August 7

is the 219th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (220th in leap years), with 146 days remaining. There are 94 days in North Hemisphere summer, South Hemisphere winter. The Northern Hemisphere is considered to be halfway through the summer on this day.

Events

1679 - The brigantine Le Griffon, 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.
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.
1789 - The United States War Department is established.
1794 - Whiskey Rebellion begins: Farmers in the Monongahela Valley of Pennsylvania rebel against the federal tax on liquor and distilled drinks.
1819 - Simón Bolívar triumphs over Spain in the Battle of Boyacá.
1879 - The opening of the Poor Man's Palace in Manchester.
1927 - The Peace Bridge opens, between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.
1942 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal begins - U.S. 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).
1945 - President Harry Truman announces the successful bombing of Hiroshima with an atomic bomb while returning from the Potsdam Conference aboard the heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
1947 - Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7000-km (4375-mile) journey across the Pacific Ocean proving that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.
1947 - The Bombay Municipal Corporation formally takes over the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST).
1955 - Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, begins selling its first Transistor radios in Japan.
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 U.S. 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.
1966 - Race riots occur in Lansing, Michigan.
1967 - Vietnam War: The People's Republic of China agrees to give North Vietnam an undisclosed amount of aid in the form of a grant.
1970 - California Judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during in an effort to free George Jackson from police custody.
1973 - NBC airs the final day of the Watergate hearings on U.S. daytime television.
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.
1985 - Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts.
1988 - Rioting in New York City's Tompkins Square Park
1989 - U.S. 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 i.e. 1234567890.
1995 - Operation Storm is officially declared over in Croatia, resulting in total Croat victory over rebel Serb forces.
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, kill 224 people and injure over 4,500.
1999 - A group of Indian army veterans launch the political party Rashtriya Raksha Dal.
2005 - Russian Priz class mini-submarine AS-28 and its seven crewmembers are rescued off the Pacific coast

Births

1400 - Guillaume Dufay, French composer (d. 1474)
1533 - Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga, Basque soldier and poet (d. 1595)
1560 - Elizabeth Báthory, Hungarian serial killer (d. 1614)
1574 - Robert Dudley, styled Earl of Warwick, English writer (d. 1649)
1598 - Georg Stiernhielm, Swedish poet (d. 1672)
1726 - James Bowdoin, American Revolutionary leader and politician (d. 1790)
1742 - Nathanael Greene, American Revolutionary general (d. 1786)
1779 - Louis de Freycinet, French explorer (d. 1842)
1779 - Carl Ritter, German geographer (d. 1859)
1844 - Auguste Michel-Lévy, French geologist (d. 191)
1860 - Alan Leo, British astrologer (d. 1917)
1867 - Emil Nolde, German painter (d. 1956)
1876 - Mata Hari, Dutch spy (d. 1917)
1877 - Ulrich Salchow, Swedish figure skater (d. 1949)
1885 - Billie Burke, American actress (d. 1970)
1904 - Ralph Bunche, American diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1971)
1925 - M. S. Swaminathan, Indian scientist
1925 - Felice Bryant, American country songwriter and singer (d. 2003)
1926 - Stan Freberg, American voice comedian
1928 - James Randi, Canadian magician
1929 - Don Larsen, baseball player
1932 - Abebe Bikila, Ethiopan athlete
1932 - Dr. Maurice Rabb, Jr., African American ophthalmologist
1936 - Rahsaan Roland Kirk, American saxophonist
1940 - Jean-Luc Dehaene, Prime Minister of Belgium
1942 - Garrison Keillor, American writer and radio host
1942 - B.J. Thomas, American singer
1943 - Dino Valente, American musician Quicksilver Messenger Service (d. 1994)
1944 - David Rasche, American actor
1945 - Alan Page, American football player
1948 - Greg Chappell, Australian test cricket player, captain and coach
1949 - Walid Jumblatt, Leader of the Lebanese Druze
1952 - Alexei Sayle, British 'alternate' comedian
1954 - Jonathan Pollard, Israeli spy
1955 - Vladimir Sorokin, Russian writer
1957 - Alexander Dityatin, Soviet gymnast
1958 - Bruce Dickinson, English singer (Iron Maiden)
1960 - David Duchovny, American actor
1961 - Yelena Davydova, Soviet gymnast
1963 - Harold Perrineau Jr., American actor
1964 - Michael Weishan, American TV host, author
1966 - Jimmy Wales, American founder of Wikipedia
1967 - Jason Grimsley, American baseball player
1973 - Danny Graves, American baseball player
1975 - Edgar Renteria, Colombian baseball player
1975 - David Hicks, Australian alleged terrorist
1975 - Charlize Theron, South African actress
1978 - Jamey Jasta, American singer (Hatebreed)
1978 - Alexandre Aja, French Director
1978 - Vanness Wu, Taiwanese singer
1978 - Linsey Dawn McKenzie, English model and porn star
1978 - Cirroc Lofton, American actor
1980 - Aurélie Claudel, French supermodel
1982 - Yana Klochkova, Ukrainian swimmer
1983 - Tina O'Brien, British actress
1987 - Sidney Crosby, Canadian hockey player

Deaths

461 - Majorian, Roman Emperor (assassinated) (b. 420)
479 - Emperor Yūryaku of Japan
1106 - Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1050)
1485 - Alexander Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany, English prince
1613 - Thomas Fleming, English judge (b. 1544)
1616 - Vincenzo Scamozzi, Italian architect (b. 1548)
1635 - Friedrich von Spee, German writer (b. 1591)
1661 - Jin Shengtan, Chinese editor, writer and critic (b. 1608)
1817 - Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, French industrialist (b. 1739)
1834 - Joseph Marie Jacquard, French weaver and inventor (b. 1752)
1848 - Jöns Jakob Berzelius, Swedish chemist (b. 1779)
1855 - Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (b. 1802)
1912 - François-Alphonse Forel, Swiss hydrologist (b. 1841)
1917 - Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning, first pilot to land his aircraft on a ship. Killed five days later during another landing on the ship
1938 - Konstantin Stanislavski, Russian/Soviet actor, producer, dramatist (b. 1863)
1941 - Rabindranath Tagore, Indian author, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1861)
1957 - Oliver Hardy, American comedian and actor (b. 1892)
1974 - Rosario Castellanos, Mexican poet (b. 1925)
1985 - Grayson Hall, American actress (b. 1923)
1989 - Mickey Leland, U.S. Congressman (D-TX) (b. 1944)
1995 - Brigid Brophy, British author (b. 1929)
1999 - Brion James, American actor (b. 1945)
2004 - Red Adair, American firefighter (b. 1915)
2004 - Colin Bibby, English ornithologist (b. 1948)
2004 - Aaron Lee Thibedeau, Aaron Lee "TIBBS" Thibedeau(b. 1979)

2005 - Peter Jennings, Canadian-born news anchor (b. 1938)

Holidays and Observances

Roman Catholicism - the feasts of at least 15 saints:
- St. Cajetan of Thienna
- St. Donatus
- St. Claudia
- St. Agathangelo Noury
- St. Albert of Trapani
- St. Victricius
- St. Carpophorus
- St. Donat
- St. Donatian
- St. Donatus & Hilarinus
- St. Donatus of Besancon
- St. Faustus
- St. Hyperechios
- St. Peter, Julian, and Companions

External links

August 6 - August 8 - July 7 - September 7 -- listing of all days

Gourt Home::Gourt :: August 7

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays and Observances

External links