Template:On this day - August 6

Diego Velázquez

• 953 – At the Monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña (present-day Spain), Muslim troops martyr its 200 monks (who will be canonized in 1603).
• 1162 – Death of Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona (present-day Spain) (b. 1113).
• 1479 – In Quel (La Rioja) the Bread and Cheese Festival is founded, one of the oldest pilgrimages in Spain, whose uninterrupted celebration continues today.
• 1538 – In the New Kingdom of Granada (present-day Colombia), Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada founds Santa Fe de Bogotá, today the capital of the country.
• 1526 – Death of Juan Sebastián Elcano aboard the ship Santa María de la Victoria, Spanish navigator who in 1522 had completed the first circumnavigation of the world begun by Ferdinand Magellan (b. c. 1486).
• 1539 – In the New Kingdom of Granada (present-day Colombia), Gonzalo Suárez Rendón founds Tunja (today the capital of the department of Boyacá).
• 1660 – Death of Diego Velázquez, Spanish Baroque painter considered one of the foremost exponents of Spanish painting and a master of universal painting (b. 1599).
• 1756 – Birth of Salvador Fidalgo, Spanish naval officer (d. 1803).
• 1776 – In the Province of Cartagena (New Granada) (present-day Colombia), Antonio de la Torre y Miranda founds the Sitio de Nuestra Señora del Carmen (today El Carmen de Bolívar, capital of the Montes de María).
• 1811 – In Spain, the Cortes of Cádiz decree the abolition of all jurisdictional lordships.
• 1817 – Birth of Salvador Bermúdez de Castro, Spanish poet and historian (d. 1883).
• 1824 – At the Battle of Junín (Peru), the forces of Simón Bolívar defeat the Spanish forces commanded by José de Canterac.
• 1825 – Simón Bolívar declares the Independence of Bolivia, considered the commemorative date of the country.
• 1872 – In Colombia the Colombian Academy of Language is founded, the oldest of the Corresponding Academies of the Royal Spanish Academy.
• 1875 – On the steps of the Presidential Palace (Carondelet Palace), in the city of Quito (Ecuador), the reelected president Gabriel García Moreno is assassinated.
• 1895 – Birth of Ernesto Lecuona, Spanish-Cuban performer and composer.
• 1927 – The Official Gazette of the Republic of Chile publishes the executive decree restoring in that country the orthographic rules of the Royal Spanish Academy in place of the Orthography of Bello.
• 1985 – Víctor Paz Estenssoro assumes the presidency of Bolivia for the fourth and last time.
• 1986 – In Aucayacu (Peru), the terrorist group Shining Path murders ten homosexual people, with the aim of intimidating the population.
• 1996 – Death of Hernán Siles Zuazo, Bolivian president 1956–1960 and 1982–1985 (b. 1914).
• 2002 – Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada assumes the presidency of Bolivia for the second and last time.
• 2005 – Death of Ibrahim Ferrer, Cuban singer (b. 1927).