February 6 - Events

Events

• 1649 – The claimant King Charles II of England and Scotland is declared King of Great Britain, by the Parliament of Scotland. This move was not followed by the Parliament of England nor the Parliament of Ireland.
• 1685 – James II of England and VII of Scotland becomes King upon the death of his brother Charles II.
• 1778 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France signaling official recognition of the new republic.
• 1788 – Massachusetts becomes the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
• 1806 – Battle of San Domingo: British naval victory against the French in the Caribbean.
• 1815 – New Jersey grants the first American railroad charter to John Stevens.
• 1819 – Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founds Singapore.
• 1820 – The first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society started a settlement in present-day Liberia.
• 1833 – Otto becomes the first modern King of Greece.
• 1840 – Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, establishing New Zealand as a British colony.
• 1843 – The first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrels, opens (Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City).
• 1851 – The largest Australian bushfires in a populous region in recorded history take place in the state of Victoria.
• 1862 – American Civil War: The U.S. Navy gives the Union its first victory of the war, capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee in the Battle of Fort Henry.
• 1899 – Spanish-American War: The Treaty of Paris, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain, is ratified by the United States Senate.
• 1900 – The international arbitration court at The Hague is created when the Senate of the Netherlands ratifies an 1899 peace conference decree.
• 1914 – The Bondetåget, a peasant uprising in support of the monarchy, takes place in Sweden
• 1918 – British women over the age of 30 get the right to vote.
• 1922 – The Washington Naval Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., limiting the naval armaments of United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy.
• 1933 – The 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing the beginning and ending of the terms of the elected federal offices, goes into effect.
• 1934 – Far right leagues rally in front of the Palais Bourbon in an attempted coup against the French Third Republic, creating a political crisis in France.
• 1942 – World War II: The United Kingdom declares war on Thailand.
• 1951 – The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The accident kills 85 people and injures over 500 more. The wreck is one of the worst rail disasters in American history.
• 1952 – Elizabeth II becomes the first queen regnant of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Realms since Queen Victoria upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a treehouse at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya.
• 1958 – Eight Manchester United F.C. players and 15 other passengers killed in the Munich air disaster.
• 1959 – Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit.
• 1959 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
• 1976 – In testimony before a United States Senate subcommittee, Lockheed Corporation president Carl Kotchian admits that the company had paid out approximately $3 million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.
• 1978 – The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Nor'easters in New England history, hit the region, with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of 4" an hour.
• 1981 – The National Resistance Army of Uganda launches an attack on a Ugandan Army installation in the central Mubende District to begin the Ugandan Bush War.
• 1987 – Justice Mary Gaudron is appointed to the High Court of Australia, the first woman to be appointed.
• 1989 – The Round Table Talks start in Poland, thus marking the beginning of overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe.
• 1996 – Willamette Valley Flood of 1996: Floods in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, United States, causes over US$500 million in property damage throughout the Pacific Northwest.
• 1996 – Birgenair flight 301 crashed off the coast of the Dominican Republic, all 189 people inside the airplane are killed. This is the worst accident/incident involving a Boeing 757.
• 1998 – Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.
• 2000 – Second Chechen War: Russia captures Grozny, Chechnya, forcing the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria government into exile.