What happened on June 6 ?

1508 - Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, is defeated in Friulia by Venetian forces; he is forced to sign a three-year truce and cede several territories to Venice

1513 - Italian Wars: Battle of Novara. Swiss troops defeat the French under Louis de la Tremoille, forcing the French to abandon Milan. Duke Massimiliano Sforza is restored.

1523 - Gustav Vasa is elected King of Sweden, marking the end of the Kalmar Union.

1654 - Charles X succeedes his abdicated cousin Queen Christina to the Swedish throne.

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

1752 - A devastating fire destroys one-third of Moscow, including 18,000 homes.

1809 - Sweden promulgates a new Constitution, which restores political power to the Riksdag of the Estates after 20 years of Enlightened absolutism.

1813 - War of 1812: Battle of Stoney Creek - A British force of 700 under John Vincent defeat an American force three times its size under William Winder and John Chandler.

1832 - The Barricades fall and the Student Uprisings of 1832 end.

1833 - U.S. President Andrew Jackson becomes the first President to ride a train.

1844 - The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London.

1857 - Sophia of Nassau marries the future King Oscar II of Sweden-Norway.

1859 - Australia: Queensland is established as a separate colony from New South Wales (Queensland Day).

1862 - American Civil War: Battle of Memphis - Union forces capture Memphis, Tennessee, from the Confederates.

1882 - More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay are killed as a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into the harbour.

1894 - Governor Davis H. Waite orders the Colorado state militia to protect and support the miners engaged in the Cripple Creek miners' strike.

1906 - Cunard Line's RMS Lusitania is launched at the John Brown & Company shipyard in Glasgow, Scotland.

1906 - Paris Metro Line 5 is inaugurated with a first section from Place d'Italie to the Gare d'Orléans (today known as Gare d'Austerlitz).

1912 - Eruption of Novarupta in Alaska begins. Second largest volcanic eruption in historic time.

1918 - Battle of Belleau Wood begins .

1925 - The Chrysler Corporation is founded by Walter Percy Chrysler.

1932 - The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon (1/4 ¢/L) sold.

1933 - The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey, United States.

1934 - New Deal: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

1944 - World War II: Battle of Normandy begins. D-Day, code named Operation Overlord, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.

1946 - The Basketball Association of America is formed in New York City.

1950 - Turkey: The Adhan in Arabic is legalized.

1956 - David Marshall, Singapore's first Chief Minister, resigns.

1964 - Under a temporary order, the rocket launches at Cuxhaven, Germany, are terminated, though they never resume.

1966 - James Meredith, civil rights activist, is shot while trying to march across Mississippi.

1968 - Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated by Los Angeles Palestinian resident Sirhan B. Sirhan after giving a speech at the Ambassador Hotel.

1969 - The first Internet connection was created when network control protocol packets were sent from the data port of one IMP to another

1971 - Soyuz program: Soyuz 11 launches.

1971 - A midair collision between a Hughes Airwest Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a U.S. Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom jet fighter near Duarte, California claims 50 lives.

1974 - A new Instrument of Government is promulgated making Sweden a parliamentary monarchy.

1981 - A passenger train travelling between Mansi and Saharsa, India, jumps the tracks at a bridge crossing the Bagmati river. The government places the official death toll at 268 plus another 300 missing; however, it is generally believed that the actual figure is closer to 1,000 killed.

1982 - 1982 Lebanon War begins: Forces under Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invade southern Lebanon in their "Operation Peace for the Galilee," eventually reaching as far north as the capital Beirut.

1984 - The Indian Army attacks the Golden Temple in Amritsar in an effort to flush out terrorists, following an order from Indira Gandhi. Official casualities are 576 combatants killed and 335 wounded; independent observers estimate that thousands of unarmed Sikh civilians are also killed in the crossfire.

1985 - The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is exhumed in Embu, Brazil; the remains found are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February 1979.

1990 - U.S. District court judge Jose Gonzales rules that the rap album As Nasty As They Wanna Be by the 2 Live Crew violates Florida's obscenity law; he declares that the predominant subject matter of the record is "directed to the 'dirty' thoughts and the loins, not to the intellect and the mind."

1993 - Mongolia holds its first direct presidential elections.

1999 - At the Putim maximum security prison in Brazil, 345 prisoners run from the main gate in the largest jailbreak in Brazilian history, marking the 10th escape for the three-year-old facility. In the ensuing manhunt, two fugitives are killed and five innocent bystanders are accidentally jailed.

2002 - A near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 metres diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

2005 - United States Supreme Court says no to medical marijuana.

2006 - Serbia declares independence from State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.