September 6

What happened that day?

• 2012: Sixty-one people die after a fishing boat capsizes off the İzmir Province coast of Turkey, near the Greek Aegean islands.
• 2009: The ro-ro ferry SuperFerry 9 sinks off the Zamboanga Peninsula in the Philippines with 971 persons aboard; all but ten are rescued.
• 2007: Israel executes the air strike Operation Orchard to destroy a nuclear reactor in Syria.
• 1997: The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales takes place in London. Well over a million people lined the streets and 2.5 billion watched around the world on television.
• 1995: Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking a record that had stood for 56 years.
• 1991: The name Saint Petersburg is restored to Russia's second largest city, which had been known as Leningrad since 1924.
• 1991: The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
• 1986: In Istanbul, two terrorists from Abu Nidal's organization kill 22 and wound six congregants inside the Neve Shalom Synagogue during Shabbat services.
• 1983: The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, stating that its operatives did not know that it was a civilian aircraft when it reportedly violated Soviet airspace.
• 1976: Cold War: Soviet Air Defence Forces pilot Viktor Belenko lands a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States; his request is granted.
• 1972: Munich massacre: Nine Israeli athletes die (along with a German policeman) at the hands of the Palestinian "Black September" terrorist group after being taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games. Two other Israeli athletes were slain in the initial attack the previous day.
• 1970: Two passenger jets bound from Europe to New York are simultaneously hijacked by Palestinian terrorist members of the PFLP and taken to Dawson's Field, Jordan.
• 1968: Swaziland becomes independent.
• 1966: Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, is stabbed to death in Cape Town, South Africa during a parliamentary meeting.
• 1965: India retaliates following Pakistan's Operation Grand Slam which results in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 that ends in a stalemate and follows the signing of the Tashkent Declaration.
• 1962: Archaeologist Peter Marsden discovers the first of the Blackfriars Ships dating back to the 2nd century AD in the Blackfriars area of the banks of the River Thames in London.
• 1962: The United States government begins the Exercise Spade Fork nuclear readiness drill.
• 1955: Istanbul's Greek, Jewish, and Armenian minorities are the target of a government-sponsored pogrom; dozens are killed in ensuing riots.
• 1952: A prototype aircraft crashes at the Farnborough Airshow in Hampshire, England, killing 29 spectators and the two on board.
• 1949: Allied military authorities relinquish control of former Nazi Germany assets back to German control.
• 1946: United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes announces that the U.S. will follow a policy of economic reconstruction in postwar Germany.
• 1944: World War II: Soviet forces capture the city of Tartu, Estonia.
• 1944: World War II: The city of Ypres, Belgium is liberated by Allied forces.
• 1943: Pennsylvania Railroad's premier train derails at Frankford Junction in Philadelphia, killing 79 people and injuring 117 others.
• 1943: The [Monterrey](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Monterrey) Institute of Technology is founded in Monterrey, Mexico as one of the largest and most influential private universities in Latin America.
• 1940: King Carol II of Romania abdicates and is succeeded by his son Michael.
• 1939: World War II: South Africa declares war on Nazi Germany.
• 1939: World War II: Britain suffers its first fighter pilot casualty of the Second World War at the Battle of Barking Creek as a result of friendly fire.
• 1930: Democratically elected Argentine president Hipólito Yrigoyen is deposed in a military coup.
• 1916: The first self-service grocery store Piggly Wiggly was opened in Memphis, Tennessee by Clarence Saunders.
• 1901: Leon Czolgosz, an unemployed anarchist, shoots and fatally wounds US President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
• 1885: Eastern Rumelia declares its union with Bulgaria, thus accomplishing Bulgarian unification.
• 1870: Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.
• 1863: American Civil War: Confederate forces evacuate Battery Wagner and Morris Island in South Carolina.
• 1861: American Civil War: Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant bloodlessly capture Paducah, Kentucky, giving the Union control of the Tennessee River's mouth.
• 1847: Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts.
• 1803: British scientist John Dalton begins using symbols to represent the atoms of different elements.
• 1781: The Battle of Groton Heights takes place, resulting in a British victory.
• 1642: England's Long Parliament suppresses all stage plays in theatres.
• 1634: Thirty Years' War: In the Battle of Nördlingen, the Catholic Imperial army defeats Swedish and German Protestant forces.
• 1628: Puritans settle Salem which became part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• 1620: The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England on the Mayflower to settle in North America. (Old Style date; September 16 per New Style date.)
• 1522: The Victoria returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition and the first ship to circumnavigate the world.
• 1492: Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.
• 394: Battle of the Frigidus: Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeats and kills Eugenius the usurper. His Frankish magister militum Arbogast escapes but commits suicide two days later.