Today in History — 2026-09-06

Minotaur V

Minotaur V is a small-lift launch vehicle repurposed from the retired LGM-118 Peacekeeper, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Minotaur V was developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation and made its maiden, and to date only, flight on September 7, 2013, carrying the LADEE spacecraft for NASA. Although Minotaur V is still offered for launch services, no further flights are scheduled as of 2026.

More on this day

  • 1962: River Thames The River Thames, known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At 215 miles (346 km), it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the River Severn.
  • 1943: Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, also known as the Technological Institute of Monterrey, is a private research university based in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. It has expanded to include 35 campuses across 25 cities in the country and 22 liaison offices in 15 other countries.
  • 1976: Viktor Belenko Viktor Ivanovich Belenko was a Soviet-born American aerospace engineer and pilot who defected in 1976 to the West while flying his MiG-25 "Foxbat" jet interceptor and landed in Hakodate, Japan. George H. W. Bush, the Director of Central Intelligence at the time, called the opportunity to examine the plane up close an "intelligence bonanza" for the West. Belenko later became a U.S. aerospace engineer.
  • 1885: Eastern Rumelia Eastern Rumelia was an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire with a total area of 32,978 km2 (12,733 sq mi), which was created in 1878 by virtue of the Treaty of Berlin and de facto ceased to exist in 1885, when it was united with the Principality of Bulgaria, also under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. It continued to be an Ottoman province de jure until 1908, when Bulgaria declared independence. Ethnic Bulgarians formed a majority of the population in Eastern Rumelia, but there were significant Turkish and Greek minorities. Its capital was Plovdiv. The official languages of Eastern Rumelia were Bulgarian, Greek and Ottoman Turkish.
  • 1861: American Civil War The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.
  • 1997: Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, started on Saturday 6 September 1997 at 9:08 am in London, when the tenor bell of Westminster Abbey started tolling to signal the departure of the cortège from Kensington Palace. Diana's coffin was carried from the palace on a gun carriage by riders of the King's Troop and escorted by mounted police along Hyde Park to St James's Palace, where her body had remained for five days before being taken to Kensington Palace. The Union Flag on top of the palace was lowered to half mast. The official ceremony was held at Westminster Abbey in London and finished at the resting place in Diana's family estate of Althorp, Northamptonshire.