6 August 2024 (MIA)

1284 – The Republic of Pisa is defeated in the Battle of Meloria by the Republic of Genoa, thus losing its naval dominance in the Mediterranean.

1506 – The Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the Crimean Khanate in the Battle of Kletsk

1538 – Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada.

1661 – The Treaty of The Hague is signed by Portugal and the Dutch Republic.

1806 – Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, abdicates, ending the Holy Roman Empire.

1825 – Bolivia gains independence from Spain.

1861 – The United Kingdom annexes Lagos, Nigeria.

1890 – At Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair.

1900 – Pop-Stavrev Affair: Ottoman authorities sends Macedonian revolutionary Dame Gruev to prison. First he served his sentence in Bitola, but later he was sent to exile in Podrum Kale in Asia Minor. After being pardoned in 1903, Gruev resumed his activities.

1914 – World War I: First Battle of the Atlantic: Two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea.

1914 – World War I: Serbia declares war on Germany; Austria declares war on Russia.

1915 – World War I: Battle of Sari Bair: The Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay.

1917 – World War I: Battle of Mărășești between the Romanian and German armies begins.

1926 – Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel.

1940 – Estonia was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union.

1944 – The Warsaw Uprising occurs on August 1. It is brutally suppressed and all able-bodied men in Kraków are detained afterwards to prevent a similar uprising, the Kraków Uprising, that was planned but never carried out.

1945 – World War II: Hiroshima, Japan is devastated when the atomic bomb “Little Boy” is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people are killed instantly, and some tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning.

1960 – Cuban Revolution: Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.

1962 – Jamaica becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

1986 – A low-pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328 millimeters (13 inches) of rain in a day on Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

1990 – Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council orders a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet.

1991 – Takako Doi, chair of the Social Democratic Party, becomes Japan’s first female speaker of the House of Representatives.

1996 – NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms.

1997 – Korean Air Flight 801 crashed at Nimitz Hill, Guam killing 228 of 254 people on board.

2001 – Erwadi fire incident, 28 mentally ill persons tied to chain were burnt to death at a faith based institution at Erwadi, Tamil Nadu.

2008 – A military junta led by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz stages a coup d’état in Mauritania, overthrowing president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi.

2010 – Flash floods across a large part of Jammu and Kashmir, India, damages 71 towns and kills at least 255 people.

2011 – A march in protest of the death of Mark Duggan in Tottenham, London, ends in a riot, sparking off a wave of rioting throughout the country over the following four nights.

2011 – War in Afghanistan: A United States military helicopter is shot down, killing 30 American special forces members and a working dog, 7 Afghan soldiers, and 1 Afghan civilian. It was the deadliest single event for the United States in the War in Afghanistan.

2012 – NASA’s Curiosity rover lands on the surface of Mars.

2015 – A suicide bomb attack kills at least 15 people at a mosque in the south-western Saudi city of Abha.

2016 – Skopje is hit by a deadly flood following torrential rains lasting for several hours. Strong winds of up to 80 km per hour have been recorded. The storm claimed the lives of 22 people and a 16-month baby girl was reported missing.