May 6th

Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president of France.

The final first-run episode of "Friends" aired on NBC.

Right-wing Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was shot and killed in Hilversum, Netherlands.

Pope John Paul II, during a trip to Syria, became the first pope to enter a mosque.

Scotland elected its first separate parliament in three centuries.

The Channel Tunnel linking the United Kingdom with France is opened. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand inaugurated the “Chunnel”. It measures just over 50 km (31 mi) and is the tunnel with the world's longest undersea portion.

A massive earthquake hits northeast Italy. 939 people died and 157,000 were left homeless in Italy's worst earthquake, which measured 6.5 on the Richter scale.

Britain's Princess Margaret married Anthony Armstrong Jones, a commoner, at Westminster Abbey. (They divorced in 1978.).

Roger Bannister became the first athlete to run a mile in less than four minutes, finishing in 3:59.4 during a track meet in Oxford, England.

Some 15,000 Americans and Filipinos on Corregidor surrendered to the Japanese during World War II.

Dictator Joseph Stalin became the premier of Russia.

The German airship Hindenburg blew up and burst into flames at Lakehurst, N.J.

Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox hit the first of his 714 major league home runs in a 4-3 loss to the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds.

Britain's King Edward VII died.

Mormon Church renounces polygamy [1006-Truth Restored (Morman pub)].

The Universal Exposition opened in Paris, marking the completion and dedication of the Eiffel Tower.

Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from the United States for 10 years.

Jefferson Davis approves a bill declaring War between the Union & the Confederacy.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was born in Freiberg, Moravia (present-day Pribor, Czech Republic).

A tornado that touched down in eastern Louisiana and crossed the Mississippi River into Natchez, Miss., killed 317 people - most of them on boats in the river.

Dutch colonist Peter Minuit buys Manhattan Island from local Indians for 60 guilders worth of trinkets.