tsar Peter the Great in 1698
On April 6, 1772
Raphael
Donald Wills Douglas
Ian Paisley
Merle Haggard
James Watson
Billy Dee WilliamsWould You Believe?
First baby born with DNA from 3 parents through mitochondrial transfer in Mexico
On April 6, 2016
Famous Weddings
- 1896 23rd US President Benjamin Harrison (63) weds Mary Scott (37) at St Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church in New York City
- 1920 Physicist Erwin Schrödinger (32) weds Annemarie Bertel
- 1943 US Marine Corps aviator and astronaut John Glenn (21) weds high school sweetheart Anna Margaret Castor
Famous Divorces
- 1967 American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson (25) divorces Sandi McTaggart (23) in Los Angeles, California, after 2-1/2 years of marriage
- 2012 Actress and model Heidi Klum (39) divorces British soul and R&B singer-songwriter Seal (49) due to irreconcilable differences after almost seven years of marriage
More Weddings & Divorces
Richard the Lionheart
Chiang Kai-shek
Isaac Asimov
Juvénal Habyarimana
Tammy WynetteArticles, Photos and Quiz
Lionheart Richard, The Stranger King
Richard the Lionheart, Robin Hood’s king is considered one of the great English monarchs. Yet he cost his country a fortune and barely lived there.
April 6, 1199
Cape Colony Founded
Jan van Riebeeck arrives in Table Bay
April 6, 1652
1st Animated Film
A frame from "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces", released in 1906
April 6, 1906
Weekly Quiz for April 6 - 12
What year was the 1st modern Olympics? Who established the 1st European settlement in South Africa in 1652? Did Peter the Great end a tax on beards in 1722?
