August 6

August 6 is the 218th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (219th in leap years), with 147 days remaining until the end of the year. Falling in the first week of August, the date occurs at the height of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and in late winter in the Southern Hemisphere. August 6 has been the setting for several events of extraordinary historical consequence, most notably the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945, the first use of a nuclear weapon in armed conflict. It is also the national independence day of both Bolivia and Jamaica, the principal feast day of the Transfiguration in Western Christianity, and the birth date of influential figures in literature, science, art, and entertainment.

Calendar Position and Etymology

The date takes its name from the month of August, which was renamed in 8 BC by the Roman Senate in honor of Augustus, the first Roman emperor; the month had previously been called Sextilis, the sixth month of the early Roman calendar. Under the Gregorian system, August 6 sits nearly at the midpoint of astronomical summer in the Northern Hemisphere, between the summer solstice in late June and the autumnal equinox in late September, and shortly after the traditional harvest festival of Lammas.

In astrology, persons born on August 6 fall under the zodiac sign of Leo (approximately July 23 to August 22). The traditional birthstone for August is peridot, with spinel and sardonyx also recognized in some traditions, and the month's birth flowers are the gladiolus and the poppy.

Historical Events

Before 1800

• 258 – Pope Sixtus II and several of his deacons were martyred in Rome during the persecution of Christians under Emperor Valerian.
• 1538 – The Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada founded the city of Bogotá, now the capital of Colombia.
• 1661 – The Dutch Republic and Portugal signed the Treaty of The Hague, ending their colonial conflict and confirming Portuguese sovereignty over former Dutch territories in Brazil.
• 1787 – The Committee of Detail presented the first full draft of the United States Constitution to the Constitutional Convention meeting in Philadelphia.
• 1806 – The Holy Roman Empire came to an end when Emperor Francis II abdicated the imperial crown under pressure from Napoleon Bonaparte, dissolving a polity that had existed, in various forms, for roughly a thousand years and had been dominated by the Habsburg dynasty for centuries.

19th Century

• 1825 – Upper Peru formally declared its independence from Spain, adopting the name Bolivia in honor of the liberator Simón Bolívar.
• 1861 – Britain formally annexed Lagos, in present-day Nigeria, expanding its West African colonial holdings.
• 1890 – Convicted murderer William Kemmler was executed at Auburn Prison in New York, becoming the first person put to death in the electric chair, a method promoted as a supposedly more humane alternative to hanging.

20th Century

• 1912 – Theodore Roosevelt accepted the presidential nomination of the Progressive Party, popularly known as the "Bull Moose" Party, ahead of the United States presidential election.
• 1914 – Serbia declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia, escalating the regional crisis touched off by the assassination at Sarajevo into the First World War.
• 1926 – American swimmer Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel, crossing from France to England in 14 hours and 31 minutes and bettering the existing men's record.
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