August 7
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
[edit] Births
- 1400 - Guillaume Dufay, French composer (died 1474)
- 1560 - Elizabeth Báthory, serial killer (died 1614)
- 1598 - Georg Stiernhielm, poet
- 1742 - Nathanael Greene, American Revolutionary War general (died 1786)
- 1779 - Carl Ritter, geographer (died 1859)
- 1836 - Evander Law, American Confederate general
- 1860 - Alan Leo, Brititsh astrologer (died 1917)
- 1867 - Emil Nolde, painter (died 1956)
- 1876 - Mata Hari, spy (died 1917)
- 1877 - Ulrich Salchow, Swedish figure skater
- 1883 - Joachim Ringelnatz, writer (died 1934)
- 1885 - Billie Burke, actress (died 1970)
- 1890 - Gurley Flynn, politician (died 1964)
- 1904 - Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize recipient (died 1971)
- 1904 - Hanna Melzer, anti-Nazi (died 1960)
- 1926 - Stan Freberg, American voice comedian
- 1927 - Carl Alfalfa Switzer, actor (died 1959)
- 1928 - James Randi, magician
- 1936 - Rahsaan Roland Kirk
- 1940 - Jean-Luc Dehaene, Prime Minister of Belgium
- 1942 - Garrison Keillor, American writer and radio host
- 1942 - B.J. Thomas, singer
- 1943 - Dino Valente, American musician, Quicksilver Messenger Service (died November 16, 1994)
- 1945 - Alan Page, American football player
- 1949 - Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Lebanese Druze
- 1958 - Bruce Dickinson, singer
- 1960 - David Duchovny, actor
- 1966 - Jimmy Wales, American founder of Wikipedia
- 1975 - Charlize Theron, actress
[edit] Deaths
- 461 - Majorian, Roman Emperor (assassinated)
- 1817 - Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, French industrialist (b. 1739)
- 1834 - Joseph Marie Jacquard, inventor of the Jacquard loom
- 1848 - Jöns Jakob Berzelius, Swedish chemist
- 1855 - Mariano Arista, president of Mexico
- 1912 - François-Alphonse Forel, Swiss hydrologist (born 1841)
- 1931 - Bix Beiderbecke, musician
- 1941 - Rabindranath Tagore, author
- 1957 - Oliver Hardy, comedian, actor (born 1892)
- 1995 - Brigid Brophy, British author
- 1999 - Brion James, American actor
- 2004 - Red Adair, American oil well firefighter
[edit] Events
- 1679 - The brigantine Le Griffon, which was commissioned by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed to the southern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.
- 1789 - The United States War Department is established.
- 1782 - George 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.
- 1794 - Whiskey Rebellion begins: Farmers in the Monoghaela Valley of Pennsylvania rebel against the federal tax on liquor and distilled drinks.
- 1819 - Simón Bolívar triumphed over Spain in the Battle of Boyacá.
- 1927 - Peace Bridge opens, between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.
- 1942 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal begins - US Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with a landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
- 1944 - IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).
- 1947 - Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101 day 7 000 km (4,300 mile) journey across the Pacific Ocean proving that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.
- 1953 - Ohio admitted to the union, retroactive to 1803 (this is disputed by some).
- 1959 - Explorer program: The United States launches Explorer 6 from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
- 1960 - Côte d'Ivoire becomes independent.
- 1964 - Vietnam War: The United States Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving US President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.
- 1965 - Singapore is expelled and separated from the Federation of Malaysia.
- 1967 - Vietnam War: The People's Republic of China agrees to give North Vietnam and undisclosed amount of aid in the form of a grant.
- 1976 - Viking program: Viking 2 enters into orbit around Mars.
- 1978 - United States President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal.
- 1981 -The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication.
- 1988 - "Police riot" in New York City's Tompkins Square Park
- 1989 - US Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX), and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.
- 1990 - At 12:34:56 (both AM and PM) the time and date by British reckoning was 12:34:56 7/8/90.
- 1997 - Fine Air Flight 101, a cargo flight from Miami to Santo Domingo crashes onto NW 72nd Ave near Miami International Airport, killing five people.
- 1998 - 1998 U.S. embassy bombings: Bombing of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya kills 224 people and injures over 4,500.
- 2001 - Australian census
