TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS MONDAY, AUGUST 06, 2018.

EVENTS IN HISTORY RELEVANT TO TODAY:

1806 Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, abdicates, ending the Holy Roman Empire.

1879 - The first Australian rules football game to be played at night took place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The game was to promote the introduction of electricity to Melbourne.

1900 - In Boston, the first Davis Cup series began. The U.S. team defeated Great Britain three matches to zero.

1915 - World War I: The August Offensive at Gallipoli starts.

1940 - World War II: The Nazi Luftwaffe began a series of daylight air raids on Britain.

1945 - World War II: the Soviet Union declared war on Japan.

1945 World War II: A US B-29 bomber drops the first atomic bomb in warfare. “Little Boy” destroys Hiroshima, Japan – 70,000 people are killed instantly, and tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning.

1945 - The United Nations Charter was signed by US President Truman.

1966 - Michael DeBakey became the first surgeon to install an artificial heart pump in a patient.

1974 - US President Nixon announced that he would resign - a result of the Watergate scandal.

1978 - The U.S. launched Pioneer Venus II, which carried scientific probes to study the atmosphere of Venus.

1986 A low-pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328mm of rain in a day on Sydney.

1994 - Representatives from China and Taiwan signed a cooperation agreement.

2000 - The submarine H.L. Hunley was raised from ocean bottom after 136 years. The sub had been lost during an attack on the U.S.S. Housatonic in 1864. The Hunley was the first submarine in history to sink a warship.

2009 - Sam the koala, rescued from burning operations aimed at reducing the impact of the Black Friday fires in Victoria, is euthanised because of the effects of chlamydia.