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Our on this day in history archives contain over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few more of them:

June 6 is the 157th day of the year (158th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 208 days remain until the end of the year.

EVENTS

1654 – Swedish Queen Christina abdicated her throne in favour of her cousin Charles Gustav and converted to Catholicism.

1813 – The Battle of Stoney Creek, considered a critical turning point in the War of 1812. A British force of 700 under John Vincent defeats an American force twice its size under William Winder and John Chandler.

1844 – The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London.

1889 – The Great Seattle Fire destroys all of downtown Seattle.

1892 – The Chicago "L" elevated rail system begins operation.

1894 – Governor Davis H. Waite orders the Colorado state militia to protect and support the miners engaged in the Cripple Creek miners' strike.

1912 – The eruption of Novarupta in Alaska begins. It is the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.[22][23]

1925 – The original Chrysler Corporation was founded by Walter Chrysler from the remains of the Maxwell Motor Company.

1933 – The first drive-in theater opens in Camden, New Jersey.

1934 – New Deal: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

1942 – The United States Navy's victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway is a major turning point in the Pacific Theater of World War II. All four Japanese fleet carriers taking part—Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū—are sunk, as is the heavy cruiser Mikuma. The American carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann are also sunk.

1944 – Commencement of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy, with the execution of Operation Neptune—commonly referred to as D-Day—the largest seaborne invasion in history. Nearly 160,000 Allied troops cross the English Channel with about 5,000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers participating. By the end of the day, the Allies have landed on five invasion beaches and are pushing inland.

1985 – The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is opened in Embu, Brazil; the exhumed remains are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death"; Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February 1979.

2002 – Eastern Mediterranean event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at ten meters in diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

2024 – The launch of SpaceX Starship integrated flight test 4 (IFT-4)

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