What Happened on April 6
Important 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.
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
- 1974 19th Eurovision Song Contest: ABBA for Sweden wins singing "Waterloo" in Brighton
Apr 6 in Sport
- 1896 1st modern Summer Olympic Games open in Athens, Greece; American athlete James Connolly Olympic becomes first modern Olympic champion when he wins the triple jump (then 2 hops and a jump); later 3rd in the long jump, 2nd in the high jump
Famous Birthdays
Raphael
(1483 - 1520)- Ian Paisley
(1926 - 2014) - James Watson
92 Years Old - Billy Dee Williams
83 Years Old - Merle Haggard
(1937 - 2016) - Paul Rudd
51 Years Old
Raphael
Ian Paisley
James Watson
Billy Dee Williams
Merle Haggard
Paul RuddWould You Believe?
First baby born with DNA from 3 parents through mitochondrial transfer in Mexico
On April 6, 2016
Famous Weddings
- 1868 Brigham Young marries his 27th & final wife
- 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
Famous Divorces
- 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
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, 1199Cape Colony Founded
Jan van Riebeeck arrives in Table Bay
April 6, 16521st Animated Film
A frame from "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces", released in 1906
April 6, 1906Weekly 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?
April in History
The Computer That Came By Truck
It didn't have the sleek lines that Steve Jobs would admire and it needed to be carried on a truck, but the computer age had finally arrived in rural England.
April 3, 1957Martin Luther King Shot Dead
Martin Luther King Jr, the celebrated (‘I have a dream’) civil rights campaigner, was shot dead on this day as he stood on a motel balcony in Memphis Tennessee.
April 4, 1968The Man Who Sold His Wife
Most modern readers believe Thomas Hardy was plunging into deep fiction when he wrote about a man selling his wife in, The Mayor of Casterbridge. He wasn't.
April 7, 1832Step Aboard the Titanic – Las Vegas Style
Even by Las Vegas standards it was controversial, a $1.2 billion recreation of the doomed Titanic, along with the iceberg that caused its destruction.
April 8, 1999
