April 6 Events In History

EVENTS

• 1896 – After a break of 1500 years, the first Olympics of the modern era was held in Athens, Greece.
• 1909 – Robert Peary allegedly becomes the first person to reach the North Pole. Peary’s claim has never been verified and is widely contested. The first undisputed journey to the North Pole was the 1948 Soviet Sever-2 expedition.

  

• 1917 – World War I: United States declares war on Germany.
• 1924 – A team of aviators begins the first round-the-world flight in history. Four aircraft left Seattle on a westbound route around the globe. 157 days later, two of them reached the same location.
• 1930 – The Hostess Twinkie is invented.
• 1931 – “Little Orphan Annie” debuts on NBC.
• 1965 – The first commercial communications satellite is launched. Intelsat I, also known as Early Bird, facilitated the first live TV broadcast of a spacecraft splashdown when Gemini 6 landed in the Atlantic Ocean.
• 1987 – Sugar Ray Leonard takes the middleweight boxing title from Marvin Hagler.
• 1994 – The beginning of genocide in Rwanda as a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down. They had been meeting to discuss ways of ending ethnic rivalries between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes. After their deaths, Rwanda descended into chaos, resulting in genocidal conflict between the tribes. Over 500,000 persons were killed with two million fleeing the country.

BIRTHDAYS

• 1926 – Sergio Franchi (Italian/American singer, actor)
• 1928 – James Watson (Molecular Biologist)
• 1929 – André Previn (German/American pianist, composer, conductor)
• 1937 – Merle Haggard (Singer)
• 1947 – John Ratzenberger (Actor)

  

• 1952 – Marilu Henner (Actress)
• 1963 – Rafael Correa (Ecuadorian politician, 54th President of Ecuador)
• 1969 – Paul Rudd (Actor)

DEATHS

• 1199 – Richard I of England

  

• 1520 – Raphael (Italian painter, architect)
• 1528 – Albrecht Dürer (German painter, engraver, mathematician)
• 1971 – Igor Stravinsky (Russian composer)
• 1992 – Isaac Asimov (American chemist, author)