November 6

Events

• 1528 - Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca becomes the first known European to set foot on Texas.
• 1789 - Pope Pius VI appoints Father John Carroll as the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States.
• 1844 - The Dominican Republic gains its independence from Spain.
• 1860 - U.S. presidential election, 1860: Abraham Lincoln is elected as the 16th President of the United States, the first Republican to hold that office.
• 1861 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.
• 1869 - In New Brunswick, New Jersey, the first official intercollegiate American football game is played.
• 1888 - U.S. presidential election, 1888: Democrat incumbent Grover Cleveland wins the overall popular vote, but is voted out of office because he loses in the Electoral College to Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison.
• 1900 - U.S. presidential election, 1900: Republican incumbent William McKinley is reelected by defeating Democrat challenger William Jennings Bryan.
• 1913 - Mohandas Gandhi is arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.
• 1917 - World War I: Third Battle of Ypres ends: After three months of fierce fighting, Canadian forces take Ypres in Belgium.
• 1918 - The Second Polish Republic is proclaimed in Poland.
• 1928 - Swedes start a tradition of eating Gustavus Adolphus pastries to commemorate the king.
• 1928 - U.S. presidential election, 1928: Republican Herbert Hoover wins by a wide margin over Democrat Alfred E. Smith.
• 1935 - Before the New York section of the Institute of Radio Engineers, Edwin Armstrong presents his paper "A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation" (see: FM radio).
• 1939 - The Hedda Hopper Show debuts with Hollywood gossip Hedda Hopper as host (the show ran until 1951 and made Hopper a powerful figure in the Hollywood elite).
• 1941 - World War II: Soviet leader Josef Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule (the first time was earlier that year on July 2). He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers (a wildly false lie) and that Soviet victory was near.
• 1947 - Meet The Press makes its television debut (the show went to a weekly schedule on September 12, 1948).
• 1956 - U.S. presidential election, 1956: Republican incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower is reelected by defeating Democrat challenger Adlai E. Stevenson in a rematch of their contest four years earlier.
• 1957 - Félix Gaillard becomes Prime Minister of France
• 1962 - Apartheid: The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies and calls for all UN member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation.
• 1963 - Vietnam War: Following the November 1 coup and murder of President Ngo Dinh Diem, coup leader General Duong Van Minh takes over leadership of South Vietnam.
• 1965 - Freedom Flights begin: Cuba and the United States formally agree to start an airlift for Cubans who want to go to the United States (by 1971 250,000 Cubans take advantage of this program).
• 1975 - Green March begins: 300,000 unarmed Moroccans converge on the southern city of Tarfaya and wait for a signal from King Hassan II of Morocco to cross into Western Sahara.
• 1977 - The Kelly Barnes Dam, located above Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia, fails, killing 39.
• 1985 - In Colombia, leftist guerrillas of the April 19 Movement seize control of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá. By the next day 115 people are dead, 11 of them Supreme Court justices).
• 1999 - Australians vote to keep the British queen as their head of state.

Births

• 15 or 16 - Agrippina the younger, Roman empress († 59)
• 1814 - Adolphe Sax, saxophone inventor
• 1851 - Charles Dow, journalist, economist
• 1854 - John Philip Sousa, composer († 1932)
• 1860 - Ignace Paderewski, composer, politician
• 1861 - James Naismith, inventor of basketball († 1939)
• 1880 - Robert Musil, novelist (The Man Without Qualities) († 1942)
• 1892 - Harold Ross, editor (The New Yorker)
• 1910 - Erik Ode, film director and actor († 1983)
• 1916 - Ray Conniff, composer, conductor
• 1921 - Julius Hackethal, physician († 1991)
• 1921 - James Jones, writer († 1977)
• 1928 - Peter Matz, composer († 2002)
• 1931 - Mike Nichols, director
• 1946 - Sally Fields, actress
• 1948 - Glenn Frey, singer ("The Eagles")
• 1949 - Arturo Sandoval, trumpeter
• 1955 - Maria Shriver, journalist and First Lady of California
• 1970 - Ethan Hawke, actor

Deaths

• 1632 - King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (Julian Calendar)
• 1672 - Heinrich Schütz, composer
• 1769 - Catherine II of Russia
• 1816 - Gouverneur Morris, lawmaker and diplomat
• 1836 - King Charles X of France
• 1893 - Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer
• 1925 - Khai Dinh, Emperor of Vietnam
• 1991 - Gene Tierney, actress
• 2000 - L. Sprague De Camp, science fiction writer
• 2000 - David R. Brower, founder of many environmentalist organizations
• 2001 - Anthony Shaffer, filmwriter
• 2003 - Rie Mastenbroek, Dutch swimmer

Holidays and Observances

• Dominican Republic - Constitution Day
• Morocco - Anniversary of the Green March
• Sweden - Death of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden an official flag day

See also: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Referenced By