Today in History June 6

1639 – Massachusetts grants 500 acres of land to erect a gunpowder mill

1664 – New Amsterdam renamed New York

1683 – The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world’s first university museum.

1816 – 10″ snowfall in New England, “year without a summer”

1844 – Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) forms in London

1882 – Electric iron patented by Henry W Seely, in New York City

1896 – Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo leave NY harbor to row across Atlantic; their 55 day record for rowing was not broken for 114 years

1912 – The eruption of Novarupta in Alaska begins. It is the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

1933 – First drive-in theater opens in Camden, New Jersey

1942 – First nylon parachute jump in Hartford, Connecticut

1944 – 82nd Airborne division D-day-landing at Ste Mere Eglise

WWII D-Day: 150,000 Allied Expeditionary Force lands in Normandy, France

1968 – Senator Robert Kennedy dies from his wounds after he was shot the previous night

2002 – Eastern Mediterranean Event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 metres diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Seabetween Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion is estimated to havea force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

2012 – The Solar Impulse completes the world’s first intercontinental flight powered by the sun

1436 – Regiomontanus (Johannes Muller), prepares astronomical tables

1599 – Diego Velázquez, Spanish painter (d. 1660)

1755 – Nathan Hale, hanged patriot, had but one life to give for his country

1875 – Thomas Mann, Germany, novelist (Magic Mountain-Nobel 1929)

1906 – Max Zorn, German mathematician

1799 – Patrick Henry, American revolutionary (b. 1736)

1941 – Louis Chevrolet, American automotive pioneer (b. 1878)

1961 – Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychiatrist, dies at 85

1968 – Randolph Churchill, son of Winston Churchill (b. 1911)

1979 – Jack Haley,  (The Wizard of Oz), dies of a heart attack at 80

2006 – Arnold Newman, American photographer (b. 1918)