On this day: French interference in Scotland | Ayatollah Khomeini

Events, birthdays and anniversaries for 6 June

In 1989 thousands attended the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini, tipping the body on to the street and fighting over his shroud. Picture: Getty

6 JUNE

National day of Sweden.

1520: King Henry VIII and France’s King Francis I signed treaty ending French interference in Scotland.

1660: Peace of Copenhagen ended war between Sweden and Denmark, opening the Baltic to foreign warships.

1683: First museum opened to the public – the Ashmolean Museum in Broad Street, Oxford, founded by Elias Ashmole.

1923: Steve Donoghue, riding Papyrus, became the first jockey to win the Derby three times in succession.

1936: Gatwick Airport was opened.

1944: The allied landings began on the coast of Normandy. Operation Overlord was the biggest sea-borne invasion in history.

1967: Egyptians closed Suez Canal during Arab-Israeli War.

1985: Israel withdrew last troops from Lebanon, three years after its invasion of the country.

1988: The Queen stripped imprisoned jockey Lester Piggott of his OBE.

1989: Ayatollah Khomeini was buried. Thousands of mourners flocked round, tipping the body on to the street and fighting over shreds of his shroud.

1990: United States secretary of state James Baker presented Soviet proposal on Germany’s military future to Nato allies.

1991: Britain rejected offers from Colonel Gaddafi to restore diplomatic links between Britain and Libya.

1992: A book about the Princess of Wales, by Andrew Morton, claimed she had attempted suicide five times.

1994: West Indian Brian Lara became the first batsman to pass 500 runs in a single first-class innings when he hit 501 not out against Durham for Warwickshire.

2002: A near-Earth asteroid estimated at ten metres diameter exploded over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion was estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

2004: Tamil was established as a Classical language by the president of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in a joint sitting of the two houses of the Indian Parliament.

2007: President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was stripped of his honorary degree by Edinburgh University senate. The university said that at the time of the award, in 1984, it knew nothing of events in Matabeleland where 20,000 are thought to have died.

BIRTHDAYS

Björn Borg, Wimbledon tennis champion, 57; David Blunkett, MP, home secretary 2001-04, 66; Peter Alexander Rupert Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, foreign secretary 1979-82, 94; Mike Gatting OBE, English cricketer and commentator, 56; Jason Isaacs, actor, 50; John Kerr, ice-dance champion with sister Sinead, 33; Josie Lawrence, comedienne and actress, 54; Willie John McBride MBE, Irish rugby player, 73; Billie Whitelaw CBE, actress, 81.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1599 Diego Valázquez, painter; 1799 Aleksandr Pushkin, Russian poet; 1868 Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Antarctic explorer; 1875 Thomas Mann, German novelist; 1900 Arthur Askey, comedian; 1909 Sir Isaiah Berlin, philosopher.

Deaths: 1891 Sir John Alexander Macdonald, first prime minister of Canada; 1941 Louis Chevrolet, car pioneer; 1961 Carl Jung, psychoanalytic pioneer; 1968 Robert Kennedy, US senator; 1976 Paul Getty, oil businessman; 1990 Joe Loss, bandleader; 1991 Stan Getz, jazz saxophonist; 2005 Anne Bancroft, actress.