Today is Tuesday, Aug. 6, the 219th day of 2024. There are 147 days left in the year.
On Aug. 6, 1945, during World War II, the U.S. B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, resulting in an estimated 140,000 deaths.
In 1806, Emperor Francis II abdicated, marking the end of the Holy Roman Empire after nearly a thousand years.
In 1890, at Auburn Prison in Auburn, New York, William Kemmler became the first person to be executed via electric chair.
In 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel.
In 1942, Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands became the first reigning queen to address a joint session of Congress, telling lawmakers that despite Nazi occupation, her people’s motto remained, “No surrender.”
In 1945, during World War II, the U.S. B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb code-named “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan, resulting in an estimated 140,000 deaths.
In 1962, Jamaica gained independence from the United Kingdom after 300 years of British rule.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.
In 1991, the World Wide Web made its public debut as a means of accessing webpages over the Internet.
In 2011, insurgents shot down a U.S. military helicopter during fighting in eastern Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans, most of them belonging to the same elite Navy commando unit that had slain Osama bin Laden; seven Afghan commandos also died.
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