📜 This Day in History

October 6

• 618Transition from Sui to Tang: Wang Shichong's army defeated Li Mi's forces at the Battle of Yanshi, allowing Wang to consolidate power and soon depose China's Sui dynasty.
• 1908Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, causing a crisis that permanently damaged the country's relations with the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Serbia.
• 1973The Egyptian Armed Forces crossed the Suez Canal to attack occupying Israeli forces at the Bar Lev Line in the Sinai Peninsula, beginning the Yom Kippur War.
• 1985Police constable Keith Blakelock was killed during rioting in the Broadwater Farm housing estate in Tottenham, London.
• 1998Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was attacked and fatally wounded near Laramie, Wyoming, U.S., dying six days later.
• 2008The MESSENGER probe discovered Mercury's Rembrandt – the second largest impact crater on the planet.

Born on this day

• 1773Louis Philippe I of France (died 1850)
• 1887Le Corbusier, Swiss-French architect and painter, designed the Philips Pavilion and Saint-Pierre, Firminy (died 1965)
• 1914Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian ethnographer and explorer (died 2002)
• 1930Hafez al-Assad, Syrian general and politician, 20th President of Syria (died 2000)