Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 June 6

Omaha Beach was one of five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on D-Day, 6 June 1944, during World War II. The untested 29th Infantry Division and nine companies of U.S. Army Rangers assaulted the western half of the beach; the battle-hardened 1st Infantry Division targeted the eastern half. The opposing German 352nd Infantry Division troops, mostly teenagers with no battalion-level training and some Eastern Front veterans, were largely deployed in strongpoints along the coast. The initial assault waves of tanks, infantry, and combat engineer forces were tasked with reducing the coastal defenses to allow larger ships to land. Little went as planned: most landing craft missed their targets, and the defenses were unexpectedly strong. Troops could not clear the heavily defended exits off the beach, delaying later landings. Groups of survivors eventually improvised assaults, scaling the bluffs between the most heavily defended points. By the end of the day, two small isolated footholds had been won, and the original objective of a beachhead 5 miles deep was achieved within days. (Full article...)

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• ... that in February 1981, "Duncan", a song about drinking beer, was the number-one single in Australia?
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• In horse racing, Harzand, ridden by Pat Smullen, wins the Epsom Derby.
• Former world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali (pictured) dies at the age of 74.
• Severe flooding in Western and Central Europe causes at least 14 deaths.
• The Gotthard Base Tunnel, the longest railway tunnel in the world, opens in the Swiss Alps.
• In the Philippine presidential election, Rodrigo Duterte of PDP–Laban is proclaimed as president.

• Ongoing events
• Recent deaths:

  • Dave Swarbrick
  • Tom Kibble
  • Donny Everett
  • Rupert Neudeck

June 6: Ramadan begins (Islam, 2016); Queen's Official Birthday in New Zealand (2016); Western Australia Day (2016)

• 1862 – American Civil War: The Union Army's victory in the First Battle of Memphis virtually eradicated the Confederate naval presence on the Mississippi River.
• 1882 – The Shewa kingdom made big strides towards gaining supremacy over the Ethiopian Empire by defeating the Gojjam and gaining control of territories south of the Gibe River.
• 1912 – The largest eruption of the 20th century created the Novarupta volcano (pictured) in the Alaska Peninsula, US.
• 1982 – A war in Lebanon began when Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon to root out members of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
• 2004 – During a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament, President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam announced that Tamil was to be made the first legally recognised classical language of India.

• More anniversaries:

  • June 5
  • June 6
  • June 7

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