December 6 Birthday

Famous Birthdays on December 6

• Ira Gershwin (1896)

  American lyricist who collaborated with his brother George Gershwin on classic American songbook standards.

• Steven Wright (1955)

  American comedian known for a deadpan delivery and surreal, one-line observational humor.

• Judd Apatow (1967)

  American filmmaker and producer known for The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up.

• JoJo (1990)

  American singer known for the early-2000s hit Leave (Get Out), released while she was still a teenager.

This Day in History

• 1865 — The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified, becoming part of the Constitution after Georgia became the 27th state to approve it.

• 1917 — A cargo ship collision in Halifax Harbour triggered the Halifax Explosion, one of the largest man-made explosions before the nuclear age, devastating much of the Nova Scotia port city.

• 1917 — Finland declared its independence from Russia, a declaration issued amid the chaos of the Russian Revolution.

What December 6 Says About You

A single date rarely carries both the formal end of American slavery and a declaration of national independence on the other side of the world, but December 6 holds both, thirty-two years apart. The 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865, when Georgia's approval pushed it past the three-quarters threshold of states needed, formally abolishing slavery throughout the United States — a legal conclusion to a war that had ended only months earlier. On the very same date in 1917, Finland declared independence from Russia, timing its break for sovereignty to the collapse of central authority during the Russian Revolution, when the opportunity to act was suddenly, briefly open. That same year, on the same date, a French cargo ship loaded with wartime explosives collided with another vessel in Halifax Harbour, setting off the Halifax Explosion, one of the largest accidental detonations in history before the nuclear era, which leveled much of the Nova Scotia port city in an instant. It's a date, in other words, defined by sudden, forceful change — legal, political, and physical. Sagittarius rules early December and carries associations with bold, decisive action. Ira Gershwin, born on this date in 1896, brought a related precision to a very different field, crafting lyrics for some of the most enduring songs in the American popular songbook alongside his brother George. Judd Apatow and Steven Wright, born in 1967 and 1955 respectively, each reshaped American comedy from opposite directions — Wright through minimalist, surreal one-liners, Apatow through sprawling, improvisation-heavy ensemble films — while JoJo, born in 1990, became one of the youngest artists to top the Billboard charts with a single. The 6th reduces to numerology day number 6, tied to responsibility and community, sitting uneasily but genuinely alongside a date whose history includes a constitutional correction, a nation's sudden independence, and a devastating accidental explosion. December's four birthstones — tanzanite, blue topaz, turquoise, and zircon — carry old healing associations that resonate with Halifax's long recovery, and its flowers, holly and narcissus, both stay green or bloom through the depths of winter. Georgia's ratification on December 6, 1865 made it the 27th of 36 states to approve the 13th Amendment, just barely clearing the three-quarters threshold the Constitution requires. The Halifax Explosion resulted from a collision between the French cargo ship SS Mont-Blanc, loaded with wartime munitions, and the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in the harbor's narrow channel; the resulting blast killed roughly 2,000 people and injured thousands more, flattening much of the city's north end in a fraction of a second. Finland's declaration of independence came just weeks after the Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd, a moment of Russian imperial collapse that Finnish leaders, watching closely, recognized as a narrow window unlikely to stay open for long.