Associated Press

On Aug. 6, 1806, Emperor Francis II abdicated, marking the end of the Holy Roman Empire after nearly a thousand years.

In 1825, Upper Peru became the autonomous republic of Bolivia.

In 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel.

In 1945, during World War II, the U.S. B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb code-named “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan, resulting in an estimated 140,000 deaths.

In 1962, Jamaica gained independence from the United Kingdom after 300 years of British rule.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.

In 1991, the World Wide Web made its public debut as a means of accessing webpages on the Internet.