On This Day:
Saturday July 6, 2013

This is the 187th day of the year, with 178 days remaining in 2013.

Fact of the Day: airship

In July 1919, a British dirigible, R-34, made the first round-trip transatlantic flight. Despite great achievements, airships were virtually abandoned in the late 1930s because of their cost, slow speed, and intrinsic vulnerability to stormy weather.

Holidays

Malawi: Republic Day / Independence Day.
Feast day of St. Romulus of Fiesole, St. Dominica, St. Mary Goretti, St. Goar, St. Modwenna, St. Godeleva, St. Sexburga, and St. Sisoes.
Comoros: Independence Day.
Lithuania: Day of Statehood.

Events

1519 - Charles of Spain was elected Holy Roman emperor in Barcelona.
1699 - Pirate Captain William Kidd was captured in Boston, Massachusetts, and deported to England.
1777 - During the American Revolution, British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga. 
1885 - French scientist Louis Pasteur successfully tested an anti-rabies vaccine.
1917 - In World War I, forces led by Lawrence of Arabia captured Aqaba from the Turks.
1923 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed and its constitution instituted. 
1933 - Baseball's first all-star game was held.
1941 - In Nazi-occupied Holland, Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family were forced to take refuge in a secret sealed-off area of a warehouse.
1944 - In Hartford, Connecticut, a fire broke out under the big top of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, killing 167 people and injuring 682.
1953 - "Name That Tune" premiered on television.
1957 - Althea Gibson became the first black tennis player to win all the major singles championships.
1967 - After its secession from Nigeria, the breakaway Republic of Biafra was attacked by Nigerian government forces, beginning the Biafran War.
1976 - The United States Naval Academy admitted women for the first time.
2005 - The International Olympic Committee announced that London will host the 2012 Summer Olympics.
2006 - Felipe Calderón (born Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa) is elected President of Mexico after a very close election.

Births

1747 - John Paul Jones, American naval officer.
1907 - Frida Kahlo, Mexican surrealist and expressionist painter.
1921 - Nancy Reagan (Anne Robbins-Davis), American actress, wife of 40th U.S. President.
1925 - Merv Griffin, American talk show host, entertainer, pianist, television personality. and executive.
1927 - Bill Haley, American musician, singer.
1927 - Janet Leigh (born Jeanette Helen Morrison), American film actress.
1935 - The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso), Nobel Peace Prize winner, Tibetan spiritual leader.
1946 - George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States of America (2001-).

Deaths

1962 - William Faulkner, American novelist and short-story writer.
1971 - Louis Armstrong (called "Satchmo," which was a diminutive of "Satchel Mouth") , American jazz musician.
1998 - Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye), American cowboy actor and singer.