November 6th in History

On This Day in History

  • Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America (1861)
  • The CSS Shenandoah becomes the last Confederate combat unit to surrender (1865)
  • Rutgers beats Princeton 6-4 in the first official intercollegiate American football game (1869)
  • Mohandas Gandhi is arrested in South Africa for leading a labor protest march (1913)
  • The Hawker Hurricane flies for the first time (1935)
  • Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility, providing material for the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki (1944)
  • Meet the Press debuts on television (1947)
  • The last burning Kuwaiti oil field following the Iraqi withdrawal after Desert Storm is extinguished (1991)

Birthdays

  • Adolphe Sax, musical instrument inventor (1814)
  • Charles Dow, economist and journalist (1851)
  • John Philip Sousa, composer (1854)
  • Ignacy Jan Paderewski, pianist and second prime minister of the Republic of Poland (1860)
  • James Naismith, inventor of basketball (1861)
  • Walter Johnson, baseball player (1887)
  • Harold Ross, co-founder of The New Yorker (1892)
  • Edsel Ford, car namesake (1893)
  • June Marlowe, Our Gang/Little Rascals schoolteacher (1903)
  • Jonathan Harris, Lost in Space villain (2002)
  • Ray Conniff, composer and conductor (1916)
  • James Jones, author (1921)
  • Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker (1926)
  • Mike Nichols, director and producer (1931)
  • Stonewall Jackson, honky tonk singer (1932)
  • Marco Vassi, author (1937)
  • Michael Schwerner, murdered civil rights activist (1939)
  • Sally Field, actress (1946)
  • Sidney Blumenthal, journalist (1948)
  • Glenn Frey, singer-songwriter (1948)
  • Arturo Sandoval, trumpet player (1949)
  • Rebecca Schaeffer, murdered actress (1967)
  • Ethan Hawke, actor and director (1970)
  • Rebecca Romijn, supermodel and actress (1972)
  • Pat Tillman, football player and Army Ranger (1976)
  • Emma Stone, actress (1988)

Deaths

  • Екатерина II Великая (Catherine the Great), Russian empress (1796 — O. S.; 17 Nov. Gregorian)
  • Gouverneur Morris, American politician (1816)
  • Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), composer (1893)
  • Erich Raeder, Kriegsmarine leader (1960)
  • Edgard Varèse, composer (1965)
  • Gene Tierney, actress (1991)
  • L. Sprague de Camp, science fiction writer (2000)
  • Sid Sackson, game designer (2002)
  • Hank Thompson, country singer-songwriter (2007)

Holidays

  • Constitution Day (Dominican Republic, Tajikistan, Tatarstan)
  • Finnish Swedish Heritage Day (Finland)
  • Green March (Morocco)
  • Gustavus Adolphus Day (Sweden)
  • International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict (International)
  • Marooned Without a Compass Day (informal, US)
  • National Men Make Dinner Day (informal, US)
  • National Nachos Day (US)
  • Saxophone Day (honoring the birthday of Adolphus Sax)

November 6 is the 310th day of the year (311th in leap years), with 55 days remaining until year’s end.