6 May

6 May 973	Saxony, Bavaria [births and deaths]	Henry II (St Henry), German king 1002–24 and Emperor 1014–24, last of the Saxon dynasty of emperors, born, probably in Albach, Bavaria (–1024).
6 May 1250	France, Egypt, Mameluke Sultanate, Kingdom of Jerusalem [Crusades (1095–1272)]	King Louis IX of France surrenders the Egyptian town of Damietta as part of the price for his release; he leaves Egypt for the Palestinian port of Acre (present-day Akko, Israel), where he is accepted as ruler (in practice, not in theory) of Outremer, the Crusader kingdoms in the Middle East.
6–14 May 1527	Holy Roman Empire, Papal States, Italy [wars]	Unpaid and mutinous Habsburg Spanish and (often Protestant) Landsknecht (mercenary knight) troops, under Charles, duc de Bourbon, and Georg von Frunsberg, assault and sack Rome, Italy. Bourbon dies in the assault, and Pope Clement VII takes refuge in the Castel Sant' Angelo.
6 May 1576	France [French Wars of Religion (1562–80)]	The Fifth War of Religion in France ends in the Peace of Monsieur, promulgated by the Edict of Beaulieu; the Huguenots (French Protestants) are granted freedom of worship in all places except Paris and are to garrison eight strongholds in Languedoc, Guyenne, Provence, and Dauphiné; a general (and tax) amnesty is proclaimed. Francis, Duke of Alençon, is confirmed as Duke of Anjou, and Johann Casimir, leader of the Palatine Calvinist army, is rewarded with a pension by King Henry III.
6 May 1758	France [births and deaths]	Maximilien François Robespierre, French Jacobin leader during the French Revolution, born in Arras, France (–1794).
6 May 1856	Moravia [births and deaths]	Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis, born in Freiberg, Moravia (now Príbor, Czech Republic) (–1939).
6 May 1895	Italy, USA [births and deaths]	Rudolph Valentino, Italian-born US silent film star, known as the ‘Great Lover’, born in Castellaneta, Italy (–1926).
6 May 1910	United Kingdom [political events]	Following the death of King Edward VII of Great Britain and Ireland, he is succeeded by George V.
6 May 1915	[births and deaths]	Orson Welles, US film actor, director, producer, and writer, best known for Citizen Kane, born in Kenosha, Wisconsin (–1985).
6 May 1937	USA [transport disasters]	The giant German airship Hindenburg explodes in the USA as it attempts to moor at Lakehurst Naval Station, New Jersey; 36 people are killed.
6 May 1953	Scotland [births and deaths]	Tony (Antony Charles Lynton) Blair, British prime minister from 1997, a Labour politician, is born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
6 May 1953	USA [surgery]	US physician John Gibbon performs the first successful open-heart operation. He uses a heart-lung machine to oxygenate the blood during the operation.
6 May 1954	UK [athletics]	Roger Bannister of Great Britain, with a time of 3 min 59.4 sec becomes the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes, at the Iffley Road Sports Ground, Oxford, England.
6 May 1993	Bosnia-Herzegovina [Balkan conflicts (c. 1991–2000)]	The United Nations Security Council declares ‘safe areas’ in Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zepa, Goradze, Bihac, and Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina; in spite of this, Bosnian Serbs attack Goradze and Srebrenica on 30 May.
6 May 2000	UK [weapons]	The IRA offers to open its hidden arms dumps to inspection as part of a peace agreement to restore self-rule to Northern Ireland. The arsenals would be opened for inspection by Cyril Ramaphosa, the former secretary general of the African National Congress (ANC), and Martti Ahtisaari, the former president of Finland.

May 6

6 May