May 6 is the 126th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (127th in leap years). There are 239 days remaining.

Events

• 1527 - Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance.
• 1682 - Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles.
• 1835 - James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald.
• 1861 - American Civil War: Arkansas secedes from the Union.
• 1877 - Realizing that his people were weakened by cold and hunger, Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
• 1889 - The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.
• 1910 - George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII.
• 1935 - New Deal: Executive Order 7034 creates the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
• 1937 - Hindenburg disaster: The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty six people are killed.
• 1940 - John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.
• 1941 - At California's March Field Bob Hope performs his first USO show.
• 1942 - World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.
• 1945 - World War II: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (first was on December 11, 1941).
• 1954 - Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.
• 1966 - Myra Hindley and Ian Brady are sentenced to life imprisonment for the Moors Murders in England.
• 1981 - A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Ying Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries.
• 1989 - In Lausanne, Switzerland, Riva win the thirty-fourth Eurovision Song Contest for Yugoslavia singing "Rock me".
• 1994 - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand inaugurate the opening of the Chunnel – a tunnel under the English Channel linking England and France for the first time since the end of the Great Ice Age.
• 1999 - In New York, a parole board votes to release Amy Fisher who had been in prison for 7 years for shooting her lover's wife.
• 2002 - Jean-Pierre Raffarin becomes Prime Minister of France.
• 2004 - President Bush apologizes for the humiliation suffered by Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. troops.
• 2004 - The last episode of the popular television sitcom Friends airs.
• 2005 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is released in UK theaters.

Births

• 1501 - Pope Marcellus II (d. 1555)
• 1574 - Pope Innocent X (d. 1655)
• 1758 - Maximilien Robespierre, revolutionary (d. 1794)
• 1758 - André Masséna, French soldier (d. 1817)
• 1856 - Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist, founder of psychoanalysis (d. 1939)
• 1856 - Robert Peary, explorer (d. 1920)
• 1861 - Rabindranath Tagore, author (d. 1941)
• 1868 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (d. 1918)
• 1868 - Gaston Leroux, writer (d. 1927)
• 1871 - Christian Morgenstern, author (d. 1914)
• 1879 - Bedřich Hrozný, Czech orientalist and linguist (d. 1952)
• 1880 - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, painter (d. 1938)
• 1882 - Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany, heir of Kaiser Wilhelm II (d. 1951)
• 1895 - Rudolph Valentino, actor (d. 1926)
• 1902 - Max Ophüls, director (d. 1957)
• 1902 - Harry Golden, U.S. journalist (d. 1981)
• 1904 - Moshe Feldenkrais, founder of the Feldenkrais Method (d. 1984)
• 1915 - Orson Welles, director (d. 1985)
• 1915 - Theodore H. White, writer (d. 1986)
• 1920 - Ross Hunter, producer (d. 1996)
• 1920 - Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, first Prime Minister and later President of Fiji (d. 2004)
• 1921 - Erich Fried, author (d. 1988)
• 1925 - Hanns Dieter Hüsch, cabaretist
• 1931 - Willie Mays, Baseball Hall of Famer
• 1937 - Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, boxer
• 1945 - Bob Seger, rock music singer
• 1945 - Jimmie Dale Gilmore, musician
• 1947 - Martha Nussbaum, philosopher
• 1953 - Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• 1955 - Tom Bergeron, game show host
• 1961 - George Clooney, actor
• 1970 - George Rivas, Texas 7 ringleader
• 1972 - Martin Brodeur, hockey player

Deaths

• 680 - Muawiyah I, Umayyad caliph (b. 602)
• 1502 - James Tyrrell, executed; alleged murderer of the Princes in the Tower (b. c. 1450)
• 1555 - Pope Marcellus II (b. 1501)
• 1859 - Alexander von Humboldt, German naturalist and explorer (b. 1769)
• 1862 - Henry David Thoreau, author and philosopher (b. 1817)
• 1902 - Bret Harte, American author (b. 1839)
• 1910 - King Edward VII of the United Kingdom (b. 1841)
• 1911 - George Maledon, hangman of 60 men
• 1919 - L. Frank Baum, writer (b. 1856)
• 1949 - Maurice Maeterlinck, poet, playwright, essayist (b. 1862)
• 1952 - Maria Montessori, educator (b. 1870)
• 1961 - Lucian Blaga, Romanian poet, playwright, philosopher (b. 1895)
• 1987 - William Casey, head of the Central Intelligence Agency (b. 1913)
• 1992 - Marlene Dietrich, actress (b. 1901)

May 5 – May 7 – April 6 – June 6 – listing of all days