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UN condemns apartheid in South Africa

Born on This Day

John Philip Sousa

1854 - 1932

American composer and conductor best known for military marches like "Semper Fidelis" and "The Stars and Stripes Forever."

Sally Field

1946 -

Oscar-winning actress who made her career playing steely women in "Norma Rae," "Places in the Heart" and "Steel Magnolias."

Bowen Yang

1990 -

Actor, comedian and the first Chinese-American on the cast of "Saturday Night Live." Also co-starred in "Wicked."

John Philip SousaGetty Images

Sally FieldWireImage

Bowen YangNBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via

1492

NOV6

Christopher Columbus notes in his journal that Arawak Indians had introduced his crew to smoking tobacco. Back in Spain, one crew member was jailed after alarmed people called a man blowing smoke out of his mouth and nose the work of Satan.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on November 6th

Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca lands in Texas

The Spanish conquistador Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca runs aground on a low sandy island off the coast of Texas. Starving, dehydrated and desperate, he is the first European to set foot on the soil of the future Lone Star state. Cabeza de Vaca’s unintentional journey to Texas was a disaster from the start. A […]

Abraham Lincoln elected president

Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen […]

Jefferson Davis elected Confederate president

On November 6, 1861, Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America. He ran without opposition, and the election simply confirmed the decision that had been made by the Confederate Congress earlier in the year. Like his Union counterpart, President Abraham Lincoln, Davis was a native of Kentucky, born in 1808. He […]

Rutgers beats Princeton in first college football game

On November 6, 1869, Rutgers beats Princeton, 6-4, in the first college football game. The game, played with a soccer ball before roughly 100 fans in New Brunswick, New Jersey, resembles rugby instead of today’s football. Even off the playing fields, the rivalry between the New Jersey schools, located 20 miles apart, was heated. At the time, […]

British victory at Passchendaele

After more than three months of bloody combat, the Third Battle of Ypres effectively comes to an end on November 6, 1917, with a hard-won victory by British troops at the Belgian village of Passchendaele. Launched on July 31, 1917, the Third Battle of Ypres was spearheaded by the British commander in chief, Sir Douglas […]

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Bolsheviks revolt in Russia

Led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin, leftist revolutionaries launch a nearly bloodless coup d’état against Russia’s ineffectual Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in the Russian capital of Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and within two days had formed a new government with Lenin as its head. […]

Dam gives way in Georgia, killing 39

On November 6, 1977, the Toccoa Falls Dam in Georgia gives way and 39 people die in the resulting flood. Ninety miles north of Atlanta, the Toccoa (Cherokee for “beautiful”) Falls Dam was constructed of earth across a canyon in 1887, creating a 55-acre lake 180 feet above the Toccoa Creek. In 1911, R.A. Forrest […]

Renowned Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov visits United States

Soviet scientist and well-known human rights activist Andrei Sakharov begins a two-week visit to the United States. During his visit, he pleaded with the American government and people to support Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost (political openness) and perestroika (economic reforms), and so ensure the success of a new, more democratic, and friendlier […]

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