August 7Birthdays & History

On this day: August 7 in history

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

1. 461Roman Emperor Majorian is beheaded near the river Iria in north-west Italy following his arrest and deposition by the magister militum Ricimer.Europe
2. 610Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628: Sassanid troops under general Shahrbaraz conquer the town of Zenobia.EuropeMiddle East
3. 626The Avar and Slav armies leave the siege of Constantinople.Middle East
4. 768Pope Stephen III is elected to office, and quickly seeks Frankish protection against the Lombard threat, since the Byzantine Empire is no longer able to help.Europe
5. 936Coronation of King Otto I of Germany.Europe
6. 1461The Ming dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin stages a coup against the Tianshun Emperor.Asia
7. 1479Battle of Guinegate: French troops of King Louis XI are defeated by the Burgundians led by Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg.Europe
8. 1679The brigantine Le Griffon becomes the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.North America
9. 1714The Battle of Gangut: The first important victory of the Russian Navy.Europe
10. 1743The Treaty of Åbo ends the 1741–1743 Russo-Swedish War.Europe
11. 1782George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart.North America
12. 1786The first federal Indian Reservation is created by the United States.AsiaNorth America
13. 1789The United States Department of War is established.North America
14. 1791American troops destroy the Miami town of Kenapacomaqua near the site of present-day Logansport, Indiana in the Northwest Indian War.North America
15. 1794U.S. President George Washington invokes the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.North America
16. 1819Simón Bolívar triumphs over Spain in the Battle of Boyacá.Europe
17. 1858The first Australian rules football match is played between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College.Oceania
18. 1890Anna Månsdotter, found guilty of the 1889 Yngsjö murder, becomes the last woman to be executed in Sweden.Europe
19. 1909Alice Huyler Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, taking 59 days to travel from New York, New York to San Francisco, California.North America
20. 1926The first British Grand Prix was held at Brooklands.Europe
21. 1927The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.North America
22. 1930The last confirmed lynching of black people in the Northern United States occurs in Marion, Indiana; two men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, are murdered.North America
23. 1933The Kingdom of Iraq slaughters over 3,000 Assyrians in the village of Simele. This date is recognized as Martyrs Day or National Day of Mourning by the Assyrian community in memory of the Simele massacre.Middle East
24. 1942World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal begins as the United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.OceaniaNorth America
25. 1944IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).North America
26. 1946The government of the Soviet Union presented a note to its Turkish counterparts which refuted the latter's sovereignty over the Turkish Straits, thus beginning the Turkish Straits crisis.EuropeMiddle East
27. 1947The Bombay Municipal Corporation formally takes over the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST).Asia
28. 1947Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft, the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.Latin AmericaNorth America
29. 1959Explorer program: Explorer 6 launches from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.North America
30. 1960Ivory Coast becomes independent from France.AfricaEurope
31. 1962Canadian-born American pharmacologist Frances Oldham Kelsey is awarded the U.S. President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service for her refusal to authorize thalidomide.North America
32. 1964Vietnam War: The U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.AsiaNorth America
33. 1969Richard Nixon appoints Luis R. Bruce, a Mohawk-Oglala Sioux and co-founder of the National Congress of American Indians, as the new commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.North AmericaAsia
34. 1970California judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during an effort to free George Jackson from police custody.North America
35. 1974Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center 1,368 feet (417 m) in the air.North America
36. 1976Viking program: Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars.Europe
37. 1978U.S. President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal due to toxic waste that had been disposed of negligently.North America
38. 1981The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication.North America
39. 1985Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts.Asia
40. 1987Cold War: Lynne Cox becomes the first person to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union, crossing the Bering Strait from Little Diomede Island in Alaska to Big Diomede in the Soviet Union.North AmericaEurope
41. 1989The National Cold Fusion Institute opened in Salt Lake City.North America
42. 1989U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.North AmericaAfrica
43. 1990First American soldiers arrive in Saudi Arabia as part of the Gulf War.North AmericaMiddle East
44. 1993Ada Deer, a Menominee activist, is sworn in as the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.Asia
45. 1995The Chilean government declares state of emergency in the southern half of the country in response to an event of intense, cold, wind, rain and snowfall known as the White Earthquake.Latin America
46. 1997Space Shuttle Program: The Space Shuttle Discovery launches on STS-85 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.North America
47. 1997Fine Air Flight 101 crashes after takeoff from Miami International Airport, killing five people.North America
48. 1998Bombings at United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya kill approximately 212 people.North AmericaAfrica
49. 1999The Chechnya-based Islamic International Brigade invades neighboring Dagestan.Europe
50. 2007At AT&T Park, Barry Bonds hits his 756th career home run to surpass Hank Aaron's 33-year-old record.North America
51. 2008The start of the Russo-Georgian War over the territory of South Ossetia.Europe
52. 2020Air India Express Flight 1344 overshoots the runway at Calicut International Airport in the Malappuram district of Kerala, India, and crashes, killing 21 of the 190 people on board.Asia
53. 2026Debsirin Nonthaburi school shootingAsia

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