Today isn't just a good day for getting rid of Popes (St. Sixtus II, St. Hormisdas, and Constantine all ended their reigns today). Here's some other stuff that happened:
August 6, 1861
The US passes the Confiscation Act, which lead up to the Emancipation Proclamation, which allowed the Union to seize the property of rebels, and freed all slaves which stayed loyal to the Union. Lincoln objected to the act on the basis that it could cause more states to seceed than already had.
August 6, 1890
After first killing thousands of animals in public demonstrations in the battle of AC versus DC power, the US executes its first prisoner using an electric chair at New York's Auburn Prison. The prisoner, William Kemmler, survives the first electrocution and does not die until electrocuted a second time. George Westinghouse commnents, “they would have done better with an axe.”
Augst 6, 1945
The largest terrorist attack in human history is committed by the US as they drop an atomic bomb on the civilian population of Hiroshima, Japan, killing aproximately a hundred and forty thousand men, women, and children, with tens of thousands dying later from the radiation. President Truman descrbes it that day as “the greatest thing in history”. Three days later, another nuclear bomb would be dropped on Nagasaki, killing 70,000 more civilians.
August 6, 1965
President Lyndon Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, allowing blacks in America the right to vote. Over the years the rights were expanded, although because many jurisdictions ignored the Act, in 1982 provisions were added in an attempt to get blacks the right to vote everywhere in America. However, since then black voters have continued to be disinfranchised and illegally scrubbed from voter's lists, and further clarification of this act will still be required before blacks in America have equal voting rights.
August 6, 1985
The USSR independently commits to stop all nuclear testing, while the US responds by conducting more underground nuclear explosions. The USSR ceases its moratorium 19 months later in the face of continued US nuclear escalation that persists to this day.
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