Reuters historical calendar - August 6

London, Aug 5 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on August 6 in history: 1914 - Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia, and Serbia declared war on Germany in World War One.

1926 - American Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel, taking just over 14 hours.

1932 - The first annual film festival began in Venice. Italy, France, Germany, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union all took part.

1945 - The US Air Force dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. It was carried by the B-29 bomber ''Enola Gay''.

At least 117,000 people were killed.

1962 - Jamaica became independent after 300 years of British rule.

1973 - Fulgencio Batista, Cuban dictator from 1952-59, died in Spain. He had fled Cuba after being toppled by Fidel Castro.

1978 - Pope Paul VI, who succeeded John XXIII in 1963, died. A conservative, he reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's prohibition of artificial birth control in his encyclical ''Humanae Vitae''. He was succeeded by John Paul I.

1990 - After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the UN Security Council voted 13-0 to ban trade with Iraq except in medicine and some food for humanitarian relief.

1996 - US scientists said they had found evidence of ancient life on Mars in remnants of a meteorite discovered in Antarctica.

1999 - President Boris Yeltsin asked parliament to abolish the death penalty in Russia.

2003 - A Madagascar court sentenced former president Didier Ratsiraka to 10 years' hard labour for embezzling public funds worth 49 billion Malagasy francs ( million).

2005 - Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who quit government over the 2003 invasion of Iraq, died. He was 59.

REUTERS SP ND1008