Sunday · September 27, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
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On this day › July 6

What happened on July 6 in American history

July 6 is the 187th day of the year (the 188th in leap years). Patriot Compass has published 8 stories from July 6 spanning 1777 to 1962. Among them: in 1777, St. Clair abandons Ticonderoga overnight; the garrison slips out without firing a shot; and in 1779, D'Estaing holds Grenada; Byron charges 25 French ships with 21 and pays in blood.

1777

St. Clair abandons Ticonderoga overnight; the garrison slips out without firing a shot

Burgoyne's engineers spent three days hauling cannon up Mount Defiance, and by dawn the fort's heaviest guns, its cattle, and its invalids are left behind.
1779

D'Estaing holds Grenada; Byron charges 25 French ships with 21 and pays in blood

The disordered British chase leaves 183 dead and the Lion limping toward Jamaica after a battle the admiral entered expecting the advantage.
1854Member story · 1776 Club

Anti-slavery Whigs, Free Soilers, and Democrats meet under the oaks in Jackson; they call themselves Republicans

Thousands gather at Morgan's Forty on the edge of town, united by fury over the Kansas-Nebraska Act's opening of closed territories to slavery.
1892Member story · 1776 Club

Pinkertons try to land at Homestead in darkness; at least sixteen are dead by morning

Frick's barbed-wire lockout turns to open battle on the Monongahela after armed steelworkers and their families open fire from the riverbank on two barges of agents.
1933Member story · 1776 Club

Ruth homers as the American League beats the National in baseball's first All-Star Game

Tribune sports editor Arch Ward's showcase experiment draws the sport's biggest stars to Comiskey Park, mid-Exposition Chicago its stage.
1944Member story · 1776 Club

Circus tent collapses in eight minutes; at least 167 dead in Hartford

Paraffin-and-gasoline-treated canvas catches on the southwest sidewall mid-show; two exits blocked by animal chutes trap thousands of women and children inside.
1944Member story · 1776 Club

Robinson refuses to move to the back of a Fort Hood bus; MPs are called

The Army second lieutenant, sitting beside a fellow officer's wife, ignores the driver's order and now faces charges that include public drunkenness.
1962

AEC detonates 'Sedan' 636 feet underground at Yucca Flat; 12 million tons of earth go skyward

The radioactive cloud is already drifting east, and early tracking puts fallout exposure across the Midwest at more than 13 million people.