What happened on this day in history?

Earthquakes are apparently common on February 6th:

2012 – A 6.9 magnitude earthquake hits near the central Philippines off the coast of Negros Island causing at least 51 deaths and injuring 112 others.
2013 – A 8.0 magnitude earthquake hits the Solomon Islands killing 10 people and injuring 17 others.
2016 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake hits southern Taiwan, killing at least 38 people and injuring over 530 more.

February 6th, 1958 was also the day of the Munich Air Disaster when British European Airways flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport, West Germany. On the plane was the Manchester United football team, nicknamed the "Busby Babes", along with supporters and journalists. Twenty of the 44 on the aircraft died at the scene. The injured, some unconscious, were taken to the Rechts der Isar Hospital in Munich where three more died, resulting in 23 fatalities with 21 survivors.

Feb 6th, 1952: King George VI dies in his sleep.

Also on this day in 1971, Moon golf is invented! Alan Shepard becomes the first man to hit a golf ball on the Moon during a two-day Moon walk from Apollo 14.

Moon golf lol. They should make that an actual sport. Would be much more interesting that boring regular golf.

1964. The Beatles touch down in the US and thousand on teenage girls collectively lose their minds!

Two other cool ones today:

While in orbit 170 miles above Earth, Navy Captain Bruce McCandless becomes the first human being to fly untethered in space when he exits the U.S. space shuttle Challenger and maneuvers freely, using a bulky white rocket pack of his own design. McCandless orbited Earth in tangent with the shuttle at speeds greater than 17,500 miles per hour and flew up to 320 feet away from the Challenger. After an hour and a half testing and flying the jet-powered backpack and admiring Earth, McCandless safely reentered the shuttle.

The “Angel of Death” dies
Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who performed medical experiments at the Auschwitz death camps, dies of a stroke while swimming in Brazil—although his death was not verified until 1985.

Why wasn't if verified until 6 years after he actually died? In 1985, a team of forensic experts travelled to Brazil in search of Mengele. They determined that a man named Gerhard (Wolfgang Gerhard, a former Nazi party member that was living in Brazil as well) had died of a stroke while swimming in 1979. Dental records later revealed that Mengele had, at some point, assumed Gerhard’s identity and was the stroke victim. Crazy.

Last edited by Ninjak_XO (Tue-7-Feb-2017 14:36:54)

Going to include the whole section of this from history.com as it was quite interesting. I knew some of this, but not all - had no idea that it was Mary's son that took over from Queen Elizabeth.

After 19 years of imprisonment, Mary Queen of Scots is beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England for her complicity in a plot to murder Queen Elizabeth I.

In 1542, while just six days old, Mary ascended to the Scottish throne upon the death of her father, King James V. Her mother sent her to be raised in the French court, and in 1558 she married the French dauphin, who became King Francis II of France in 1559 but died the following year. After Francis’ death, Mary returned to Scotland to assume her designated role as the country’s monarch.

In 1565, she married her English cousin Lord Darnley in order to reinforce her claim of succession to the English throne after Elizabeth’s death. In 1567, Darnley was mysteriously killed in an explosion at Kirk o’ Field, and Mary’s lover, the Earl of Bothwell, was the key suspect. Although Bothwell was acquitted of the charge, his marriage to Mary in the same year enraged the nobility. Mary brought an army against the nobles, but was defeated and imprisoned at Lochleven, Scotland, and forced to abdicate in favor of her son by Darnley, James.

In 1568, Mary escaped from captivity and raised a substantial army but was defeated and fled to England. Queen Elizabeth initially welcomed Mary but was soon forced to put her friend under house arrest after Mary became the focus of various English Catholic and Spanish plots to overthrow Elizabeth. Nineteen years later, in 1586, a major plot to murder Elizabeth was reported, and Mary was brought to trial. She was convicted for complicity and sentenced to death.

On February 8, 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for treason. Her son, King James VI of Scotland, calmly accepted his mother’s execution, and upon Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603 he became king of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Carrying on the royal feeling for this day, Princess Elizabeth becomes Queen Elizabeth II on this day in 1952.

1971 – Pedro Morales becomes the new WWWF Heavyweight Champion, defeating Ivan Koloff.  This begins Morales’ 1,027–day reign as WWWF Champion, lasting until December 1, 1973.

2016 – Daniel Bryan announces his retirement from in-ring competition, due to numerous concussions and the damage the concussions were doing to his brain.

Something for you football fans; 1979, Nottingham Forest clinches Britain's first £1m transfer deal.

On this day in 1996, after three hours, world chess champion Garry Kasparov loses the first game of a six-game match against Deep Blue, an IBM computer capable of evaluating 200 million moves per second.  Man was ultimately victorious over machine, however, as Kasparov bested Deep Blue in the match with three wins and two ties and took home the $400,000 prize. An estimated 6 million people worldwide followed the action on the Internet.

