March 6

12 BC – The Roman Emperor Augustus is named Pontifex Maximus – Greatest Priest – the chief high priest of the pagan College of Pontiffs in ancient Rome, adding that title to Emperor.

845 – The 42 Martyrs of Amorium, taken prisoner years earlier during the sack of that byzantine city, are killed after refusing to convert to Islam.

961 – The byzantine army under the command of Nikephoros Phokas conquers the moslem fortress Rabḍ al-Handaq at Heraklion, completing the retaking of the island of Crete.

1521 – During his circumnavigation, Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Guam.

1820 – The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe.

1836 – After a 13 day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops under Generalissimo Santa Anna, the 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and Colonel Jim Bowie, defending the Alamo are killed and the fort captured.

1857 – In the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court rules 7–2 in that the Constitution does not confer citizenship on black people.

1899 – Bayer registers “Aspirin” as a trademark.

1933 – During the Great Depression, 2 days after his inauguration, President Roosevelt declares a “bank holiday”, closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions until Congress can pass a Emergency Banking Relief Act on March 9 that reopens banks on March 13.

1946 – Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.

1951 – The trial of Soviet spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

1953 – At the death of Joseph Stalin the previous day, Georgy Malenkov succeeds him as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1970 – Members of the terrorist Weather Underground succeed in detonating several bombs they were making at a safe house in Greenwich Village, killing 3 of them.

1975 – For the first time the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown in motion to a national TV audience by Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory.

2018 – Forbes financial service names Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person, for the first time, at $112 billion net worth.