On December 6th...

Links will open in a new window.

1352 Pope Clement VI died.

1421 King Henry VI of England was born.

1492 Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Hispaniola.

1534 Quito, Ecuador, was founded.

1732 Warren Hastings, British government official in colonial India, was born.

1768 The first edition of Encyclopaedia Brittanica was published.

1790 The U. S. Congress moved from New York City, New York, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1845 Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity was founded at Yale College.

1864 Actor William S. Hart was born.

1865 The 13th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified.

1866 The Chicago, Illinois, water supply tunnel into Lake Michigan was completed.

1876 The U. S. Electoral College awarded the presidential election to Rutherford B. Hayes.

1877 The first issue of the Washington Post was published.

1884 The Washington Monument was completed.

1886 Poet Joyce Kilmer was born.

1889 Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, died.

1896 Songwriter Ira Gershwin was born.

1897 London, England, became the first city in the world to license taxicabs.

1900 Actress Agnes Moorehead was born.

1908 Bank robber Lester M. Gillis, aka Baby Face Nelson, was born.

1917 Finland declared its independence from Russia.

1920 Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck was born.

1921 The Republic of Ireland became independent of Great Britain.

1924 Actor Wally Cox was born.

1929 Turkey granted women the right to vote.

1931 The movie Frankenstein premiered.

1941 Richard Speck, killer of eight women in one night, was born.

1942 "Allen's Alley" premiered on Fred Allen's radio show.

1947 Everglades National Park was dedicated.

1948 Actress JoBeth Williams was born.

1949 Jazz guitarist Huddie William Ledbetter, aka Leadbelly, died.

1955 Comedian Steven Wright was born.
1955 Baseball player Honus Wagner died.

1957 The first U. S. attempt to launch a satellite failed when the Vanguard rocket to which it was "attached" blew up.

1959 A new world altitude record of 98,560 feet was set by Navy Commander Lawrence E. Flint.

1964 "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" aired for the first time.

1967 Béla Schick, developer of the Schick Test for diphtheria immunity, died.

1972 Actress Janet Munro died.

1973 Gerald Ford was sworn-in as Vice President of the United States.

1977 The Republic of Bophuthatswana was established.

1988 Actor Timothy Patrick Murphy died.
1988 Singer Roy Orbison died.

1989 Marc Lepine killed 14 women at the University of Montreal, the worst mass murder in Canadian history.
1989 Actress Frances Bavier died.

1990 Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, died.

1993 Actor Don Ameche died.
1993 Physicist Wolfgang Paul died.

1995 Journalist James Reston died.

1996 Former NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle died.

2000 Actor Werner Klemperer died.

2006 NASA released photographs taken by the Mars Global Surveyor suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars.

2011 Singer Dobie Gray died.

Questions or comments about this page?

This page was last updated on December 06, 2018.