Also, in 2014, Shirley Temple died.

1990 - Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years.

We missed a few days...

On February 14 around the year 278A.D., Valentine, a holy priest in Rome in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was executed.

1942 Singapore fell to Japan. British forces were there and it is classed as one of Britain's greatest military defeats.

Feb 15th

1965 – A new red-and-white maple leaf design is adopted as the flag of Canada, replacing the old Canadian Red Ensign banner.

2013 – A meteor explodes over Russia, injuring 1,500 people as a shock wave blows out windows and rocks buildings. This happens unexpectedly only hours before the expected closest ever approach of the larger and unrelated asteroid 2012 DA14.

1923 - English archaeologist Howard Carter enters the sealed burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamen.

I hope he wore a gas mask. That place must have fucking stank.
The coffin that King Tut was buried in is apparently solid gold. Must have weighed a ton.

1979 - China invaded Vietnam. Those countries really hate each other. Not sure why, but I'm fairly confident that the reason won't be a good one, more likely something petty.

1878 - Thomas Edison patented the first device to both record sound and play it back. A spin-off from his original technology, the telephone, Edison wanted to facilitate the repeated transmission of a telepgrah message. He created the phonograph to do this.

This was the start of technology that has led modern music being possible.

The “Angel of Death” dies
Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who performed medical experiments at the Auschwitz death camps, dies of a stroke while swimming in Brazil—although his death was not verified until 1985.

Why wasn't if verified until 6 years after he actually died? In 1985, a team of forensic experts travelled to Brazil in search of Mengele. They determined that a man named Gerhard (Wolfgang Gerhard, a former Nazi party member that was living in Brazil as well) had died of a stroke while swimming in 1979. Dental records later revealed that Mengele had, at some point, assumed Gerhard’s identity and was the stroke victim. Crazy.

Well the easiest reason would be because they didn't have a reason to believe he was someone else. Also was the forensic testing available to test his teeth against his son's DNA to find a match? I can't seem to find much information of when DNA started to be used in this capacity.

Mengele was in the SS during WW2 before he started frankensteining on innocent people at Auschwitz. Most SS personnel were tattooed with the logo but Mengele wasn't so that was another red herring. He moved around different South American countries using different names. I think he had about 6 different aliases. The original Wolfgang Gerhard had gone back to Austria in 78 and gave Mengele his papers so he could assume his identity. I think I read something about Israeli Nazi hunters knew where he was and went after him before he died but didn't have the money & jurisdiction to bring him to a war trial. I imagine Brazil was a bit of a safe haven back then, like how Ronnie Biggs disappeared over there after the Great Train Robbery and the police couldn't touch him.

The “Angel of Death” dies
Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who performed medical experiments at the Auschwitz death camps, dies of a stroke while swimming in Brazil—although his death was not verified until 1985.

Why wasn't if verified until 6 years after he actually died? In 1985, a team of forensic experts travelled to Brazil in search of Mengele. They determined that a man named Gerhard (Wolfgang Gerhard, a former Nazi party member that was living in Brazil as well) had died of a stroke while swimming in 1979. Dental records later revealed that Mengele had, at some point, assumed Gerhard’s identity and was the stroke victim. Crazy.

Well the easiest reason would be because they didn't have a reason to believe he was someone else. Also was the forensic testing available to test his teeth against his son's DNA to find a match? I can't seem to find much information of when DNA started to be used in this capacity.

Mengele was in the SS during WW2 before he started frankensteining on innocent people at Auschwitz. Most SS personnel were tattooed with the logo but Mengele wasn't so that was another red herring. He moved around different South American countries using different names. I think he had about 6 different aliases. The original Wolfgang Gerhard had gone back to Austria in 78 and gave Mengele his papers so he could assume his identity. I think I read something about Israeli Nazi hunters knew where he was and went after him before he died but didn't have the money & jurisdiction to bring him to a war trial. I imagine Brazil was a bit of a safe haven back then, like how Ronnie Biggs disappeared over there after the Great Train Robbery and the police couldn't touch him.

Apparently working from a tip off, they found paperwork that talked of Mengele's death along with where/when it happened, from a known friend of Mengele. That gave them cause to exhume the body of Gerhard and run tests on who it was.

As for today, in  1985 a highly controversial vote by the Irish government defied the powerful Catholic Church and approved the sale of contraceptives. That's right, just 32 years ago the Irish didn't accept contraceptives.

1985 - Malcom X was assassinated.

1948 - NASCAR was founded.

1861 president-elect Abraham Lincoln avoided an assassination attempt.

1861 president-elect Abraham Lincoln avoided an assassination attempt.

The foreshadowing 🙁

1861 president-elect Abraham Lincoln avoided an assassination attempt.

The foreshadowing 🙁

That's why I found this one interesting, especially how they listed him as "president-elect". So he wasn't actually president at the time, just elected to be so in the near future, and people were already plotting to kill him.