May 6

🕐4 min read

May 6 is one of those dates that history decided to overload. It carries the weight of the Hindenburg, the opening of the Channel Tunnel, a patron saint of misplaced things, and — in at least one American catalog of peculiar observances — No Homework Day. The calendar does not curate itself for tonal consistency.

On This Date

1937: The Hindenburg airship catches fire while mooring at Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36. Radio reporter Herbert Morrison’s “Oh, the humanity!” becomes one of the most famous phrases in broadcast history. What’s less remembered: 62 of the 97 people aboard survived, many by jumping from the gondola as the burning frame settled to the ground. Airship travel, already in decline, effectively dies in the span of 34 seconds.

1994: The Channel Tunnel officially opens, connecting England and France by rail beneath the English Channel for the first time. It was eight years late and nearly three times over budget. The English and French press each claimed the other country got the better deal.

1954: Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile (May 6, 1954, to be precise about dates this project cares about) — 3:59.4 at Iffley Road track, Oxford. The record lasted 46 days before John Landy broke it. The barrier was psychological, not physical.

1861: Arkansas secedes from the Union, becoming the ninth state to join the Confederacy.

Folk Traditions and Superstitions

In English gardening folklore, early May is “bean-setting week.” The specific instruction, preserved in several 19th-century almanacs: plant runner beans when you can sit on the soil without flinching. May 6, falling solidly in this window, was considered an excellent bean day — the soil is warm enough, but the summer heat hasn’t yet arrived to stress seedlings.

In the old farmer’s weather-lore tradition: “If the sixth of May be fair, expect a fruitful year.” This was paired with the less optimistic: “A wet May fills the barn with hay” — meaning May rain isn’t disaster, just a different kind of harvest.

Saints and Observances

The Catholic calendar marks May 6 as the feast of Saint Petronax of Monte Cassino, who rebuilt the abbey of Monte Cassino after its destruction by the Lombards. He is, in a sense, a patron of reconstruction after catastrophe — which has a certain resonance with a date that also carries the Hindenburg.

It is also National Nurses Day in the United States, beginning National Nurses Week, which runs through May 12 (Florence Nightingale’s birthday).

Astronomical Notes

The Eta Aquariid meteor shower, fed by debris from Halley’s Comet, typically peaks around May 5-6. Best viewed from the Southern Hemisphere, where observers can see 30-40 meteors per hour. From the Northern Hemisphere, expect closer to 10-15 per hour, low on the eastern horizon before dawn.

The Strange Bit

No Homework Day is a real observance, listed in Chase’s Calendar of Events, created by Thomas and Ruth Roy (who are responsible for an extraordinary number of novelty holidays). Whether any school has ever honored it is unclear. The Roys did not appear to conduct follow-up research.

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