Check out This Day in History for Oct. 6, MainStream’s daily look at significant progressive, intersectional historical events.
1921: PEN International, a worldwide association of writers, is founded in London and now has 130 locations across five continents in more than 90 countries.
Above, Simone Biles, logos for the American Library Association and PEN International, MCC founder Rev. Troy Perry, and the Wyoming field where Matthew Shepard was found beaten and tied to a fence.
1943: Heinrich Himmler, leader of the Nazi Party’s Reich, gives the second of two speeches that reference the extermination of Jews. These speeches are among the strongest evidence to be assembled against Himmler to try him in the Nuremberg Trials. He committed suicide by cyanide before the trails happened.
1966: The Grateful Dead and thousands of Californians gather in San Francisco for the Love Pageant Rally, to protest California’s new law making it the first state to outlaw LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide).
1968: Troy Perry leads the first-ever service of the Metropolitan Community Churches, 12 people gathered in his Los Angeles living room. The denomination of gay-identified churches is now a worldwide network of 300 churches in 22 countries.
1973: Egypt and Syria launch a surprise attack on Israel in what becomes known as the Yom Kippur War, and over the next 10 days more than 18,000 people in all would be injured, and more than 10,000 killed. With the Soviet Union equipping Egypt and Syria with weapons, and the United States doing the same for Israel, the Yom Kippur War is known for nearly bringing the two superpowers to nuclear war.
1978: Hanna H. Gray becomes president of the University of Chicago, making her the first female president ever of a major research university.
1998: Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student, is savagely beaten, tortured, and left to die tied to a fence in Laramie, Wyoming. His death six days later would launch a movement to support hate crime laws. New information uncovered since Shepard’s notorious murder and outlined in Stephen Jimenez’s book The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard indicate Shepard knew his killers, and that his murder was the result of a drug deal gone bad.
2008: Two French scientists, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their 1983 discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Montagnier would later b the focus of controversy for being one of the first resaerchers to contend COVID resulted from a laboratory leak, a theory that has since received support from a Republican-led House research committee.
2010: Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launch the social media app Instagram, which attracts 25,000 users on its first day.
2018: Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed by a divided U.S. Senate and sworn in to the U.S. Supreme Court after an FBI investigation into allegations against Kavanaugh of sexual assault while he was a college student.
2022:Â Then-President Joseph R. Biden asks the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Attorney General to start administrative proceedings that would “expeditiously” review “how marijuana is scheduled.” HHS and the FDA eventually recommends rescheduling cannabis from a Level 1 “highly addictive” drug with no medical use, to a Level 3 drug with low addictive danger and potential medical properties.
2023: American Simone Biles wins all-around gold at the World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, becoming the most decorated gymnast with 34 World and Olympic medals [1]
References for today’s history nuggets include history.com, On This Day and blackfacts.org. Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
