December 6

1240 – The city of Kyiv falls to invading Mongols under Batu Khan.

1492 – Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Hispaniola during his first voyage of exploration.

1534 – The city of Quito, Ecuador is founded by Spanish settlers led by Sebastián de Belalcázar.

1790 – The U.S. Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia.

1865 – Georgia ratifies the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

1884 – The Washington Monument in Washington is completed.

1904 – In his State of the Union message, President Roosevelt gives his “Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the U.S. would intervene in the Western Hemisphere should Latin American governments prove incapable or unstable, forming the basis for the ‘Banana Wars’ in Central America.

1907 – Explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company No. 6 and No. 8 mines in Monongah, West Virginia, kill 362 workers.

1912 – The limestone bust of Nefertiti, the royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten is discovered by archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt in the Amarna excavations of the workshop of court sculptor Thutmose.

1917 – During World War I, the USS Jacob Jones is the first American destroyer to be sunk by enemy action, when it is torpedoed by German submarine SM U-53.

1923– President Coolidge’s address to Congress when it reconvened is the first presidential speech broadcast on radio.

1928 – The government of Colombia sends military forces to suppress a month long strike by workers of the United Fruit Company, resulting in an unknown number of deaths.

1933 – In the case of United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, Southern District of New York federal judge John M. Woolsey rules that James Joyce’s novel Ulysses is not obscene.

1941 – During World War II, Special Training School No. 103, nicknamed “Camp X”, located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario between Whitby and Oshawa in Ontario, opens to train Allied personnel of the Special Operations Executive, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and American Office of Strategic Services, how to perform clandestine operations behind enemy lines

1957 – A launchpad explosion of rocket Vanguard TV3 at Cape Canaveral,  thwarts the first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite into Earth orbit.

1967 – Adrian Kantrowitz performs the first human heart transplant in the U.S. but the patient only lives for 6 hours afterwards.

1973 – By terms of the 25th amendment, the U.S. House votes 387–35 to confirm Michigan Representative Gerald Ford’s nomination as Vice President of the United States and he is sworn into office.

1998 – Hugo Chávez is elected as president of Venezuela

2006 – NASA displays photographs taken by the Mars Global Surveyor  suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars.

2017 – Donald Trump announces the U.S. official recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

2022 –The last of 1,574 Boeing 747 jets rolls off the production line in Everett, Washington.