What happened on September 6 ?

3114 BC - On this date in the proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started.

394 - Battle of the Frigidus: The Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeats and kills the pagan usurper Eugenius and his Frankish magister militum Arbogast.

1522 - The Victoria, one of the surviving ships of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world.

1620 - The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America.

1628 - Puritans settle Salem, which will later become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1776 - Hurricane hits Guadeloupe, killing more than 6000.

1781 - The Battle of Groton Heights takes place, resulting a British minor victory

1847 - Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts.

1861 - American Civil War: Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant bloodlessly capture Paducah, Kentucky, which gives the Union control of the mouth of the Tennessee River.

1863 - American Civil War: Confederates evacuate Battery Wagner and Morris Island in South Carolina.

1870 - Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.

1885 - Eastern Rumelia declares its union with Bulgaria. The Unification of Bulgaria is accomplished.

1888 - Charles Turner becomes the first bowler to take 250 wickets in an English season - a feat since accomplished only by Tom Richardson (twice), J.T. Hearne, Wilfred Rhodes (twice) and Tich Freeman (six times).

1901 - Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds US President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

1915 - The first prototype tank is tested for the British Army for the first time.

1936 - The last surviving member of the thylacine species, Benjamin, dies alone in her cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.

1937 - Spanish Civil War: The start of the Battle of El Mazuco.

1939 - World War II: South Africa declares war on Germany.

1941 - Holocaust: The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word Jew inscribed, is extended to all Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas.

1944 - World War II: The city of Ypres, Belgium is liberated by allied forces.

1948 - Juliana becomes Queen of the Netherlands.

1949 - Allied military authorities relinquish control of former Nazi Germany assets back to German control.

1952 - Canada's first television station, CBFT-TV, opens in Montreal.

1955 - Istanbul Pogrom: Istanbul's Greek minority is the target of a government-sponsored pogrom.

1963 - The Centre for International Industrial Property Studies (CEIPI) is founded.

1965 - War of 1965: India attacks Pakistan and announces that its forces will capture Lahore (city of Pakistan) in an hour.

1966 - In Cape Town, South Africa, the architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, is stabbed to death during a parliamentary meeting.

1968 - Swaziland becomes independent.

1970 - Jimi Hendrix plays what turns out to be his last ever performance, at the badly controlled and rained out Love and Peace Festival, on the Isle Of Fehmarn, Germany.

1970 - Four passenger jets bound from Europe to New York are simultaneously hijacked by Palestinian terrorist members of PFLP. Two are taken to Dawson's Field in Jordan.

1976 - Cold War: Soviet air force pilot Lt. Viktor Belenko lands a MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate on the island of Hokkaido in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States.

1983 - The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Flight KAL-007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace.

1985 - Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105, a Douglas DC-9 crashes just after takeoff from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing 31.

1986 - In Istanbul, two Arab terrorists from Abu Nidal's terror organization kill 22 and wound six inside the Neve Shalom synagogue during Shabbat services.

1991 - The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

1991 - The name Saint Petersburg is restored to Russia's second largest city, which had been renamed Leningrad in 1924.

1995 - With the jury absent, Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman invokes his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the murder trial of O. J. Simpson.

1995 - Cal Ripken Jr. breaks Lou Gehrig 's record of 2,130 consecutive Major League Baseball games played at Camden Yards in Baltimore,Maryland.

1997 - The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, at Westminster Abbey draws large crowds.

2000 - In New York City, the United Nations Millennium Summit begins with more than 180 world leaders present.

2001 - United States v. Microsoft: The United States Justice Department announces that it was no longer seeking to break-up software maker Microsoft and will instead seek a lesser antitrust penalty.

2005 - The California Legislature becomes the first legislative body in the United States to legalize same-sex marriage without a pre-emptive judicial order to do so.