{"id":15914,"date":"2022-07-06T06:06:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T04:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=211190"},"modified":"2022-07-06T06:32:08","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T04:32:08","slug":"6-july-on-this-day-in-history","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/6-july-on-this-day-in-history\/","title":{"rendered":"6 July: On this day in history"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Elinor Evans\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 06 July 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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6 July 1189<\/h3>\n

After the death of his father Henry II, with whom he has fallen out, Richard the Lionheart<\/a> accedes the English throne.<\/p>\n

6 July 1483<\/h3>\n

Richard Duke of Gloucester was crowned King Richard III<\/a> by Thomas Bourchier, archbishop of Canterbury, in a lavish and well-attended ceremony at Westminster. During the coronation procession the great mace was carried by Thomas Lord Stanley, while the train of Richard\u2019s wife, Anne Neville<\/a>, was borne by Stanley\u2019s wife, Margaret Beaufort<\/a>, Dowager Countess of Richmond. Two years later Margaret\u2019s son would become King Henry VII<\/a> after defeating Richard at the battle of Bosworth<\/a> with the aid of the Stanley family.<\/p>\n

6 July 1781<\/h3>\n

Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, the future founder of Singapore, was born off Port Morant, Jamaica, on board his father\u2019s ship, the Ann.<\/em><\/p>\n

6 July 1885:\u00a0Louis Pasteur unveils his cure for rabies<\/h3>\n

Pioneering microbiologist risks the wrath of the law by saving a young boy\u2019s life<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When nine-year-old Joseph Meister was bitten by a rabid dog, his parents feared the worst. Rabies was a death sentence. But Joseph\u2019s mother had recently read about the work of the pioneering microbiologist Louis Pasteur. If anyone could save her son, she thought, Professor Pasteur could.<\/p>\n

On 6 July, having made the two-day journey from their Alsatian village, Joseph and his mother were shown in to see the professor. Pasteur did have a rabies vaccine, developed by his colleague Emile Roux, but it had only ever been tested on dogs. The problem, however, was that since he was not a registered doctor, Pasteur would be breaking the law if he tried to treat Joseph.<\/p>\n

To his eternal credit, Pasteur decided to gamble. \u201cThe death of this child appearing to be inevitable,\u201d he wrote later, \u201cI decided, not without lively and sore anxiety, as may well be believed, to try.\u201d This was the chance to test the vaccine: \u201cHalf a syringeful of the spinal cord of a rabbit, which had died of rabies.\u201d Over the next few days, he injected little Joseph some 13 times. On the final day he gave him \u201cthe most virulent dose of rabies\u201d.<\/p>\n

It worked. Joseph was cured. Forever indebted to Professor Pasteur, he later became the caretaker of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. The story goes that when the Germans defeated France in 1940, Joseph killed himself rather than let them in. In reality, he was stricken by guilt that he had sent his family out of the city. Believing \u2013 wrongly, it turned out \u2013 that they must have died during the invasion, he gassed himself in his kitchen. He was 64 years old. | Written by Dominic Sandbrook<\/strong><\/p>\n

6 July 1912<\/h3>\n

The opening ceremony of the Olympics was held in Stockholm\u2019s Olympic Stadium in the presence of King Gustav V of Sweden. Later that day, Donald Lippincott set a new world record of 10.6 seconds in the heats of the 100 metres.<\/p>\n

6 July 1942:\u00a0Anne Frank<\/a> enters the \u2018Secret Annex\u2019<\/h3>\n

\u201cAll day long we unpacked boxes,\u201d wrote the 13-year-old as her family set up a hidden home<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

On the afternoon of 5 July 1942, the Frank family had the news they dreaded. For more than two years, they had been living under Nazi rule in German- occupied Amsterdam. Now, as their 13-year- old daughter Anne recorded in her diary, her 16-year-old sister, Margot, had been called up for transportation to a German labour camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cA call-up: everyone knows what that means,\u201d Anne wrote. \u201cVisions of concentration camps and lonely cells raced through my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

That night, their parents made their final preparations for their flight. \u201cEverything was very strange,\u201d wrote Anne. At 5.30 the next morning, Mrs Frank woke the girls. Two hours later, wearing as many layers of clothes as they could, the Franks closed their front door for the last time, and walked through the morning rain towards Anne\u2019s father\u2019s office at 263 Prinsengracht.<\/p>\n

Otto Frank, a successful businessman, had prepared a hiding place on the top floor, nick- named the \u2018Secret Annex\u2019. Already the tiny space was stuffed with boxes of belongings. \u201cMother and Margot were unable to move a muscle,\u201d wrote Anne. \u201cThey lay down on their bare mattresses, tired, miserable and I don\u2019t know what else. But Father and I, the two cleaner-uppers in the family, started in right away. All day long we unpacked boxes, filled cupboards, hammered nails and\u00a0straightened up the mess, until we fell exhausted into our clean beds at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the next two years, until they were caught by the Germans, this would be their home. | Written by Dominic Sandbrook<\/strong><\/p>\n

6 July 1960<\/h3>\n

Death of Aneurin \u2018Nye\u2019 Bevan, the Welsh Labour politician who, as minister of health from 1945 to 1951, was the architect of the National Health Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Browse more\u00a0On this day in history<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n