TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Thursday, Aug. 6, the 219th day of 2020. There are 147 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in
History: On August 6, 1945, during World War II, the U.S. B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb code-named "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan, resulting in an estimated 140,000 deaths. (Three days later, the United States exploded a nuclear device over Nagasaki; five days after that, Imperial Japan surrendered.) On this date:
In 1809, one of the leading literary figures of the Victorian era, poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England.
In 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel, arriving in Kingsdown, England, from France in 14 1/2 hours.
In 1930, New York State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Force Crater went missing after leaving a Manhattan restaurant; his disappearance remains a mystery.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.
In 1973, entertainer Stevie Wonder was seriously injured in a car accident in North Carolina.
In 1978, Pope Paul VI died at Castel Gandolfo at age 80.
In 1986, William J. Schroeder died at Humana Hospital-Audubon in Louisville, Kentucky, after living 620 days with the Jarvik 7 artificial heart.
In 1991, the World Wide Web made its public debut as a means of accessing webpages over the Internet. TV newsman Harry Reasoner died in Norwalk, Connecticut, at age 68.
In 2009, Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice by a Senate vote of 68-31. John Hughes, 59, Hollywood's youth movie director of the 1980s and '90s, died in New York City.
In 2013, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan went on trial at Fort Hood, Texas, charged with killing 13 people and wounding 32 others in a 2009 attack. (Hasan, who admitted carrying out the attack, was convicted and sentenced to death.)
Ten years ago: In a stunning announcement, Hewlett-Packard Co. said it had ousted CEO Mark Hurd after an investigation of a sexual harassment complaint found that he had falsified expense reports and other documents to conceal a relationship with a contractor.
Five years ago: Jon Stewart bade an emotional goodbye after 16 years as host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." "Hamilton," the hip-hop flavored biography about Alexander Hamilton, the nation's first treasury secretary, opened on Broadway.