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What happened in history on this day: August 7?
On August 7 in ...
- 317 - Birth of Constantius II, Roman emperor (337-61).
- 768 - Stephen III begins his reign as Catholic Pope.
- 1106 - Heinrich IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, dies in Liege, Lorraine (born in Saxony). (1077).
- 1498 - Columbus arrives in Caribbean.
- 1598 - Birth of Georg Stiernhielm "father of Swedish poetry" (Hercules).
- 1620 - Kepler's mother arrested for witchcraft.
- 1742 - Birth of Nathanael Greene American Revolutionary War General.
- 1779 - Birth of Carl Ritter; cofounder of modern science of geography.
- 1782 - US General George Washington creates the Badge of Military Merit honor (later called the Purple Heart), for the enlisted man's sacrifice in war.
- 1783 - Birth of John Heathcoat; inventor (lace-making machinery).
- 1789 - US War Department established.
- 1819 - Battle of Boyacá; Simon Bolívar defeats Spanish in Colombia.
- 1847 - First railway in Switzerland opens, the Spanish Bun Railway between Zurich and Baden.
- 1876 - Birth of Mata Hari; dancer/courtesan/spy (WW I) (dies 1917).
- 1882 - Hatfields of south West Virginia and McCoys of east Kentucky feud, 100 wounded or die.
- 1885 - Birth of Billie Burke in Washington, DC, USA; actress/comedienne (Glinda the Good Witch - The Wizard of Oz movie, Eddie Cantor Radio Show, Playhouse 90).
- 1886 - Birth of Louis Hazeltine; inventor (neutrodyne circuit, making radio possible).
- 1888 - Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia patents revolving door.
- 1896 - Birth of Ernesto Lecuona in Havana, Cuba; composer (Malagueña).
- 1903 - Birth of Louis Leakey; anthropologist (1964 Richard Hooper Medal) (dies 1972).
- 1904 - Birth of Ralph J Bunche; a founder and United Nations diplomat (Nobel Prize 1950).
- 1917 - Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning dies. He was the first pilot to land his aircraft on a moving ship.
- 1921 - Birth of Karel Husa in Prague, Czechoslovakia; composer (Trojan Women).
- 1927 - Birth of Edwin W Edwards; American politician (Governor-Louisiana).
- 1927 - Peace Bridge between US and Canada dedicated.
- 1928 - Birth of Amazing "James" Randi in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; skeptic magician.
- 1928 - Birth of Herb Reed; singer (The Platters).
- 1929 - Birth of Don Larsen; pitcher (New York Yankees).
- 1932 - Birth of Ann Harding; American actress (East is West, Janie).
- 1938 - Two die in a New York City subway accident.
- 1939 - Birth of Verna Bloom; actress (Animal House).
- 1940 - Birth of Marlyn Mason in San Fernando, California, USA; actress (Making It, Peyton Place).
- 1940 - Largest amount paid for a postage stamp (US$45,000 for 1-cent 1856 British Guiana).
- 1941 - TV station WNBT, Channel 4 in New York City, broadcasts the first audience-participation show, as studio guests play charades.
- 1941 - 551 Jews are shot in Kishnev ghetto in Romania.
- 1942 - Birth of Anjanette Comer in Dawson, Texas, USA; actress (Baby, Lepke).
- 1942 - Birth of B.J. Thomas; singer ("Raindrops", Growing Pains TV show theme).
- 1942 - Birth of Garrison Keillor; PBS radio personality (A Prairie Home Companion radio show).
- 1943 - Birth of Lana Cantrell in Sydney, Australia; singer ("Those Were the Days").
- 1944 - IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the
- 1944 - Birth of John Glover in Kingston, New York, USA; actor (52 Pick-Up, Something Special, Smallville).
- 1944 - Birth of David Rasche; actor (All My Children, Nurses).
- 1945 - Birth of Alan Page; defensive tackle (Minnesota Vikings).
- 1946 - Birth of Peter Wolf; musician (J. Geils Band).
- 1947 - Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft, the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7000-km (4375-mile) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.
- 1949 - Birth of Harold Hudson; singer (The Commodores).
- 1950 - Birth of David James Wottle; 800m runner (Olympic-gold-1972).
- 1950 - Birth of Rodney Crowell; singer/guitarist (for Emmylou Harris).
- 1951 - Birth of Gary Hall; swimmer (Olympic-bronze-1976).
- 1951 - Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket reaches 1,992 kph.
- 1953 - Eastern Airlines enters the jet age, uses Electra prop-jet.
- 1954 - At the British Empire Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, a one-mile race is held between England's Roger Bannister and Australia's John Landy. Near the end, Landy in the lead looks for Bannister over his left shoulder, as Bannister passes Landy past his right shoulder, winning the race with a time of 3:58.8.
- 1955 - Birth of Wayne Knight; actor (Seinfeld).
- 1955 - Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, begins selling its first transistor radios in Japan.
