History of the Day for:
May 6
- 1835: James Gordon Bennett published the "New York Herald" for the first time.
- 1856: Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist and founder of psychoanalysis, was born.
- 1861: Arkansas voted to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy.
- 1889: The Paris Exposition opened, and the just-completed Eiffel Tower was dedicated.
- 1895: Silent film star Rudolph Valentino was born.
- 1915: Babe Ruth hit his first major-league home run; filmmaker/actor Orson Welles was born.
- 1919: Lyman Frank Baum, U.S. author of children's stories about the imaginary land of Oz, died.
- 1935: The Works Progress Administration began operating.
- 1937: The German airship Hindenburg hit the landing mast on arrival at Lakehurst, N.J., and burst into flames, killing 36 people.
- 1941: Russian dictator Joseph Stalin appointed himself chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (head of the government).
- 1942: The island fortress of Corregidor in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese.
- 1951: Dr. John Gorrie of Appalachicola, Fla., patented the mechanical refrigerator.
- 1954: British athlete Roger Bannister became the first athlete to run a mile in under 4 minutes, in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.
- 1957: Sen. John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Massachusetts won the Pulitzer Prize for "Profiles In Courage."
- 1983: Diaries supposedly written by dictator Adolf Hitler were declared fakes.
- 1992: Marlene Dietrich, film's legendary femme fatale, died.
- 1994: Britain and France were joined for the first time since the Ice Age by an undersea tunnel, the Chunnel.
- 1996: The body of former CIA director William Colby is found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared.
- 1997: The Bank of England is given independence from political control, the most significant change in the bank's 300-year history.
- 1998: Kerry Wood strikes out 20 Houston Astros to tie the major league record held by Roger Clemens. He threw a one-hitter and did not walk a batter in his 5th career start.
- 1999: First elections to the devolved Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly held.
- 2001: During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque.
- 2002: Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is assassinated by an animal rights activist.
- 2008: Chaiten Volcano erupts in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,500 people.