Monday 6th of May 1501

222nd Pope Marcellus II is born as Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi in Montefano, Marche, Italy.

Monday 6th of May 1574

236th Pope Innocentius X is born as Giovanni Battista Pamphilj in Vatican City, Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Friday 6th of May 1678

Composer Joseph Chabanceau de La Barre dies of unknown causes at the age of 45 in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Saturday 6th of May 1758

Leader of the French Revolution Maximilien François Marie Isidore Robespierre is born in Arras, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France.

Sunday 6th of May 1838

Composer Alfred Humphreys Pease is born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States.

Tuesday 6th of May 1856

Neurologist Sigmund Freud aka The Father of Psychoanalysis is born as Sigismund Schlomo Freud in Schlossergasse 117, Freiberg, Mähren, Austria.

Tuesday 6th of May 1862

Writer, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister and transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau known for his book ‘Walden’ dies of tuberculosis at the age of 45 in Concord, Massachusetts, United States.

Thoreau's last words were "Now comes good sailing" followed by two lone words, "moose" and "Indian".

Wednesday 6th of May 1863

Murderer John Shirley is executed by hanging in United States Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, United States.

Three thousand men, women and children watched Shirley's hanging on the open ground south of the guardhouse.

Thursday 6th of May 1880

Expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner is born in Aschaffenburg, Bayern, Germany.

Monday 6th of May 1895

Actor and sex symbol Rudolph Valentino aka Latin Lover is born as Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla in Castellaneta, Apulia, Italy.

Friday 6th of May 1898

Gauleiter of Sudetengau Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein is born in Vratislavice nad Nisou, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia.

Tuesday 6th of May 1902

Film director Max Ophüls is born as Maximillian Oppenheimer in Saarbrücken, Saarland, Germany.

Friday 6th of May 1910

King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India Edward VII aka Bertie dies of several heart attacks at the age of 69 in Buckingham Palace, London, Westminster, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Thursday 6th of May 1915

Actor and film director Orson George Welles is born in 463 Park Avenue, Kenosha, Wisconsin, United States.

Thursday 6th of May 1920

Serial killer Martha Beck aka The Lonely Hearts Killers (with Raymond Fernandez) is born as Martha Jule Seabrook in Milton, Florida, United States.

Allegedly due to a glandular problem Beck was overweight and underwent puberty prematurely.

Tuesday 6th of May 1930

Serial killer David Joseph Carpenter aka The Trailside Killer is born in San Francisco, California, United States.

Friday 6th of May 1932

75-year-old Paul Doumer is shot in the head by assassin Paul Gorguloff in Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, 11 Rue Berryer, Paris, XIIIe, Île-de-France, France.

Two shots hit Doumer at the base of the skull and in the right armpit. Doumer was rushed to Beaujon Hospital where he died the next morning.

Thursday 6th of May 1937

36 die in LZ 129 Hindenburg airship fire in Naval Air Station, Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States.

The Hindenburg disaster was the subject of spectacular newsreel coverage, photographs and eyewitness reports from the landing field.

Thursday 6th of May 1943

Leader of the Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe aka Rote Armee Fraktion Andreas Bernd Baader is born in München, Bayern, Germany.

Friday 6th of May 1949

Poet and writer Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck dies of a heart attack at the age of 87 in Nice, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.

Saturday 6th of May 1950

Cop killer George Miller is executed by hanging at the age of 62 in Lansing Correctional Facility, 301 E Kansas Avenue, Lansing, Kansas, United States.

Wednesday 6th of May 1953

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is born in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.

Friday 6th of May 1960

47-year-old Catalan communist and assassin Ramón Mercader aka Jacques Mornard aka Frank Jacson known for the assassination of Russian Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky is released from prison in Palacio de Lecumberri, Mexico City, Mexico.

Mercader moved to Havana where Fidel Castro's new revolutionary government welcomed him.

Monday 6th of May 1963

23-year-old Beverly Samans is stabbed to death by serial killer Albert DeSalvo aka The Boston Strangler aka The Measuring Man aka The Green Man in 4 University Road, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.

Wednesday 6th of May 1964

22-year-old Serial killer Myra Hindley aka The Moors Murderers (with Ian Brady) trades her Austin car for a white Morris Mini-Traveler in Manchester, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom.

Friday 6th of May 1966

Serial killers the Moors Murderers aka Ian Brady and Myra Hindley are sentenced to 3 and 2 respectively concurrent terms of life-imprisonment in Chester Crown Court, Chester, Cheshire, United Kingdom.

Monday 6th of May 1974

20-year-old Roberta Kathleen Parks is bludgeoned to death by serial killer Ted Bundy aka The Only Living Witness in Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, United States.

Parks' skull was later found on Taylor Mountain. Bundy confessed to her murder shortly before his execution. 

Monday 6th of May 1985

Fifteenth bomb attack by Terrorist organisation Les Cellules Communistes Combattantes aka CCC in Direction Supérieure de la Logistique et des Finances de la Gendarmerie, Rue Père Eudore Devroye 245, Brussel, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Brabant, Belgium.

It was a revenge because the State Police failed to warn 2 firemen who got killed in the attack of 1 May 1985.

Tuesday 6th of May 1986

73-year-old Charles Quarell is suffocated by serial killer Kenneth Erskine aka The Stockwell Strangler in King James Street, London, Southwark, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Wednesday 6th of May 1992

Actress and singer Marlene Dietrich dies of renal failure at the age of 91 in 12 Avenue Montaigne, Paris, VIIIe, Île-de-France, France.

Tuesday 6th of May 1997

Murderer Terry Washington is executed by lethal injection at the age of 34 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Wednesday 6th of May 1998

Serial killer Bai Baoshan is executed by a shot in the back of the head at the age of 40 in Ürümqi, Xinjiang Uyghur, China.

Baoshan and two accomplices killed 10 people, including police officers, security guards and civilians, and stole 1.5 million yuan. Baoshan killed his accomplice Wu Ziming and made off with the money.

Wednesday 6th of May 1998

47-year-old Serial killer Donato Bilancia aka Il Mostro della Liguria is arrested in Ospedale San Martino, Genova, Liguria, Italy.

Monday 6th of May 2002

Weird garden furniture in Lyon, Rhône-Alpes, France.

Tuesday 6th of May 2003

Murderer Roger Dale Vaughn is executed by lethal injection at the age of 49 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Vaughn's last meal request was for a double meat cheeseburger with everything, a baked potato, a salad, a Coke and butter pecan ice cream.

Thursday 6th of May 2010

23-year-old Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist terrorist Ajmal Mohammed Amir Kasab is found guilty of murder, conspiracy, and of waging war against India and sentenced to death for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks in Bombay, Bombay Presidency, India.

Kasab was the only attacker captured alive by police.

Sunday 6th of May 2012

53-year-old Performance artist Danny Devos aka DDV performs 'Prelude to a Motorcycle Accident' with Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven aka AMVK in The Dome, 2A Dartmouth Park Hill, London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

A music performance of Club Moral with Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven whereby I screamed with my head in a bucket filled with water crawled on the floor between the audience and ate a bouquet of flowers that I spewed out again.