06 March History
- 1521 - Ferdinand Magellan discovers Guam.
- 1820 - The Missouri Compromise is enacted by Congress and signed by President James Monroe, providing for the admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave state, but prohibits slavery in the rest of the northern Louisiana Purchase territory.
- 1836 - After fighting for 13 days, the Alamo falls.
- 1853 - Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata premieres in Venice.
- 1857 - The Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision holds that blacks cannot be citizens.
- 1860 - While campaigning for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln makes a speech defending the right to strike.
- 1862 - The USS Monitor left New York with a crew of 63, seven officers and 56 seamen.
- 1884 - Over 100 suffragists, led by Susan B. Anthony, present President Chester A. Arthur with a demand that he voice support for female suffrage.
- 1888 - Louisa May Alcott dies just hours after the burial of her father.
- 1899 - Aspirin is patented following Felix Hoffman's discoveries about the properties of acetylsalicylic acid.
- 1901 - A would-be assassin tries to kill Wilhelm II of Germany in Bremen.
- 1914 - German Prince Wilhelm de Wied is crowned as King of Albania.
- 1916 - The Allies recapture Fort Douamont in France during the Battle of Verdun.
- 1928 - A Communist attack on Beijing results in 3,000 dead and 50,000 fleeing to Swatow.
- 1939 - In Spain, Jose Miaja takes over Madrid government after a military coup and vows to seek "peace with honor."
- 1943 - British RAF fliers bomb Essen and the Krupp arms works in the Ruhr, Germany.
- 1945 - Cologne, Germany, falls to General Courtney Hodges' First Army.
- 1947 - Winston Churchill opposes the withdrawal of troops from India.
- 1948 - During talks in Berlin, the Western powers agree to internationalize the Ruhr region.
- 1953 - Upon Josef Stalin's death, Georgi Malenkov is named Soviet premier.
- 1960 - The Swiss grant women the right to vote in municipal elections.
- 1965 - The United States announces that it will send 3,500 troops to Vietnam.
- 1967 - President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his plan to establish a draft lottery.
- 1973 - President Richard Nixon imposes price controls on oil and gas.
- 1975 - Iran and Iraq announce that they have settled the border dispute.
- 1980 - Islamic militants in Tehran say that they will turn over the American hostages to the Revolutionary Council.
- 1981 - President Reagan announces plans to cut 37,000 federal jobs.
- 1987 - The British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in the Channel off the coast of Belgium. At least 26 are dead.
06 March Birthdays
- 1475 - Michelangelo Buonarroti, painter, sculptor and architect.
- 1806 - Elizabeth Barret Browning, poet (Sonnets from the Portuguese).
- 1831 - Philip Henry Sheridan, Union Army general.
- 1885 - Ring Lardner, writer (You Know Me, Al).
- 1899 - Richard Leo Simon, publisher, partner of Max Schuster.
- 1908 - Lou Costello, American comedian, partner of Bud Abbott.
- 1928 - Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Columbian-born novelist (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera).
- 1937 - Valentina Nikolayeva-Tereshkova, Russian astronaut, the first woman to orbit the Earth.
- 1944 - Dame Kiri Te Kannawa, operatic soprano.