On this day: August 6

Events on August 6

• 1538 Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. Wikipedia
• 1777 The Battle of Oriskany, one of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolutionary War, was fought about 6 mi (10 km) east of Fort Stanwix, New York. Wikipedia
• 1787 Sixty proof sheets of the Constitution of the United States are delivered to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wikipedia
• 1819 Norwich University is founded in Vermont as the first private military school in the United States. Wikipedia
• 1862 American Civil War: The Confederate ironclad CSS Arkansas is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering catastrophic engine failure near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Wikipedia
• 1890 At Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair. Wikipedia
• 1901 Kiowa land in Oklahoma is opened for white settlement, effectively dissolving the contiguous reservation. Wikipedia
• 1914 World War I: Serbia declares war on Germany; Austria declares war on Russia. Wikipedia
• 1914 World War I: U-boat campaign: Two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea. Wikipedia
• 1917 World War I: Battle of Mărășești between the Romanian and German armies begins. Wikipedia
• 1940 Estonia is annexed by the Soviet Union. Wikipedia
• 1944 World War II: Allied forces attacked German fortifications at Saint-Malo, France, beginning the Battle of Saint-Malo. Wikipedia
• 1945 World War II: The U.S. Army Air Force bomber Enola Gay dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan (mushroom cloud pictured), killing about 70,000 people instantly. Wikipedia
• 1945 World War II: Hiroshima, Japan is devastated when the atomic bomb "Little Boy" is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people are killed instantly, and some tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning. Wikipedia
• 1956 After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network makes its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena in New York in the Boxing from St. Nicholas Arena series. Wikipedia
• 1960 Cuban Revolution: Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation. Wikipedia
• 1962 Jamaica becomes independent from the United Kingdom. Wikipedia
• 1965 U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, outlawing literacy tests and other discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disfranchisement of African Americans. Wikipedia
• 1965 US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. Wikipedia
• 1986 A low-pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328 millimeters (13 inches) of rain in a day on Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Wikipedia
• 1990 Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council orders a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Wikipedia
• 1991 British computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee posted a public invitation to collaborate on a system of interlinked, hypertext documents accessible via the Internet, known as the World Wide Web. Wikipedia
• 1991 Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW makes its first appearance as a publicly available service on the Internet. Wikipedia
• 1996 NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms. Wikipedia
• 2008 A military junta led by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz stages a coup d'état in Mauritania, overthrowing president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. Wikipedia
• 2012 NASA's Curiosity rover lands on the surface of Mars. Wikipedia

Born on August 6

• 1638 Nicolas Malebranche, French priest and philosopher (died 1715) Wikipedia
• 1644 Louise de La Vallière, French mistress of Louis XIV (died 1710) Wikipedia
• 1651 François Fénelon, French archbishop and poet (died 1715) Wikipedia
• 1667 Johann Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (died 1748) Wikipedia
• 1697 Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor (died 1745) Wikipedia
• 1715 Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues, French author (died 1747) Wikipedia
• 1766 William Hyde Wollaston, English chemist and physicist (died 1828) Wikipedia
• 1809 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, English poet (died 1892) Wikipedia
• 1868 Paul Claudel, French poet and playwright (died 1955) Wikipedia
• 1881 Alexander Fleming, Scottish biologist, pharmacologist, and botanist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1955) Wikipedia
• 1900 Cecil Howard Green, English-American geophysicist and businessman, co-founded Texas Instruments (died 2003) Wikipedia
• 1911 Lucille Ball, American actress, television producer and businesswoman (died 1989) Wikipedia
• 1917 Robert Mitchum, American actor (died 1997) Wikipedia
• 1924 Samuel Bowers, American white supremacist, co-founded the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (died 2006) Wikipedia
• 1928 Andy Warhol, American painter, photographer and film director (died 1987) Wikipedia
• 1962 Michelle Yeoh, Malaysian-Hong Kong actress and producer Wikipedia
• 1963 Kevin Mitnick, American computer security consultant, author, and convicted hacker (died 2023) Wikipedia
• 1970 M. Night Shyamalan, Indian-American director, producer, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1972 Geri Halliwell, English singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress Wikipedia
• 1973 Vera Farmiga, American actress Wikipedia
• 1983 Robin van Persie, Dutch footballer Wikipedia
• 1984 Vedad Ibišević, Bosnian footballer Wikipedia

Died on August 6

• 258 Pope Sixtus II Wikipedia
• 523 Pope Hormisdas (born 450) Wikipedia
• 1221 Saint Dominic, Spanish priest, founded the Dominican Order (born 1170) Wikipedia
• 1458 Pope Callixtus III (born 1378) Wikipedia
• 1637 Ben Jonson, English poet and playwright (born 1572) Wikipedia
• 1660 Diego Velázquez, Spanish painter and educator (born 1599) Wikipedia
• 1881 James Springer White, American religious leader, co-founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church (born 1821) Wikipedia
• 1969 Theodor W. Adorno, German sociologist and philosopher (born 1903) Wikipedia
• 1973 Fulgencio Batista, Cuban colonel and politician, 9th President of Cuba (born 1901) Wikipedia
• 1978 Pope Paul VI (born 1897) Wikipedia
• 1979 Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen, German biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1911) Wikipedia
• 2001 Jorge Amado, Brazilian novelist and poet (born 1912) Wikipedia
• 2002 Edsger W. Dijkstra, Dutch physicist, computer scientist, and academic (born 1930) Wikipedia
• 2005 Creme Puff, tabby domestic cat, oldest recorded cat (born 1967) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian holidays and observances Transfiguration of Jesus Wikipedia
• Christian holidays and observances Anna Maria Rubatto Wikipedia
• Christian holidays and observances Felicissimus and Agapitus Wikipedia
• Christian holidays and observances Pope Hormisdas Wikipedia
• Christian holidays and observances Justus and Pastor Wikipedia
• Christian holidays and observances Pope Sixtus II Wikipedia
• Christian holidays and observances August 6 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan's Accession Day. (United Arab Emirates) Wikipedia
• Independence Day (Bolivia), celebrates the independence of Bolivia from Spain in 1825. Wikipedia
• Independence Day (Jamaica), celebrates the independence of Jamaica from the United Kingdom in 1962. Wikipedia
• Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony (Hiroshima, Japan) Wikipedia
• Russian Railway Troops Day (Russia) Wikipedia

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “August 6” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.