February 6 in History

February 6 is the 37th day of the year. There are 329 days remaining until the end of the year.

February 6 is the United Nations’ International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation.

• 1788 – Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the US Constitution.
• 1815 – New Jersey granted the first American railroad charter.
• 1819 – Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded Singapore.
• 1820 – The first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society started a settlement in present-day Liberia.
• 1843 – The first minstrel show in the US, The Virginia Minstrels, opened in Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City.
• 1895 – Babe Ruth, American baseball player, was born. He died in 1948.
• 1913 – Mary Leakey, British anthropologist who discovered the first skull of a fossil ape, was born. She died in 1996.
• 1918 – British women over the age of 30 get the right to vote.
• 1929 – Colin Murdoch, New Zealand inventor of the tranquilizer gun, was born. He died in 2008.
• 1933 – The 20th Amendment to the US Constitution went into effect establishing the terms of the elected federal offices.
• 1952 – Elizabeth II became the first Queen of the United Kingdom since Queen Victoria.
• 1959 – Jack Kilby of texas Instruments filed the first patent for an integrated circuit.
• 1978 – The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst storms in New England history, hit with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of 4" an hour.
• 1987 – Justice Mary Gaudron was the first woman appointed to the High Court of Australia.
• 1998 – Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.