April 7Birthdays & History

On this day: April 7 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 451Attila the Hun captures Metz in France, killing most of its inhabitants and burning the town.Europe
2. 529First Corpus Juris Civilis, a fundamental work in jurisprudence, is issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.Europe
3. 1141Empress Matilda becomes the first female ruler of England, adopting the title "Lady of the English".Europe
4. 1348Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV charters Prague University.Europe
5. 1449Felix V abdicates his claim to the papacy, ending the reign of the final Antipope.Europe
6. 1521Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Cebu.Asia
7. 1541Francis Xavier leaves Lisbon on a mission to the Portuguese East Indies.Europe
8. 1724Premiere performance of Bach's St John Passion, BWV 245, at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig.Europe
9. 1767End of Burmese–Siamese War (1765–1767).Asia
10. 1788Settlers establish Marietta, Ohio, the first permanent settlement created by U.S. citizens in the recently organized Northwest Territory.North America
11. 1790Russo-Turkish war (1787–1792): Greek privateer Lambros Katsonis loses three of his ships in the Battle of Andros.Middle EastEurope
12. 1795The French First Republic adopts the kilogram and gram as its primary unit of mass.Europe
13. 1798The Mississippi Territory is organized from disputed territory claimed by both the United States and the Spanish Empire. It is expanded in 1804 and again in 1812.North AmericaEurope
14. 1805Lewis and Clark Expedition: The Corps of Discovery breaks camp among the Mandan tribe and resumes its journey West along the Missouri River.North America
15. 1805German composer Ludwig van Beethoven premieres his Third Symphony, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.Europe
16. 1824The Mechanics' Institution is established in Manchester, England at the Bridgewater Arms hotel, as part of a national movement for the education of working men. The institute is the precursor to three Universities in the city: the University of Manchester, UMIST and the Metropolitan University of Manchester (MMU).Europe
17. 1831Pedro II becomes emperor of the Empire of Brazil.Latin America
18. 1862American Civil War: The Union's Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio defeat the Confederate Army of Mississippi near Shiloh, Tennessee.North America
19. 1868Thomas D'Arcy McGee, one of the Canadian Fathers of Confederation, is assassinated by a Fenian activist.North America
20. 1906Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples.Europe
21. 1906The Algeciras Conference gives France and Spain control over Morocco.EuropeAfrica
22. 1922Teapot Dome scandal: United States Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leases federal petroleum reserves to private oil companies on excessively generous terms.North America
23. 1926Violet Gibson attempts to assassinate Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini.Europe
24. 1933Nazi Germany issues the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service banning Jews and political dissidents from civil service posts.Europe
25. 1933Prohibition in the United States is repealed for beer of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight, eight months before the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution. (Now celebrated as National Beer Day in the United States.)North America
26. 1939Benito Mussolini declares an Italian protectorate over Albania and forces King Zog I into exile.Europe
27. 1939Italy invades Albania.Europe
28. 1940Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.North AmericaAfrica
29. 1943The Holocaust in Ukraine: In Terebovlia, Germans order 1,100 Jews to undress and march through the city to the nearby village of Plebanivka, where they are shot and buried in ditches.Europe
30. 1943Ioannis Rallis becomes collaborationist Prime Minister of Greece during the Axis Occupation.Europe
31. 1943The National Football League makes helmets mandatory.North America
32. 1944In the Fragheto massacre, soldiers belonging to the German 356th Infantry Division kill 30 Italian civilians and 15 partisans near Casteldelci in central-northern Italy.Europe
33. 1945World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Yamato, one of the two largest ever constructed, is sunk by United States Navy aircraft during Operation Ten-Go.AsiaNorth America
34. 1946The Soviet Union annexes East Prussia as the Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.Europe
35. 1948The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.World
36. 1954United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech during a news conference.North America
37. 1956Francoist Spain agrees to surrender its protectorate in Morocco.EuropeAfrica
38. 1964IBM announces the System/360.North America
39. 1965Representatives of the National Congress of American Indians testify before members of the US Senate in Washington, D.C., against the termination of the Colville tribe.North America
40. 1968Two-time Formula One British World Champion Jim Clark dies in an accident during a Formula Two race in Hockenheim.Europe
41. 1969The Internet's symbolic birth date: Publication of RFC 1.North America
42. 1971Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces his decision to quicken the pace of Vietnamization.Asia
43. 1972Vietnam War: Communist forces overrun the South Vietnamese town of Loc Ninh.Asia
44. 1976Member of Parliament and suspected spy John Stonehouse resigns from the Labour Party after being arrested for faking his own death.Europe
45. 1977German Federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback and his driver are shot by two Red Army Faction members while waiting at a red light.Europe
46. 1978Development of the neutron bomb is canceled by President Jimmy Carter.North America
47. 1980During the Iran hostage crisis, the United States severs relations with Iran.Middle EastNorth America
48. 1982Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh is arrested.Middle East
49. 1983During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first Space Shuttle spacewalk.North America
50. 1988Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov orders the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.EuropeAsia
51. 1989Soviet submarine Komsomolets sinks in the Barents Sea off the coast of Norway, killing 42 sailors.Europe
52. 1990A fire breaks out on the passenger ferry Scandinavian Star, killing 159 people.Europe
53. 1990John Poindexter is convicted for his role in the Iran–Contra affair. In 1991 the convictions are reversed on appeal.Middle East
54. 1994Auburn Calloway attempts to destroy Federal Express Flight 705 in order to allow his family to benefit from his life insurance policy.North America
55. 1994Rwandan genocide: Massacres of Tutsis begin in Kigali, Rwanda, and soldiers kill the civilian Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana.Africa
56. 1995First Chechen War: Russian paramilitary troops begin a massacre of civilians in Samashki, Chechnya.Europe
57. 1999Turkish Airlines Flight 5904 crashes near Ceyhan in southern Turkey, killing six people.Middle East
58. 2001NASA launches the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter.North America
59. 2003Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide demands reparations of $21 billion from France for the Haitian independence debt.Latin AmericaEurope
60. 2003Iraq War: U.S. troops capture Baghdad; Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime falls two days later.Middle EastNorth America
61. 2005First release of Git distributed version control system.North America
62. 2009Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings and kidnappings by security forces.Latin America
63. 2009Mass protests begin across Moldova under the belief that results from the parliamentary election are fraudulent.Europe
64. 2011The Israel Defense Forces use their Iron Dome missile system to successfully intercept a BM-21 Grad launched from Gaza, marking the first short-range missile intercept ever.Middle East
65. 2011A gunman opens fire at an elementary school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killing twelve children and injuring 22 others before committing suicide.Latin America
66. 2017U.S. President Donald Trump orders the 2017 Shayrat missile strike against Syria in retaliation for the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack.North AmericaMiddle East
67. 2017A man deliberately drives a hijacked truck into a crowd of people in Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people and injuring fifteen others.Europe
68. 2018Syria launches the Douma chemical attack during the Eastern Ghouta offensive of the Syrian Civil War.Middle East
69. 2018Former Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is arrested for corruption by determination of Judge Sérgio Moro, from the "Car-Wash Operation". Lula stayed imprisoned for 580 days, before being released by the Brazilian Supreme Court.Latin America
70. 2020COVID-19 pandemic: Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly resigns for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic on USS Theodore Roosevelt and the dismissal of Brett Crozier.North America
71. 2020COVID-19 pandemic: China ends its lockdown in Wuhan.Asia
72. 2021COVID-19 pandemic: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces that the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant has become the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States.North America
73. 2022Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed for the Supreme Court of the United States, becoming the first black female justice.North America

Source: Wikipedia "April 7" / CC BY-SA 4.0