This Day in History
On Aug. 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.)
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In 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia and Serbia declared war against Germany. In 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel, arriving in Kingsdown, England, from France in 14½ hours. 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 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov became the second man to orbit Earth as he flew aboard Vostok 2; his call sign, “Eagle,” prompted his famous declaration: “I am Eagle!” In 1962, Jamaica, formerly ruled by Britain, became an independent dominion within the Commonwealth of Nations. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. In 1973, former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, 72, died in exile in Spain. 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 1997, Korean Air Flight 801 crashed into a hillside a short distance from Guam International Airport, killing 228 of the 254 aboard the Boeing 747. In 1999, in Canton, Texas, a 36-year-old woman facing lifelong heart problems that she blamed on the diet drug combination fen-phen was awarded $23.3 million in the first such lawsuit to reach a jury. (The case was settled for less than a tenth of that amount during an appeal.) In 2003, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger used an appearance on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” to announce his successful bid to replace California Gov. Gray Davis.