TODAY IN HISTORY
1527 May 6, German and Spanish troops under Charles V began sacking Rome, bringing about the end of the Renaissance. Libraries were destroyed, Pope Clement VII was captured and thousands were killed. 147 of 189 of the Pope’s Swiss guard were killed.
1733 May 6, 1st international boxing match: Bob Whittaker beat Tito di Carni.
1801 May 6, British Lt. Thomas Cochrane, commander of the 14-gun sloop HMS Speedy, engaged and captured the 32-gun Spanish frigate El Gamo. The climactic battle in Patrick O’Brian’s novel “Master and Commander” is based on the Speedy’s fight with El Gamo. Cochrane was later elected to Parliament, pointed out corruption and was arrested on trumped up charges. After that he served as the first commander of Chile’s navy, then Brazil’s navy and the Greek navy before returning to England.
1835 May 6, The 1st edition of NY Herald was priced at 1 cent. The Herald specialized in crime with an emphasis on murder. James Gordon Bennett was the Scottish-born steward of the Herald.
1919 May 6, Paris Peace Conference disposed of German colonies; German East Africa was assigned to Britain & France, German SW Africa to South Africa.
1954 May 6, Medical student Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, finishing in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bannister
1978 May 6, On this day at 12:34, the numbers 12345678 represented the time and day: 12:34 5/6/78. The next such sequence will occur in 2078.
1987 May 6, A London building that housed the congress of South African Trade Unions was bombed under orders of the apartheid government of South Africa.
1990 May 6, Former president P.W. Botha quit South Africa's ruling National Party as a protest against the apartheid reform program of his successor F.W. de Klerk.
1994 May 6, Nelson Mandela and his ANC finally were confirmed winners in South Africa's first post apartheid election.
1997 May 6, In Zaire Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko left Zaire for a 3-day visit to Gabon. He was not expected to return.
2000 May 6, In Sudan Pres. Omar el-Bashir dismissed Hassan Turabi as the secretary-general of the ruling National Congress Party.
2001 May 6, An anonymous donor pledged $100 million to Johns Hopkins Univ. to develop a vaccine and new drugs for malaria.
2001 May 6, In Syria Pope John Paul II prayed in the Great Umayyad Mosque, the 1st time a pontiff ever visited and prayed in a Muslim house of worship. He called for brotherhood between Christians and Muslims.
2004 May 6, A Libyan court sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death on charges they intentionally infected some 393 children with the AIDS virus as part of an experiment to find a cure. 9 Libyan health workers were acquitted. Under Libyan law, death sentences generate an automatic 60-day period for appeal.
2008 May 6, Kenya froze the assets of businessman Felicien Kabuga, the most wanted suspect in Rwanda's genocide, saying it would stop him avoiding capture or helping other fugitives. The US government has offered a $5 million bounty for Kabuga's capture.
2009 May 6, South Africa's parliament has elected Jacob Zuma as the country's president. Zuma won 277 votes in the 400 member National Assembly. Zuma's African National Congress won elections last month with 65.9% of the vote. He is due to be inaugurated on May 9.
2010 May 6, Nigeria's Goodluck Jonathan (52) was sworn as president of the oil-rich African nation riven by religious and political divisions, hours after the death of the incumbent Umaru Yar'Adua (58). Jonathan vowed that electoral reform and fighting graft would be top priorities.
2012 May 6, Francois Hollande elected President of France
2014 May 6, Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, releases a 57 minute video boasting about abducting schoolgirls in Nigeria
Source - wikipedia; http://www.timelines.ws and http://www.historyorb.com
No comments:
Post a Comment