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 Rwandan Genocide begins with the assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira with their plane being shot down by surface-to-air missiles, abruptly ending peace negotiations. Those responsible have never been identified.
April 6 in Film & TV
- 1889 George Eastman begins selling his Kodak flexible rolled film for the first time
April 6 in Music
- 1974 19th Eurovision Song Contest: ABBA for Sweden wins singing "Waterloo" in Brighton
April 6 in Sport
- 1896 I 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)- Donald Wills Douglas
(1892 - 1981) - James Watson
91 Years Old - Billy Dee Williams
82 Years Old - Merle Haggard
(1937 - 2016) - Paul Rudd
50 Years Old
Raphael
Donald Wills Douglas
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 WynetteApril 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, 1957Lionheart 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, 1199The 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
