July 7
Today the Japanese celebrate
Tanabata, The Star Festival.
1456 – A
retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.
1534 –
Jacques Cartier makes his first contact with
aboriginal peoples in what is now Canada.
1798 – As a result of the
XYZ Affair, the U.S. Congress rescinds the
Treaty of Alliance with France sparking the
"Quasi-War".
1846 – American troops occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena, thus beginning the
conquest of California.
1863 – The United States begins its first
military draft; exemptions cost $300.
1865 – Four conspirators in the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln are hanged.
1898 – U.S. President William McKinley signs the
Newlands Resolution annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States.
1907 –
Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. staged his first
Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.
1928 –
Sliced bread is sold for the first time (on
the inventor's 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri. (Grandmadigr is, literally, older than sliced bread
)
1930 – Industrialist
Henry J. Kaiser begins construction of Boulder Dam (now known as
Hoover Dam).
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of
Sherlock Holmes, dies.
1944 – World War II: Largest
Banzai charge of the Pacific War at the
Battle of Saipan.
1947 –
The Roswell incident, the (supposed) crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell in New Mexico.
1952 – The ocean liner
SS United States passes
Bishop Rock on her maiden voyage, breaking the transatlantic speed record to become the fastest passenger ship in the world.
1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the
Alaska Statehood Act into law.
1980 -
Led Zeppelin played their last-ever concert when they appeared at Eissporthalle, West Berlin at the end of a European tour. They finished the show with a 17-minute version of '
Whole Lotta Love'.
1981 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan appoints
Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States.
1983 – Cold War: Ten year old
Samantha Smith, a U.S. schoolgirl, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General
Yuri Andropov.
1989 - It was announced, that for the first time,
compact discs were out selling
vinyl albums.
2005 – A
series of four explosions occurs on London's transport system killing 56 people, including four suicide bombers, and injuring over 700 others.
2006 -
Syd Barrett, founding member of
Pink Floyd, died from complications arising from diabetes, aged 60.
2015, Climate scientists from five leading universities found that 163 of
Bob Dylan's 542 songs reference the climate – almost a third – making him the musician most likely to mention the weather in his lyrics.
The Beatles came in at number two, mentioning the weather in 48 of the 308 songs they wrote.
Births
1860 – Gustav Mahler; 1891 – Virginia Rappe; 1899 – George Cukor; 1906 – Satchel Paige; 1907 – Robert A. Heinlein; 1913 – Pinetop Perkins; 1919 – Jon Pertwee (3rd Dr. Who); 1924 – Mary Ford; 1927 – Charlie Louvin, Doc Severinsen; 1931 – David Eddings; 1940 – Ringo Starr
; 1943 – Joel Siegel; 1947 - David Hodo (the construction worker in The Village People); 1949 – Shelley Duvall; 1959 – Billy Campbell; 1966 – Jim Gaffigan; 1968 – Jorja Fox; 1972 – Kirsten Vangsness; 1989 – Landon Cassill (NASCAR driver)
Deaths
1647 – Thomas Hooker; 1890 – Henri Nestlé; 1930 – Arthur Conan Doyle; 1971 – Ub Iwerks (co-created Mickey Mouse); 1973 – Veronica Lake; 1975 – Ruffian (race horse); 1990 – Bill Cullen; 1993 – Mia Zapata (The Gits); 1994 – Cameron Mitchell; 2006 – Syd Barrett; 2014 – Dick Jones (voice of Pinocchio), Eduard Shevardnadze