May 6th in world history:

• 1527 - Spanish and German Imperial troops sack Rome, ending the Renaissance, one of the most important time periods in world history
• 1626 - Dutch colonist Peter Minuit buys Manhattan Island from local Indians for 60 guilders worth of trinkets
• 1861 - Jefferson Davis approves a bill declaring war between the U.S. and the Confederacy
• 1877 - Chief Crazy Horse surrenders to U.S. troops in Nebraska. Crazy Horse brought General Custer to his end
• 1937 - The German airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built, burst into flames and collapsed to the ground while attempting to moor at Lakehurst, New Jersey. As the airship burst into flames it crashed 200 feet to the ground.

May 6th in black history:

• 1787 - 1st Black Masonic Lodge forms at Prince Hall in Boston, Massachusetts
• 1960 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960
• 1981 - The play "Inacent Black" opens at the Biltmore Theater in New York. Melba Moore plays an angel who is sent by God to an upper-middle-class black household resembling the one in the Norman Lear situation-comedy "The Jeffersons"
• 1997 - Michael Jackson is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

May 6th in women's history:

• 1914 - The British House of Lords rejects women suffrage
• 1945 - "Axis Sally" delivers her last broadcast to allied troops during World War II
• 1967 - Canadian athlete Maureen Wilton runs female world record marathon
• 2010 - The History of Women's Fashions opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This Costume Institute exhibition presents high-end women's fashions from the 1890's to the 1940's

May 6th Birthdays:

• 1856 - Sigmond Freud, Austrian psychiatrist
• 1895 - Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor
• 1915 - Orson Welles, American film director and actor
• 1931 - Willie Mays, American baseball player
• 1953 - Tony Blair, Former British Prime Minister
• 1961 - George Clooney, American actor