Today in 1984 Pop star Prince releases Purple Rain, the album which launched him to superstardom.

August 6 is the 218th day of the year (219th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 147 days remaining until the end of the year.

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 of them:

EVENTS

1223 - Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile are crowned King and Queen of France.

1284 - The Republic of Pisa is defeated in the Battle of Meloria by the Republic of Genoa, therefore losing its naval dominance in the Mediterranean.

1506 - The Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeats the Crimean Khanate in the Battle of Kletsk.

1538 - Bogota, the present-day capital city of Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada.

1661 - The Treaty of The Hague is signed by Portugal and the Dutch Republic.

1777 - American Revolutionary War: The bloody Battle of Oriskany prevents American relief of the Siege of Fort Stanwix.

1787 - Sixty proof sheets of the United States Constitution are delivered to the Constitution Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1806 – Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, abdicates, thus ending the Holy Roman Empire.

1813 - Simon Bolivar takes control of Caracas (present-day Venezuela) from the Spanish.

1825 – Bolivia gains independence from Peru.

1845 - The Russian Geographical Society is founded in Saint Petersburg.

1861 – British annexation of Lagos, Nigeria.

1862 – American Civil War: The Confederate ironclad CSS Arkansas is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering damage in a battle with the USS Essex near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

1870 - Franco-Prussian War: The Battles of Spicheren and Woerth both end in Prussian victory.

1890 – At Auburn Prison in New York, the first execution by electric chair is performed, with murderer William Kemmler as the subject.

1893 - The Corinth Canal in Greece opens for shipping.

1896 - Madagascar officially becomes a French colony.

1914 - World War I: Serbia declares war on Germany.

1915 – World War I: Battle of Sari Bair begins - The Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay.

1926 – Gertrude Ederle becomes first woman to swim across the English Channel.

1926 – In New York City, the Warner Brothers' Vitaphone system premieres with the movie Don Juan starring John Barrymore.

1940 - The Soviet Union takes control of Estonia.

1942 - Wilhelmina of the Netherlands becomes the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the United States Congress.

1945 – World War II: An atomic bomb codenamed Little Boy is dropped by the American B-29 Enola Gay on the city of Hiroshima, Japan at 8:16 a.m.. It kills 80,000 outright with another 60,000 dead by the end of the year from fallout sickness. Ultimately, about 200,000 die due to the atomic bombing.

1958 - Gasherbrum IV in the Karakoram range of the Himalayas is first climbed, by Walter Bonatti and Carlo Mauri.

1960 – Cuban Revolution: In response to a United States embargo, Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.

1962 – Jamaica becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

1964 - Prometheus, a bristlecone pine and the world's oldest tree, is cut down.

1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law.

1966 - Braniff Airlines Flight 250 crashes in Fall City, Nebraska, killing all 42 people.

1984 – Pop star Prince releases Purple Rain, the album which launched him to superstardom.

1985 – In Hiroshima, tens of thousands mark the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city.

1988 – "Police riot" in New York City's Tompkins Square Park

1990 – Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council orders a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait

1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web.

1991 - Takako Doi becomes the first female speaker of the Japanese House of Representatives.

1993 - Heavy rains kill 72 people in the Aira and Kagoshima areas of Kyushu, Japan.

1993 – Louis Freeh is confirmed by the United States Senate to be the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

1993 – The Fugitive opens in theaters, starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.

1996 – NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms.

1996 – Australian census conducted.

1997 – Microsoft buys $150 million worth of shares of financially troubled Apple Computer.

1997 – Korean Air Flight 801, a Boeing 747-300, crashes into the jungle on Guam on approach to airport, killing 228.

From 2001

2001 – President George W. Bush receives President's Daily Briefing entitled Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US.

2002 – Marquis de la Fayette is made Honorary Citizen of the United States.

2002 – Manindra Agrawal et al. prove the long-standing number theory conjecture in the article entitled "Primes in P".

2008 – In Mauritania, President Sidi Ould Sheikh Abdallahi is removed from office in a military coup, led by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

2010 - In relation to the floods in Pakistan, flash floods also hit the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, killing 255 people.

2011 - The 2011 England riots begin.

2012 - NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity lands on the surface of the planet Mars, with the intention of finding evidence that life once existed there.

2017 - The UEFA Women's Championship is won by the Netherlands, with a 4-2 win in the final over Denmark, who had ended Germany's run of six titles in-a-row in the quarter finals.