February 6 birthdays & history

Famous people born on February 6

• 1911Ronald Reagan, American actor and politician, 40th President of the United States
• 1945Bob Marley, Jamaican singer-songwriter and cultural icon
• 1932François Truffaut, French filmmaker and critic
• 1895Babe Ruth, American baseball player and coach
• 1778Ugo Foscolo, Italian author and poet
• 1962Axl Rose, American singer and songwriter
• 1966Rick Astley, British pop singer
• 1950Natalie Cole, American singer
• 1892William P. Murphy, American physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1995Leon Goretzka, German footballer

What happened on February 6

• 1579Domingo de Salazar, a Spanish Dominican friar, was appointed the first bishop of Manila.
• 1788Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the constitution of the United States.
• 1819British official Stamford Raffles signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor, establishing Singapore as a trading post for the East India Company.
• 1820The first ship of the American Colonization Society departed from New York for West Africa with 86 African-American emigrants aboard to found the colony of Liberia.
• 1833Otto becomes the first modern King of Greece.
• 1840Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, establishing New Zealand as a British colony.
• 1843The first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrels, opens (Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City).
• 1865Finland established its modern system of secular municipalities, separate from church parishes.
• 1918British women over the age of 30 who meet minimum property qualifications, get the right to vote when Representation of the People Act 1918 is passed by Parliament.
• 1959Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit.
• 1987Mary Gaudron became the first woman to be appointed a justice of the High Court of Australia.
• 1998Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Also observed on February 6

• International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (United Nations)
• Ronald Reagan Day (California, United States)
• Sami National Day (Russia, Finland, Norway and Sweden)
• Waitangi Day, celebrates the founding of New Zealand in 1840.