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6 April| 6 April 1199 | England [political events] | Richard I the Lionheart, king of England 1189–99, who gained popularity through his bravery during the Third Crusade, dies of a wound received at the siege of the castle of Châlus in the Duchy of Aquitaine (41). | | 6 April 1250 | Ayyubid Sultanate, Egypt, France [Crusades (1095–1272)] | King Louis IX of France is defeated and captured by the Egyptians at the Battle of Fariskur, while withdrawing from Mansurah. | | 6 April 1326 | Byzantine Empire [wars] | Ghazi Orkhan succeeds his father Osman I as ruler of the Ottoman Turks and takes the Byzantine city of Bursa (in modern Turkey), making it his capital. | | 6 April 1490 | Hungary, Holy Roman Empire, Austria [political events] | The death of Matthias I Corvinus, king of Hungary, without an heir, leads to the dissolution of his empire, and the Habsburgs, under Maximilian, king of the Romans, recover his conquests in Austria. | | 6 April 1528 | Germany [births and deaths] | Albrecht Dürer, considered to be the greatest German painter and printmaker of the Renaissance, dies in Nuremberg, Germany (56). | | 6 April 1793 | France [administration] | The Committee of Public Safety is established in France as the executive organ of the revolutionary government, effectively headed by the Jacobin leader Georges Danton. | | 6 April 1818 | Germany, UK [transport] | German inventor Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun exhibits his draisienne, a two-wheeled bicycle propelled by pushing the feet along the ground, with a padded seat and a swivelling steering mechanism. It becomes popular in Britain the following year and is known as the ‘hobby horse’. | | 6 April 1862 | USA, Confederate States of America [American Civil War (1861–65)] | Union and Confederate soldiers clash at Shiloh, Tennessee, with the Union forces getting the better of the battle by the end of the second day. Each side suffers roughly 10,000 casualties. | | 6–15 April 1896 | Greece [Olympic Games] | The first Olympic Games of the modern era are held in Athens, Greece, in the ancient Panathenaic stadium. Around 250 athletes (all men) from 14 nations assemble to compete in 44 track and field, swimming, cycling, fencing, Graeco-Roman wrestling, gymnastics, shooting, tennis, and weightlifting events. The USA wins 11 gold medals (including 9 of the 12 track and field gold medals); Greece wins 10 gold medals; Germany, 7; France, 5; Great Britain, 3; Hungary, Austria, and Australia, 2 each. The marathon, using the ancient course covered by Pheidippides after the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, is won by Spiridon Louis of Greece. | | 6 April 1938 | USA [materials] | US chemist Roy Plunkett discovers the stable and slippery substance polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) (a synthetic resin), marketed by DuPont as Teflon. The most slippery substance known, it becomes commercially available in 1947–48 and is used for electrical insulation and to produce nonstick coatings. | | 6 April 1941 | Yugoslavia, Greece, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria [World War II (1939–45)] | German, Italian, and Bulgarian forces invade Yugoslavia, and German forces attack the Metaxas Line, Greece's main system of defences. | | 6 April 1994 | Rwanda, Burundi [transport disasters] | The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, are killed in an air crash; interethnic violence erupts on a huge scale. | | 6 April 2006 | USA [painting] | A view of Venice, Italy, entitled Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio by J M W Turner fetches £20.5 million at auction in New York, a record sum for a painting by the English landscape artist. |
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