July 7

What happened that day?

• 2016: Former U.S. Army soldier Micah Xavier Johnson shoots fourteen policemen during an anti-police protest in downtown Dallas, Texas, killing five of them. He is subsequently killed by a robot-delivered bomb.
• 2013: A De Havilland Otter air taxi crashes in Soldotna, Alaska, killing ten people.
• 2012: At least 172 people are killed in a flash flood in the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia.
• 2007: The first Live Earth benefit concert was held in 11 locations around the world.
• 2005: A series of four explosions occurs on London's transport system, killing 56 people, including four suicide bombers, and injuring over 700 others.
• 2003: NASA Opportunity rover, MER-B or Mars Exploration Rover-B, was launched into space aboard a Delta II rocket.
• 1997: The Turkish Armed Forces withdraw from northern Iraq after assisting the Kurdistan Democratic Party in the Iraqi Kurdish Civil War.
• 1992: The New York Court of Appeals rules that women have the same right as men to go topless in public.
• 1991: Yugoslav Wars: The Brioni Agreement ends the ten-day independence war in Slovenia against the rest of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
• 1985: Boris Becker becomes the youngest player ever to win Wimbledon at age 17.
• 1983: Cold War: Samantha Smith, a U.S. schoolgirl, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov.
• 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.
• 1980: During the Lebanese Civil War, 83 Tiger militants are killed during what will be known as the Safra massacre.
• 1980: Institution of sharia law in Iran.
• 1978: The Solomon Islands becomes independent from the United Kingdom
• 1963: Buddhist crisis: The police of Ngô Đình Nhu, brother and chief political adviser of President Ngô Đình Diệm, attacked a group of American journalists who were covering a protest.
• 1959: Venus occults the star Regulus. This rare event is used to determine the diameter of Venus and the structure of the Venusian atmosphere.
• 1958: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into law.
• 1954: Elvis Presley makes his radio debut when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, "That's All Right".
• 1953: Ernesto "Che" Guevara sets out on a trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador.
• 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.
• 1946: Howard Hughes nearly dies when his XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood.
• 1946: Mother Francesca S. Cabrini becomes the first American to be canonized.
• 1944: World War II: Largest Banzai charge of the Pacific War at the Battle of Saipan.
• 1941: World War II: Beirut is occupied by Free France and British troops.
• 1941: The American occupation of Iceland replaces the British occupation.
• 1937: The Peel Commission Report recommends the partition of Palestine - the first formal recommendation for partition in the history of Palestine
• 1937: The Marco Polo Bridge Incident provides the Imperial Japanese Army with a pretext for starting the Second Sino-Japanese War.
• 1930: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, dies.
• 1930: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser begins construction of Boulder Dam (now known as Hoover Dam).
• 1928: Sliced bread is sold for the first time (on the inventor's 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri.
• 1916: The New Zealand Labour Party was founded in Wellington.
• 1915: Colombo Town Guard officer Henry Pedris is executed in British Ceylon for allegedly inciting persecution of Muslims.
• 1915: An International Railway trolley with an extreme overload of 157 passengers crashes near Queenston, Ontario, killing 15.
• 1915: The First Battle of the Isonzo comes to an end.
• 1911: The United States, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia sign the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911 banning open-water seal hunting, the first international treaty to address wildlife preservation issues.
• 1907: Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. staged his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.
• 1898: U.S. President William McKinley signs the Newlands Resolution annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States.
• 1892: The Katipunan is established, the discovery of which by Spanish authorities initiated the Philippine Revolution.
• 1865: Four conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln are hanged.
• 1863: The United States begins its first military draft; exemptions cost $300.
• 1846: American troops occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena, thus beginning the conquest of California.
• 1834: In New York City, four nights of rioting against abolitionists began.
• 1807: The Peace of Tilsit between France, Prussia and Russia ends the War of the Fourth Coalition.
• 1798: As a result of the XYZ Affair, the U.S. Congress rescinds the Treaty of Alliance with France sparking the "Quasi-War".
• 1777: American forces retreating from Fort Ticonderoga are defeated in the Battle of Hubbardton.
• 1770: The Battle of Larga between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire takes place.
• 1585: The Treaty of Nemours abolishes tolerance to Protestants in France.
• 1575: The Raid of the Redeswire is the last major battle between England and Scotland.
• 1534: Jacques Cartier makes his first contact with aboriginal peoples in what is now Canada.
• 1520: Spanish conquistadores defeat a larger Aztec army at the Battle of Otumba.
• 1456: A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.
• 1124: Tyre falls to the Crusaders.