more events on May 6
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1994
The Channel Tunnel linking England to France is officially opened.
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1962
The first nuclear warhead is fired from a Polaris submarine.
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1960
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
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1954
British runner Roger Bannister breaks the four minute mile.
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1945
Axis Sally makes her final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.
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1944
The Red Army besieges and captures Sevastopol in the Crimea.
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1942
Ariel Dorfman, Chilean writer (Death and the Maiden).
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General Jonathan Wainwright surrenders Corregidor to the Japanese.
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1941
Bob Hope gives his first USO show at California’s March Field.
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1937
The dirigible Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
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1931
Willie Mays, baseball player.
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1915
Orson Welles, actor, director, and writer (Citizen Kane).
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1902
Max Ophuls, film director (La Ronde, Lola Montes).
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1895
Rudolph Valentino, actor, film icon.
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1888
Russell Stover, candy manufacturer.
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1877
Chief Crazy Horse surrenders to U.S. troops in Nebraska. Crazy Horse brought General George Custer to his end.
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1868
Gaston Leroux, French novelist (The Phantom of the Opera).
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1864
In the second day of the Battle of the Wilderness between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet is wounded by his own men.
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1862
Henry David Thoreau dies of tuberculosis at age 44.
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1861
Arkansas becomes the ninth state to secede from the Union.
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1856
Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis.
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Robert Edward Peary, arctic explorer and the first man to reach the North Pole.
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U.S. Army troops from Fort Tejon and Fort Miller prepare to ride out to protect Keyesville, California, from Yokut Indian attack.
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1840
Frederick William Stowe, son of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
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1758
Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary.
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1740
John Penn, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
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1682
King Louis XIV moves his court to Versailles, France.
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1529
Babur defeats the Afghan Chiefs in the Battle of Ghaghra, India.
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1527
German troops begin sacking Rome. Libraries are destroyed, the Pope is captured and thousands are killed.
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973
Henry II, Holy Roman emperor.