- 1956 - Birth of Kent V Rominger in Del Norte, Colorado, USA; US Navy Lieutenant Commander/astronaut.
- 1957 - Birth of Aleksandr Ditiatin; USSR gymnast (Olympic-gold-1980).
- 1957 - Oliver Hardy, comedian of Laurel and Hardy team, dies at age 65.
- 1958 - Birth of Alberto Salazar; marathon runner (New York City Marathon Winner).
- 1958 - Birth of Bruce Dickinson; heavy metal rocker (Iron Maiden - "Run to Hills").
- 1958 - Birth of Larisa Karlova in USSR; team handball player (Olympic-gold-1976, 1980).
- 1959 - Explorer 6 transmits first TV photo of Earth from space.
- 1960 - Birth of David Duchovny; actor (The X-Files).
- 1960 - Birth of Jacquie O'Sullivan; rocker (Bananarama - "Venus").
- 1960 - Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) gains independence from France.
- 1960 - Students stage kneel-in demonstrations in Atlanta, Georgia churches.
- 1961 - Birth of Yelena Davydova in USSR; gymnast (Olympic-gold-1980).
- 1961 - Cosmonaut Gherman Titov circles Earth for a full day in Vostok 2.
- 1961 - Birth of DeLane Matthews; actress (Dave's World).
- 1963 - Birth of Marcus Lewis in Pontiac, Michigan, USA; singer ("Sing me a Song").
- 1963 - Birth of Harold Perrineau; actor (Lost, Oz).
- 1964 - US Congress approves Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
- 1965 - Birth of Raul Malo; country singer (The Mavericks).
- 1966 - Race riot in Lansing, Michigan, USA.
- 1966 - In Rat Islands, Alaska, USA, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurs.
- 1967 - Birth of Charlotte Lewis in Kensington, London, England; actress (Golden Child, Pirates).
- 1969 - Birth of David Hollander in Los Angeles, California, USA; actor (Lewis and Clark, What's Happenings?).
- 1969 - In Andreevka, USSR a building is hit by a falling meteorite.
- 1969 - Death of Russ Morgan at age 65; bandleader ("So Tired", "Cruising Down the River", "Sunflower", "Forever and Ever", "Welcome Aboard").
- 1970 - First computer chess tournament.
- 1970 - Four, including presiding judge, killed in courthouse shootout in San Rafael, California (Police charge Angela Davis provided weapons).
- 1971 - Apollo 15 returns to Earth.
- 1971 - Birth of Sydney Penny; actress (Thorn Birds, All My Children, Saint Elsewhere).
- 1971 - Death of Henry D. (Homer) Haynes at age 51 of a heart attack; country comedy duo of Homer and Jethro ("The Battle of Kookamonga", "That Hound Dog in the Window").
- 1972 - Baseball Hall of Fame inducts Yogi Berra, Sandy Koufax, Lefty Gomez, and Early Wynn.
- 1972 - Death of Joi Lansing AKA Joyce Wassmansdoff at age 43 of breast cancer; actress (Bob Cummings Show, The Beverly Hillbillies).
- 1974 - Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, 1,368 feet (417.0 metres) in the air.
- 1975 - Birth of Charlize Theron; actress (Arrested Development, Hollywood Confidential).
- 1976 - Murvyn Vye, actor (Bob Cummings Show), dies at age 63.
- 1976 - Scientists in Pasadena, California, announce Viking 1 found strongest indications to date of possible life on Mars.
- 1976 - American Viking 2 goes into Martian orbit after 11-month flight from Earth.
- 1980 - (to August 14) Lech Walesa leads the first of many strikes at the Gdansk shipyard.
- 1981 - The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication.
- 1982 - Canadian pilots Dan Muir and André Daemen in a single-engine Cessna 210 2-seat aircraft land in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, completing a flight around the world in a record-breaking 151 hours, 25 minutes.
- 1982 - Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini resigns.
- 1983 - First World Track and Field Championships.
- 1983 - Grete Waitz of Norway wins first all-women Marathon (Helsinki, Finland).
- 1983 - Some 675,000 employees strike AT&T.
- 1983 - Birth of Tina O'Brien; actress (Coronation Street TV show).
- 1984 - Japan beats US for Olympic gold medal in baseball.
- 1984 - Jim Deshales becomes 1,000th playing New York Yankees.
- 1985 - Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts.
- 1985 - Major League Baseball players end their two-day mide-season strike. A five-year agreement between the union and owners is concluded.
- 1986 - Daniel Buettner, Bret Anderson, Martin Engel, and Anne Knabe begin cycling journey of 15,266 miles from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Argentina.
- 1987 - Five Central American presidents sign peace accord in Guatemala.
- 1987 - Bill Mazeroski's uniform jersey #9 is officially retired from active service by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
- 1987 - Colombian frigate Caldas enters Venezuelan waters near the Los Monjes archipelago, sparking a crisis between the nations.
