On This Day — 6 October
2000s
2025
The 2025 Alberta teachers' strike begins, leaving approximately 51,000 teachers off-work, impacting about 730,000 Albertan students.
2025 Alberta teachers' strike
2022
Annie Ernaux is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Annie Ernaux
2018
The United States Senate confirms Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court Associate Justice, ending a contentious confirmation process.
United States Senate
2010
Instagram, a mainstream photo-sharing application, is founded.
2007
Jason Lewis completes the first human-powered circumnavigation of the Earth.
Jason Lewis (adventurer)
1900s
1995
The first planet orbiting another sun, 51 Pegasi b, is discovered.
51 Pegasi b
1990
Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-41, and deploys the Ulysses space probe to study the Sun's polar regions.
Space Shuttle Discovery
1987
Fiji becomes a republic.
Fiji
1985
Police constable Keith Blakelock is murdered as riots erupt in the Broadwater Farm suburb of London.
Murder of Keith Blakelock
1981
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is murdered by Islamic extremists.
Anwar Sadat
1981
NLM CityHopper Flight 431 crashes in Moerdijk after taking off from Rotterdam The Hague Airport in the Netherlands, killing all 17 people on board.
NLM CityHopper Flight 431
1979
Pope John Paul II becomes the first pontiff to visit the White House.
Pope John Paul II
1977
The first prototype of the Mikoyan MiG-29, designated 9-01, makes its maiden flight.
Mikoyan MiG-29
1976
Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 is destroyed by two bombs, placed on board by an anti-Castro militant group.
Cubana de Aviación Flight 455
1976
Premier Hua Guofeng arrests the Gang of Four, ending the Cultural Revolution in China.
Hua Guofeng
1976
Dozens are killed by Thai police and right-wing paramilitaries in the Thammasat University massacre; afterwards, the Seni Pramoj government is toppled in a military coup led by Sangad Chaloryu.
6 October 1976 massacre
1973
Egypt and Syria launch coordinated attacks against Israel, beginning the Yom Kippur War.
Operation Badr (1973)
1944
World War II: Units of the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps enter Czechoslovakia during the Battle of the Dukla Pass.
1st Czechoslovak Army Corps in the Soviet Union
1943
World War II: Thirteen civilians are burnt alive by a paramilitary group in Crete during the Nazi occupation of Greece.
Burnings of Kali Sykia
1942
World War II: American troops force the Japanese from their positions east of the Matanikau River during the Battle of Guadalcanal.
Actions along the Matanikau
1939
World War II: The Battle of Kock is the final combat of the September Campaign in Poland.
World War II
1934
Revolution of 1934: The President of the autonomous government of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, proclaims the Catalan State with the support of the Worker's Alliance.
Events of 6 October
1927
Opening of The Jazz Singer, the first prominent "talkie" movie.
The Jazz Singer
1923
The Turkish National Movement enters Constantinople.
Turkish National Movement
1920
Ukrainian War of Independence: The Starobilsk agreement is signed by representatives of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Makhnovshchina.
Ukrainian War of Independence
1915
World War I: Combined Austro-Hungarian and German Central Powers, reinforced by the recently joined Bulgaria launched a new offensive against Serbia under command of August von Mackensen.
World War I
1915
World War I: Entente forces land in Thessaloniki, to open the Macedonian front against the Central Powers.
Allies of World War I
1910
Eleftherios Venizelos is elected Prime Minister of Greece for the first of seven times.
Eleftherios Venizelos
1908
The Bosnian crisis erupts when Austria-Hungary formally annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Bosnian Crisis
1903
The High Court of Australia sits for the first time.
High Court of Australia
1800s
1898
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the largest American music fraternity, is founded at the New England Conservatory of Music.
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
1884
The Naval War College of the United States is founded in Rhode Island.
Naval War College
1854
In England the Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead leads to 53 deaths and hundreds injured.
Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead
1849
The execution of the 13 Martyrs of Arad after the Hungarian war of independence.
The 13 Martyrs of Arad
1810
A large fire destroys a third of all the buildings in the town of Raahe in the Grand Duchy of Finland.
Raahe
Before 1800
1789
French Revolution: King Louis XVI is forced to change his residence from Versailles to the Tuileries Palace.
French Revolution
1777
American Revolutionary War: British forces capture Forts Clinton and Montgomery on the Hudson River.
American Revolutionary War
1762
Seven Years' War: The British capture Manila from Spain and occupy it.
Seven Years' War
1683
Immigrant families found Germantown, Pennsylvania in the first major immigration of German people to America.
Germantown, Philadelphia
1600
Euridice, the earliest surviving opera, receives its première performance, beginning the Baroque period.
Euridice (Peri)
1539
Spain's DeSoto expedition takes over the Apalachee capital of Anhaica for their winter quarters.
Hernando de Soto
618
Transition from Sui to Tang: Wang Shichong decisively defeats Li Mi at the Battle of Yanshi.
Transition from Sui to Tang
404
Byzantine Empress Eudoxia dies from the miscarriage of her seventh pregnancy.
AD 404
23
Rebels decapitate Wang Mang, only Emperor of the Xin Dynasty, after his capital was sacked during a peasant rebellion.
AD 23
-69
Third Mithridatic War: The military of the Roman Republic subdues Armenia.
Third Mithridatic War
-105
Cimbrian War: Defeat at the Battle of Arausio of the Roman army of the mid-Republic
Cimbrian War