June 6

1755 – Nathan Hale, patriot and Revolutionary War spy, is born in Coventry Connecticut.

1799 – Patrick Henry, American lawyer and politician, 1st Governor of Virginia dies, age 63 at Red Hill Virginia.

1813 – At the Battle of Stoney Creek, a British force under John Vincent defeats an American force twice its size under William Winder and John Chandler.

1844 – The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London.

1889 – In downtown Seattle, an accidentally overturned glue pot in the Clairmont and Company cabinet shop in the basement of the Pontius building starts “The Great Seattle Fire” which destroys 25 city blocks, including the entire downtown business district, 4 of the city’s wharves, and its railroad terminals, but only causing 1 known death

1894 – Governor Davis H. Waite orders the Colorado state militia to protect and support the the Western Federation of Miners workers engaged in the Cripple Creek miners’ strike.

1912 – On the Alaskan Katmai peninsula, the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century forms the Novarupta volcano.

1918 – During the Battle of Belleau Wood in World War I, while attempting to recapture the wood at Château-Thierry, the U.S. Marine Corps suffers 1087 casualties, more than it has taken in total before, and its worst single day’s count until the Battle of Tarawa in 1943.

1925 – The original Chrysler Corporation is founded by Walter Chrysler from the remains of the Maxwell Motor Company.

1934 – As part of the ‘New Deal’,  President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Exchange Act into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

1942 – During World War II, northwest of Midway island, U.S. Navy dive bombers flying off the carriers, Hornet, Yorktown and Enterprise, attack a Japanese invasion force and sink the Japanese navy cruiser Mikuma and 4 carriers; Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, which had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor, 6 months earlier.

1944 – During World War II, 155,000 Allied troops begin the invasion of France with landings on Normandy beaches along with airborne parachute and glider assaults further inland.

1971 – Hughes Airwest Flight 706,  a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, collides in midair with a Marine Corps F-4 Phantom jet over the San Gabriel Mountains, north of Los Angeles, killing all 49 passengers and crew aboard the commercial jet and the pilot of the fighter.

1985 – The grave of “Wolfgang Gerhard” is opened in Embu, Brazil. The  remains are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz’s “Angel of Death”.

2002 – A near Earth asteroid estimated at 10 meters in diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons of TNT, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.