On this day: June 6

Events on June 6

• 1513 War of the League of Cambrai: Milanese forces with Swiss mercenaries defeated the French in Novara, forcing them to withdraw from the Duchy of Milan and Italy. Wikipedia
• 1523 Swedish regent Gustav Vasa is elected King of Sweden and, marking a symbolic end to the Kalmar Union, 6 June is designated the country's national day. Wikipedia
• 1654 Swedish Queen Christina abdicates her throne in favour of her cousin Charles Gustav and converts to Catholicism. Wikipedia
• 1674 Shivaji, who led a resistance to free the Maratha from the Bijapur Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, was crowned the first chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire. Wikipedia
• 1749 A plot by Muslim slaves in Malta to assassinate Manuel Pinto da Fonseca of the Knights Hospitaller was uncovered. Wikipedia
• 1813 War of 1812: The British ambushed an American encampment near present-day Stoney Creek, Ontario, capturing two senior officers. Wikipedia
• 1822 Alexis St. Martin, a Canadian voyageur, was accidentally shot in the stomach; medical investigations of his injury led to a greater understanding of the processes of digestion. Wikipedia
• 1832 The June Rebellion in Paris is put down by the National Guard. Wikipedia
• 1844 The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London. Wikipedia
• 1882 The Shewan army defeated Gojjame forces at the Battle of Embabo, an event that contributed to the supremacy of Shewa within the Ethiopian Empire. Wikipedia
• 1894 Governor Davis Hanson Waite ordered the Colorado state militia to protect and support miners engaged in a five-month strike in Cripple Creek. Wikipedia
• 1912 The largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century began, forming the volcano Novarupta in the Alaska Peninsula. Wikipedia
• 1918 World War I: U.S. Marine Corps suffers its worst single day's casualties during the Battle of Belleau Wood while attempting to recapture the wood at Château-Thierry (the losses are exceeded at the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943). Wikipedia
• 1942 World War II: The United States Navy's victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway is a major turning point in the Pacific Theater. All four Japanese fleet carriers taking part—Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū—are sunk, as is the heavy cruiser Mikuma. The American carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann are also sunk. Wikipedia
• 1944 World War II: Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious military operation in history, began with Allied troops landing on the beaches of Normandy in France. Wikipedia
• 1971 Hughes Airwest Flight 706 collided with a US Marine Corps jet near Duarte, California, killing 50 people. Wikipedia
• 1971 Vietnam War: Australian forces attacked a heavily fortified North Vietnamese base camp at the Battle of Long Khánh. Wikipedia
• 1971 Soyuz 11 is launched. The mission ends in disaster when all three cosmonauts, Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev are suffocated by uncontrolled decompression of the capsule during re-entry on 29 June. Wikipedia
• 1975 British referendum results in continued membership of the European Economic Community, with 67% of votes in favour. Wikipedia
• 1976 A plane crashed near Kota Kinabalu International Airport, Malaysia, killing politicians Fuad Stephens and Peter Joinud Mojuntin, along with nine others. Wikipedia
• 1982 Falklands War: The Royal Navy destroyer HMS Cardiff engaged and destroyed a British Army helicopter in a friendly-fire incident. Wikipedia
• 1982 1982 Lebanon War: The war begins as forces under Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invade southern Lebanon during Operation Peace for the Galilee, eventually reaching as far north as the capital Beirut. Wikipedia
• 1985 The remains of Josef Mengele, a Nazi physician notorious for performing human experiments on Auschwitz inmates, were exhumed in Embu das Artes, Brazil. Wikipedia
• 2017 Syrian civil war: The Syrian Democratic Forces opened the Second Battle of Raqqa, the final phase of the Raqqa campaign, capturing the de facto capital of the Islamic State four months later. Wikipedia
• 2021 A man rammed a pickup truck into Muslim Pakistani Canadian pedestrians in Ontario, Canada, killing four members of the same family. Wikipedia
• 2023 Russo-Ukrainian war: The Kakhovka Dam is destroyed. Wikipedia

