6 National Days to Celebrate on August 6, 2026

Born on August 6

People born on August 6

1766

William Hyde Wollaston

Chemist and physicist who discovered the chemical elements palladium and rhodium.

1848

Susie Taylor

The first African-American nurse during the American Civil War.

1962

Michelle Yeoh

Malaysian-Hong Kong actress who is considered one of the greatest female action movie stars. She is easily recognized for her roles in Tomorrow Never Dies and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

1911

Lucille Ball

Actress, television producer and businesswoman known for her role in I Love Lucy. She was also the first women to run a major television studio (Desilu Productions) which approved and produced the original pilots and early seasons for Star Trek and Mission: Impossible.

1881

Leo Carrillo

Actor best known for his role as Pancho in the television series The Cisco Kid.

1943

Jon Postel

Computer scientist who was a major contributor to the creation of the Internet.

1880

Jonathan Homer Lane

Astrophysicist who mathematically analyzed the Sun as a gaseous body.

1901

Arthur Simon Flegenheimer

Mobster known as Dutch Schultz who was based in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s.

1928

Andy Warhol

Painter, photographer and film director who was a leading figure in the Pop Art movement. He is said to have coined the phrase "15 minutes of fame."

1881

Alexander Fleming

Scottish biologist, pharmacologist, and botanist who discovered penicillin and it's uses to treat infections.

Historical Events on August 6

Events that occurred on August 6 throughout history

1819

August 6, 1819

Norwich University is founded in Vermont and becomes the first private military school in the U.S.

1901

August 6, 1901

Kiowa land in Oklahoma is opened for white settlement, effectively dissolving the reservation and replacing tribal lands with individual allotments and homesteads for outsiders.

1914

August 6, 1914

German U-boats leave their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea in response to the UK declaring war on Germany of the German invasion of Belgium.

1926

August 6, 1926

Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel. The 19-year old swam 21 miles from France to England in 14 hours and 31 minutes. She beat the standing men's record by two hours.

1942

August 6, 1942

Queen Wilhelmina (Netherlands) becomes the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress. Her message emphasized unity with Allied forces and shared the "No surrender" motto as she referred to her own nation being under Nazi occupation.

1945

August 6, 1945

The U.S. drops the atomic bomb "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan. The bomb kills around 70,000 people instantly, and tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning.

1960

August 6, 1960

Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation, including oil refineries, sugar mills, and mines. As result, the U.S. severed diplomatic ties and imposed economic sanctions.

1962

August 6, 1962

Jamaica becomes independent from the United Kingdom after 300 years of British rule.

1965

August 6, 1965

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. The Act outlawed discriminatory voting tests, authorized federal examiners to register qualified voters in areas with persistent racial discrimination and directed the Attorney General to challenge poll taxes in state and local elections

1991

August 6, 1991

English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web as a publicly available service on the Internet. Berners-Lee invented HTML, the URL system, and HTTP.

2011

August 6, 2011

A U.S. military helicopter is shot down in Afghanistan, killing 30 American special forces members and a working dog, seven Afghan soldiers, and one Afghan civilian. It was the deadliest single event for the U.S. in the War in Afghanistan.

2012

August 6, 2012

NASA's Curiosity rover lands on the surface of Mars with a goal of finding out if Mars could support tiny life form.