- 1988 - A record five sacrifice flies are hit by the Seattle Mariners (D. Coles, A. Davis, J. Presley, J. Buhner, and R. Quinones) in a 12-7 victory over the Oakland Athletics.
- 1989 - U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (Democrat-Texas) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.
- 1989 - Federal Express purchases Flying Tigers for about US$800 million.
- 1990 - Desert Shield begins - US deploys troops to Saudi Arabia.
- 1990 - New York Yankees' player Kevin Mass sets record with 12th home run in first 92 at bats and becomes 21st to hit a ball into third deck of Seattle's Kingdome.
- 1990 - Saudi Arabia allows US troops on their soil to stop an Iraqi invasion.
- 1990 - At 12:34:56 (both a.m. and p.m.) the time and date by British reckoning is 12:34:56 7/8/90.
- 1991 - The World Wide Web debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet.
- 1991 - Court rules Manuel Noriega may access some secret US documents.
- 1991 - Shotzie, Cincinnati Reds' dog mascot, dies at age 9.
- 1991 - US sets 400m relay record at 37.67 seconds.
- 1991 - Shapour Bakhtiar, former prime minister of Iran, is assassinated.
- 1992 - Ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2, en route from Martha's Vineyard to New York, hits an unchartered reef off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Damage is not serious, but the ship is out of service for months.
- 1992 - Death of John Anderson of a heart attack at age 69; actor (The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Gunsmoke).
- 1995 - Operation Storm ends with a United Nations-brokered ceasefire; remaining Serbian forces start surrendering.
- 1996 - Heavy rains kill more than 80 campers near Huesca, Spain.
- 1998 - In China the Yangtze River breaks through the main bank, following breaches of periphery levees in Jiayu County Baizhou Bay in recent days. The death toll exceeds 12,000, with many thousands more injured.
- 1998 - The bombings of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya kill 224 people and injure over 4,500; they are linked to terrorist Osama Bin Laden, an exile of Saudi Arabia.
- 1999 - Hundreds of Chechen guerrillas invade the Russian republic of Dagestan, triggering a short war.
- 2001 - Black Betsy, Shoeless Joe Jackson's 40-ounce warped hickory bat, is won in a 10-day eBay auction. The $577,610 price tag is believed to be the largest amount ever paid for a baseball bat.
- 2005 - Death of Peter Jennings at age 68 from lung cancer; news anchor (World News Tonight on ABC) (born 1938).
- 2007 - At AT&T Park in San Francisco, California, San Francisco Giants' player Barry Bonds surpasses Hank Aaron as the all-time home run leader with his 756th home run. During the 10-minute celebration following the historic homer, a video message is played on the scoreboard in which Aaron congratulates the left fielder for breaking the 33-year old record.
- 2008 - Death of Andrea Pininfarina, head of his Italian car design group, at age 51 in a scooter road accident outside Turin, Italy.
- 2008 - Georgia sends its army to regain control of South Ossetia which has had de facto independence since 1992.
- 2009 - Typhoon Morakot hits Taiwan, killing 500 and stranding more than 1,000 via the worst flooding on the island in half a century.
- 2010 - Bowers and Merena Auctions conducts an auction in Boston, Massachusetts. Some highlights:
- US 1794 Flowing Hair dollar, MS-64 NGC: US$1,207,500;
- US 1870-S Seated Liberty dollar, one of nine known, EF-40 PCGS: US$632,500;
- US 1854-O Coronet gold double eagle, one of 20 known, AU-55 PCGS: US$488,750.
- 2011 - Death of Harri Holkeri, 57th Prime Minister of Finland (born 1937).
- 2014 - Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan are found guilty of crimes against humanity and are sentenced to life imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.
- 2016 - In Thailand, 61 percent vote in favor of a new constitution.
- 2018 - The United States reimposes sanctions on Iran.
- 2019 - The Singapore Convention on Mediation, also known as the UN Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, comes into effect with 46 countries ratifying it. States that have ratified the treaty will have to ensure that international commercial settlement agreements are enforced by their courts.
- 2020 - Air India Express Flight 1344 crashes after overrunning the runway at Calicut International Airport in Kerala, India, killing 19 of the 191 people on board.
- 2020 - Death of Lê Kh? Phiêu, 10th General-Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (born 1931).
- 2022 - Gustavo Petro is sworn in as president of Colombia.
- 2022 - Death of David McCullough at age 89 at home in Hingham, Massachusetts, USA; historian (biography of President Harry Truman (Pulitzer Prize), biography of President John Adams (Pulitzer Prize)).
- 2022 - Death of Roger E. Mosley at age 83 of car accident injuries at Los Angeles hospital in Los Angeles, California, USA; actor (Theodore Calvin - Magnum P.I. TV show)).
- 2022 - Death of Biyi Bandele at age 54; Nigerian novelist, playwright, film director.
- 2023 - Death of William Friedkin at age 87 of heart failure and pneumonia at home in Los Angeles, California, USA; director (The French Connection movie, The Exorcist movie, Oscar award winner).
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