This day in history
Today is Sunday, Aug. 6, the 218th day of 2023. There are 147 days left in the year.
▶ Birthdays: Children’s performer Ella Jenkins is 99. Actor-director Peter Bonerz is 85. Actor Louise Sorel is 83. Actor Michael Anderson Jr. is 80. Actor Ray Buktenica is 80. Actor Dorian Harewood is 73. Actor Catherine Hicks is 72. Rock singer Pat MacDonald (Timbuk 3) is 71. Actor Stepfanie Kramer is 67. Actor Faith Prince is 66. R&B singer Randy DeBarge is 65. Actor Leland Orser is 63. Actor Michelle Yeoh is 61. Country singers Patsy and Peggy Lynn are 59. Basketball Hall of Famer David Robinson is 58. Actor Jeremy Ratchford is 58. Actor Benito Martinez is 55. Country singer Lisa Stewart is 55. Movie writer-director M. Night Shyamalan is 53. Actor Merrin Dungey is 52. Singer Geri Halliwell Horner is 51. Actor Jason O’Mara is 51. Actor Vera Farmiga is 50. Actor Leslie Odom Jr. is 42. Actor Romola Garai is 41. US Olympic and WNBA basketball star A’ja Wilson is 27.
▶ In 1806, the Holy Roman Empire went out of existence as Emperor Francis II abdicated.
▶ In 1825, Upper Peru became the autonomous republic of Bolivia.
▶ In 1942, Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands became the first reigning queen to address a joint session of Congress, telling lawmakers that despite Nazi occupation, her people’s motto remained, “No surrender.”
▶ In 1945, during World War II, the US B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb code-named “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan, resulting in an estimated 140,000 deaths.
▶ 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 1991, the World Wide Web made its public debut as a means of accessing webpages over the Internet.
▶ In 1993, Louis Freeh won Senate confirmation to be FBI director.
▶ In 2003, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger used an appearance on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” to announce his bid to replace California Governor Gray Davis.
▶ In 2009, Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice by a Senate vote of 68-31.
▶ In 2011, insurgents shot down a US military helicopter during fighting in eastern Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans, most of them belonging to the same elite Navy commando unit that had slain Osama bin Laden; seven Afghan commandos also died.
▶ In 2013, President Obama said during an appearance on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” that he was “disappointed” that Russia had granted temporary asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, defying administration demands that the former government contractor be sent back to the US to face espionage charges. US Army Major 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.)
▶ In 2018, twin Northern California wildfires grew to become the largest wildfire in state history, burning more than 440 square miles north of San Francisco.