On This Day — 6 September

2022

Boris Johnson resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and is replaced by Liz Truss. Their meetings with Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle were the Queen's final official duties before her death two days later.

Boris Johnson

2022

Russo-Ukrainian war: Ukraine begins its Kharkiv counteroffensive, surprising Russian forces and retaking over 3,000 square kilometers of land, recapturing the entire Kharkiv Oblast west of the Oskil River, within the next week.

Russo-Ukrainian war

2018

Supreme Court of India decriminalised all consensual sex among adults in private, making homosexuality legal on the Indian lands.

Supreme Court of India

2013

Forty-one elephants are poisoned with cyanide in salt pans, by poachers in Hwange National Park.

Cyanide

2013

The first Minotaur V rocket is launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, carrying NASA's LADEE spacecraft.

Minotaur V

2012

Sixty-one people die after a fishing boat capsizes off the İzmir Province coast of Turkey, near the Greek Aegean islands.

September 2012 Baradan Bay, Turkey, migrant boat disaster

2009

The ro-ro ferry SuperFerry 9 sinks off the Zamboanga Peninsula in the Philippines with 971 persons aboard; all but ten are rescued.

Roll-on/roll-off

2007

Israel executes the air strike Operation Orchard to destroy a nuclear reactor in Syria.

Israel

2003

Mahmoud Abbas resigns from his position of Palestinian Prime Minister.

Mahmoud Abbas

1997

The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales takes place in London. Well over a million people line the streets and 21⁄2 billion watch around the world on television.

Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales

1997

Royal Brunei Airlines Flight 839 crashes in the Lambir Hills National Park while on approach to Miri Airport in Malaysia, killing 10.

Royal Brunei Airlines Flight 839

1995

Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking a record that had stood for 56 years.

Cal Ripken Jr.

1992

A group of hunters at the Stampede trail near Healy, Alaska came across a male corpse in abandoned bus, later identified as Christopher McCandless.

Healy, Alaska

1991

The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Soviet Union

1991

The Russian parliament approves the name change of Leningrad back to Saint Petersburg. The change is effective October 1.

Saint Petersburg

1986

In Istanbul, two terrorists from Abu Nidal's organization kill 22 and wound six congregants inside the Neve Shalom Synagogue during Shabbat services.

Istanbul

1985

Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105 crashes near Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing all 31 people on board.

Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105

1983

The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, stating that its operatives did not know that it was a civilian aircraft when it reportedly violated Soviet airspace.

Soviet Union

1976

Cold War: Soviet Air Defence Forces pilot Viktor Belenko lands a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States; his request is granted.

Cold War

1972

Munich massacre: Nine Israeli athletes die (along with a German policeman) at the hands of the Palestinian "Black September" terrorist group after being taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games. Two other Israeli athletes were slain in the initial attack the previous day.

Munich massacre

1971

Paninternational Flight 112 crashes on the Bundesautobahn 7 highway near Hamburg Airport, in Hamburg, Germany, killing 22.

Paninternational Flight 112

1970

Two passenger jets bound from Europe to New York are simultaneously hijacked by Palestinian terrorist members of the PFLP and taken to Dawson's Field, Jordan.

Palestinians

1968

Swaziland becomes independent.

Eswatini

1966

Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, is stabbed to death in Cape Town, South Africa during a parliamentary meeting.

Prime Minister of South Africa

1965

India retaliates following Pakistan's Operation Grand Slam which results in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 that ends in a stalemate followed by the signing of the Tashkent Declaration.

Operation Grand Slam

1962

The United States government begins the Exercise Spade Fork nuclear readiness drill.

Federal Emergency Plan D-Minus

1962

Archaeologist Peter Marsden discovers the first of the Blackfriars Ships dating back to the second century AD in the Blackfriars area of the banks of the River Thames in London.

Blackfriars shipwrecks

1955

Istanbul's Greek, Jewish, and Armenian minorities are the target of a government-sponsored pogrom; dozens are killed in ensuing riots.

Istanbul

1952

A prototype aircraft crashes at the Farnborough Airshow in Hampshire, England, killing 29 spectators and the two on board.

1952 Farnborough Airshow crash

1946

United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes announces that the U.S. will follow a policy of economic reconstruction in postwar Germany.

Restatement of Policy on Germany

1944

World War II: The city of Ypres, Belgium is liberated by Allied forces.

Ypres

1944

World War II: Soviet forces capture the city of Tartu, Estonia.

Tartu offensive

1943

The Monterrey Institute of Technology is founded in Monterrey, Mexico as one of the largest and most influential private universities in Latin America.

Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education

1943

Pennsylvania Railroad's premier train derails at Frankford Junction in Philadelphia, killing 79 people and injuring 117 others.

Pennsylvania Railroad

1940

King Carol II of Romania abdicates and is succeeded by his son Michael. General Ion Antonescu becomes the Conducător of Romania.

Carol II of Romania

1939

World War II: The British Royal Air Force suffers its first fighter pilot casualty of the Second World War at the Battle of Barking Creek as a result of friendly fire.

World War II

1939

World War II: Union of South Africa declares war on Germany.

Union of South Africa

1936

Spanish Civil War: The Interprovincial Council of Asturias and León is established.

Spanish Civil War

1930

Democratically elected Argentine president Hipólito Yrigoyen is deposed in a military coup.

Hipólito Yrigoyen

1915

World War I: The first tank prototype, developed by William Foster & Co. for the British army, was completed and given its first test drive.

British heavy tanks of the First World War

1914

World War I: The First Battle of the Marne, which would halt the Imperial German Army's advance into France, begins.

World War I

1901

Leon Czolgosz, an unemployed anarchist, shoots and fatally wounds US president William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

Leon Czolgosz

1885

Eastern Rumelia declares its union with Bulgaria, thus accomplishing Bulgarian unification.

Eastern Rumelia

1870

Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.

Louisa Swain

1863

American Civil War: Confederate forces evacuate Battery Wagner and Morris Island in South Carolina.

Confederate States of America

1861

American Civil War: Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant bloodlessly capture Paducah, Kentucky, giving the Union control of the Tennessee River's mouth.

American Civil War

1803

British scientist John Dalton begins using symbols to represent the atoms of different elements.

John Dalton

1781

American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Groton Heights takes place, resulting in a British victory.

American Revolutionary War

1634

Thirty Years' War: In the Battle of Nördlingen, the Catholic Imperial army defeats Swedish and German Protestant forces.

Thirty Years' War

1628

Puritans settle Salem, which became part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Puritans

1622

The Spanish treasure galleon Atocha sinks during a hurricane off Key West in the Straits of Florida, taking 40 short tons (36 t) of gold and silver and 260 of its 265 passengers and crew to the bottom.

Galleon

1620

The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England on the Mayflower to settle in North America. (Old Style date; September 16 per New Style date.)

Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony)

1522

The Victoria returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition and the first known ship to circumnavigate the world.

Victoria (ship)

1492

Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.

Christopher Columbus

394

Battle of the Frigidus: Roman emperor Theodosius I defeats and kills Eugenius the usurper. His Frankish magister militum Arbogast escapes but commits suicide two days later.

Battle of the Frigidus