What happened on 6 June?

14 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1944 D-Day (Operation Overlord) Allied amphibious invasion of Normandy with major British and Canadian assault sectors on the British-led 2nd Army front.
2. 1644 Manchu conquest of China Qing forces take Beijing and replace the Ming; rule China until 1912.
3. 1944 Battle of Normandy Twelve weeks from the beaches to the Seine: two million Allied soldiers ashore, the bocage bought hedgerow by hedgerow, and a German army group destroyed in the west — at the cost
4. 1674 Maratha Empire Shivaji founds the Maratha state and resists Mughal expansion; under his successors the Marathas come to dominate much of India.
5. 1674 Shivaji crowned at Raigad Shivaji is crowned chhatrapati of the Maratha kingdom, beginning Maratha resistance to Mughal rule.
6. 1944 The landing at Omaha Beach The plan fails in the first minute: the bombardment misses, the amphibious tanks founder, and the first waves are machine-gunned on an open shingle beneath intact bluffs. That the
7. 1944 The airborne night before D-Day In the first minutes of 6 June, gliders skid to a stop yards from Pegasus Bridge and 18,000 British and American paratroopers scatter across the dark Norman countryside — seizing b
8. 1599 Born: Diego Velázquez Spanish court painter to Philip IV; author of Las Meninas.
9. 1606 Born: Pierre Corneille Founder of French tragedy; wrote Le Cid and Cinna.
10. 1808 Napoleon puts his brother on Spain's throne Napoleon lures the Spanish royal family across the border, forces both king and heir to abdicate, and crowns his brother Joseph — and an empire of four centuries loses its head ove
11. 1523 Gustav Vasa elected King of Sweden The rebel who fled Christian II on skis breaks Sweden out of the Kalmar Union for good; his election day is still Sweden's national day.
12. 1944 Juno Beach landing The 3rd Canadian Division fights through Courseulles and pushes deeper inland on D-Day than any other Allied force.
13. 1873 Zanzibar slave market closed Under a British ultimatum the Sultan closes East Africa's great slave market; an Anglican cathedral rises on the site, its altar over the whipping post.
14. 1654 Abdication of Queen Christina Gustavus Adolphus's brilliant daughter — Descartes' last patron — gives up the Swedish throne, converts to Catholicism and rides to Rome, scandalising Protestant Europe.