Browse Historical Events by Day: What Happened on October 6th?

The first Mennonites to establish a permanent settlement in North America arrived in Philadelphia. Invited to the city by its Quaker founder, William Penn, they settled in Germantown, then a small village about six miles north of the city. More

The Lewis and Clark Expedition returns to St. Louis, completing their journey to explore and map the western portion of the United States.

Mexico officially becomes a republic as the Plan of Iguala is accepted, ending Spanish rule and establishing Mexican independence.

The Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead, England, destroys a large portion of both towns. More

The brothers John and Simeon Reno staged what is generally believed to be the first train robbery in American history. Their take was $13,000 from an Ohio and Mississippi railroad train in Jackson County, Indiana. Considered the first train robbery, the incident at Seymour was preceded by a similar train burglary exactly nine months before. In early 1866, bandits entered an Adams Express car in route to Boston from New York and stole over half a million dollars from safes on the unoccupied car. As in the Seymour case, detectives from the Pinkerton National Detective Agency quickly identified the criminals. More

The dual Kingdome of Austria - Hungary announces the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina provinces in the Balkan region of Europe formerly under the control of the Ottoman Empire. Intended as a catalyst for domestic policy, it proved to be a fateful move. More

President John F. Kennedy, in a letter to the members of the Committee on Civil Defense of the Governors’ Conference, urges Americans to build bomb shelters as protection from atomic fallout in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. Kennedy also pressed Congress to allocate more than $100 million to build a network of public fallout shelters. Only one year later, the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war when the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted over the USSR’s placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba. During the tense 13-day crisis, some Americans prepared for nuclear war by buying up canned goods and completing last-minute work on their backyard bomb shelters. More

The Yom Kippur War begins as Egypt and Syria launch a surprise attack against Israel. More

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is assassinated by Islamic extremists during a military parade in Cairo. More

The United States announces its withdrawal from Syria, leading to concerns about the situation in the region.