| 6 September 1683 | France [births and deaths] | Jean-Baptiste Colbert, marquis de Seignelay, French statesman and controller of finance for France 1665–83, whose programme of economic reconstruction led to France becoming a dominant European power, dies in Paris, France (64). |
| 6 September 1757 | France, America [births and deaths] | Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert de Motier, marquis de Lafayette, French aristocrat and political leader who fought against the British during the American Revolution, born in Chavaniac, France (–1834). |
| 6 September 1901 | USA [political events] | The anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots the US president William McKinley at a reception in Buffalo, New York. |
| 6–15 September 1914 | Germany [World War I (1914–18)] | At the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes in East Prussia, German forces drive back the occupying Russian troops. |
| 6 September 1930 | Argentina [political events] | Demonstrations by crowds in Buenos Aires and a revolt by the army force President Hipólito Irigoyen of Argentina to resign; General José Uriburu is appointed president. |
| 6 September 1961 | USA [musical performers] | The US folk/rock singer Bob Dylan makes his debut at the Gaslight Café in Greenwich Village, New York City, appearing with blues musician John Lee Hooker. |
| 6 September 1965 | USA [popular culture] | The US newspaper the San Francisco Examiner is the first to observe the birth of the hippie movement by noting that the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco, California has become ‘a hip hangout’ for beatniks. |
| 6 September 1966 | USA [births and deaths] | Margaret Sanger, US birth control advocate who opened the first birth control clinic in the USA, dies in Tucson, Arizona (82). |
| 6 September 1972 | West Germany, Israel [Olympic Games] | A memorial service is held at the Olympic stadium in Munich, West Germany, in honour of the 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Arab terrorists on 5 September. Later the same day, with the support of the Israelis, competition recommences. |
| 6 September 1979 | Vietnam, USA [political events] | Thirty thousand refugee ‘boat people’ from Vietnam are allowed to settle in the USA. |
| 6 September 1997 | India [births and deaths] | Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu), Albanian-born Indian ascetic who founded the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, devoted to helping the poor, dies in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India (87). |
| 6 September 2006 | [War on Terrorism (2001– )] | US President George W Bush confirms for the first time the existence of a secret US Central Intelligence Agency programme in the global war against terror for interrogating suspects in foreign prisons. The detention system is linked to controversial ‘rendition’ flights. |
