On This Day in History - May 6th - Almanac

Today is Wednesday, May 6, the 126th day of 2015 with 239 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Neptune, Uranus and Saturn. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury and Venus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre in 1758; Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in 1856; arctic explorer Robert Peary in 1856; French writer Gaston Leroux in 1868; silent screen star Rudolph Valentino in 1895; restaurateur Toots Shor in 1903; actor Stewart Granger in 1913; actor/director/writer Orson Welles in 1915; author Theodore White in 1915; baseball legend Willie Mays in 1931 (age 84); rock musician Bob Seger in 1945 (age 70); former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1953 (age 62); TV host Tom Bergeron ("Dancing with the Stars") in 1955 (age 60); musician John Flansburgh in 1960 (age 55); actor Roma Downey in 1960 (age 55); actor George Clooney in 1961 (age 53); Martin Brodeur, who set numerous reords as an NHL goaltender, in 1972 (age 43).

On this date in history:

In 1863, Confederate forces commanded by Gen. Robert E. Lee routed Union troops under Gen. Joseph Hooker at the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia.

In 1915, Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox hit his first major league home run in a game against the New York Yankees.

In 1935, in the depths of the Depression, the Works Progress Administration was established to provide work for the unemployed.

In 1937, the German dirigible Hindenburg burst into flames while docking in Lakehurst, N.J., killing 36 people.

In 1940, "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

In 1941, Josef Stalin became official leader of the Soviet government.

In 1954, 25-year-old British medical student Roger Bannister cracked track and field's most famous barrier, the 4-minute mile, during a meet at Oxford, England. His time: 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.

In 1992, legendary actress Marlene Dietrich died at her Paris home at age 90.

In 1994, the Channel Tunnel, a railway under the English Channel connecting Britain and France, was officially opened.

In 2001, John Paul II became the first pope to enter a mosque -- the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria.

In 2006, the largest rebel group in Sudan's Darfur region and the government of Sudan signed a peace agreement ending their three-year armed conflict that claimed an estimated 200,000 lives.

In 2007, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president of France with 53 percent of the vote in a runoff battle with Sergolene Royal of the French Socialist Party.

In 2009, Dave Bing, Hall of Fame star for the NBA's Detroit Pistons, was elected mayor of Detroit, succeeding the ousted Kwame Kilpatrick.

In 2010, British voters gave the Conservatives control of Parliament, making David Cameron, 43, Britain's youngest prime minister in almost 200 years.

In 2012, Socialist leader Francois Hollande was elected president of France.

In 2013, three women missing 10 years were found alive in Cleveland. (The man who had kept them as hostages pleaded guilty to charges including kidnapping and rape. He committed suicide in prison.)

In 2014, Nigerian officials said nearly 300 girls had been kidnapped by Boko Haram militants and were being held hostage.

A thought for the day: "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples, then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." -- George Bernard Shaw