History for December 6

History for December 6 - On-This-Day.com
Ira Gershwin 1896 - Lyricist, brother of composer George Gershwin, Alfred Eisenstadt 1898, Agnes Moorehead 1906


Wally Cox 1924, James Naughton 1945, Tom Hulce 1953


1865 - The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment abolished slavery in the U.S.


1877 - Thomas Edison demonstrated the first gramophone, with a recording of himself reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb.


1884 - The construction of the Washington Monument was completed by Army engineers. The project took 34 years.


1917 - More than 1,600 people died when two munitions ships collided in the harbor at Halifax, Nova Scotia.


1926 - In Italy, Benito Mussolini introduced a tax on bachelors.


1957 - America's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit failed when the satellite blew up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, FL.


1973 - Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the vice-president of the United States after vice-president Spiro Agnew resigned.


1998 - In Venezuela, former Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez was elected president. He had staged a bloody coup attempt against the government six years earlier.