TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Friday, Aug. 6, the 218th day of 2021. 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 1806, the Holy Roman Empire went out of existence as Emperor Francis II abdicated.

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, 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 1993, Louis Freeh won Senate confirmation to be FBI director.

In 2005, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier-son, Casey, was killed in Iraq, began a weeks-long protest outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch.

In 2009, Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice by a Senate vote of 68-31.

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.)

In 2015, "Hamilton," the hip-hop flavored biography about Alexander Hamilton, the nation's first treasury secretary, opened on Broadway. Jon Stewart bade an emotional goodbye after 16 years as host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."

Ten years ago: Insurgents shot down a U.S. 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.