Born on June 6

• 1436 Regiomontanus (Johannes Müller von Königsberg), German mathematician, astronomer, and bishop (died 1476) Wikipedia
• 1599 Diego Velázquez (date of baptism), Spanish painter and educator (died 1660) Wikipedia
• 1606 Pierre Corneille, French playwright and producer (died 1684) Wikipedia
• 1714 Joseph I of Portugal, King of Portugal from 31 July 1750 until his death (died 1777) Wikipedia
• 1799 Alexander Pushkin, Russian author and poet (died 1837) Wikipedia
• 1841 Eliza Orzeszkowa, Polish author and publisher (died 1910) Wikipedia
• 1850 Karl Ferdinand Braun, German-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate in 1909 for physics (died 1918) Wikipedia
• 1868 Robert Falcon Scott, English sailor and explorer (died 1912) Wikipedia
• 1872 Alix of Hesse, German princess and Russian empress (died 1918) Wikipedia
• 1875 Thomas Mann, German author and critic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1955) Wikipedia
• 1901 Sukarno, Indonesian engineer and politician, 1st President of Indonesia (died 1970) Wikipedia
• 1903 Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer and conductor (died 1978) Wikipedia
• 1909 Isaiah Berlin, Latvian-English historian and philosopher (died 1997) Wikipedia
• 1933 Heinrich Rohrer, Swiss physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2013) Wikipedia
• 1934 Albert II, King of the Belgians from 9 August 1993 to 21 July 2013 (abdicated) Wikipedia
• 1943 Richard Smalley, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate in 1996 for chemistry (died 2005) Wikipedia
• 1956 Björn Borg, Swedish tennis player; winner of eleven Grand Slam singles titles including five consecutive Wimbledons Wikipedia
• 1960 Steve Vai, American musician Wikipedia
• 1963 Jason Isaacs, English actor Wikipedia
• 1967 Paul Giamatti, American actor and producer Wikipedia
• 1980 Pete Hegseth, American author, political commentator and 29th United States Secretary of Defense Wikipedia
• 1985 Sebastian Larsson, Swedish footballer Wikipedia

Died on June 6

• 1799 Patrick Henry, American lawyer and politician, 1st Governor of Virginia (born 1736) Wikipedia
• 1832 Jeremy Bentham, English jurist and philosopher (born 1748) Wikipedia
• 1861 Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Italian politician, 1st Prime Minister of Italy (born 1810) Wikipedia
• 1891 John A. Macdonald, Scottish-Canadian lawyer and politician, 1st Prime Minister of Canada (born 1815) Wikipedia
• 1916 Yuan Shikai, Chinese general and politician, 2nd President of the Republic of China (born 1859) Wikipedia
• 1946 Gerhart Hauptmann, German novelist, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1862) Wikipedia
• 1948 Louis Lumière, French film director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1864) Wikipedia
• 1961 Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist (born 1875) Wikipedia
• 1968 Robert F. Kennedy, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 64th United States Attorney General (born 1925) Wikipedia
• 1976 J. Paul Getty, American businessman, founded the Getty Oil Company (born 1892) Wikipedia
• 2005 Anne Bancroft, American film actress; winner of the 1963 Academy Award for Best Actress for The Miracle Worker (born 1931) Wikipedia
• 2009 Jean Dausset, French-Spanish immunologist and academic; awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his studies of the genetic basis of immunological reaction (born 1916) Wikipedia
• 2013 Jerome Karle, American crystallographer and academic; awarded the 1985 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research into the molecular structure of chemical compounds (born 1918) Wikipedia
• 2016 Viktor Korchnoi, Russian chess grandmaster; arguably the best player never to become World Chess Champion (born 1931) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Bessarion of Egypt Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Claudius of Besançon Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Iarlaithe mac Loga Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Ini Kopuria (Anglican Church of Melanesia, Church of England, Episcopal Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Innocent Guz Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Marcellin Champagnat Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Maria Laura Mainetti Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Norbert Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: June 6 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• D-Day Invasion Anniversary Wikipedia
• Engineer's Day in Taiwan Wikipedia
• Korean Children's Union Foundation Day in North Korea Wikipedia
• Memorial Day in South Korea Wikipedia
• National Day of Sweden, marking the end of the Kalmar Union and the coronation of King Gustav Vasa Wikipedia
• National Huntington's Disease Awareness Day in the United States Wikipedia
• Queensland Day Wikipedia
• UN Russian Language Day Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “June 6” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/June 6” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “June 6” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for June 6 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.