On This Day

6th May

1536 – King Henry VIII ordered English language Bibles be placed in every church.

1840 – The Penny Black postage stamp was introduced for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1882 – Thomas Henry Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish were stabbed and killed during the Phoenix Park Murders in Dublin.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower was officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

1910 – George V became King upon the death of his father, Edward VII.

1937 – The German Zeppelin Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people were killed.

1940 – John Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

1954 – Roger Bannister became the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.

1966 – Myra Hindley and Ian Brady were sentenced to life imprisonment for the Moors Murders in England.

1994 – The Channel Tunnel (aka the Chunnel) was officially opened.

1997 – The Bank of England was given independence from political control, the most significant change in the bank's 300-year history. (Yeah. And we all know what happened 10 years later.)

2001 – During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II became the first pope to enter a mosque.

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