7 July 2024 (MIA)

1124 – Tyre falls to the Crusaders.

1456 – A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.

1520 – Spanish conquistadores defeat a larger Aztec army at the Battle of Otumba.

1534 – Jacques Cartier makes his first contact with aboriginal peoples in what is now Canada.

1543 – French troops invade Luxembourg.

1575 – The Raid of the Redeswire is the last major battle between England and Scotland.

1585 – The Treaty of Nemours abolishes tolerance to Protestants in France.

1770 – The Battle of Larga between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire takes place.

1777 – American forces retreating from Fort Ticonderoga are defeated in the Battle of Hubbardton.

1798 – As a result of the XYZ Affair, the U.S. Congress rescinds the Treaty of Alliance with France sparking the “Quasi-War.”

1807 – The Peace of Tilsit between France, Prussia, and Russia ends the War of the Fourth Coalition.

1834 – In New York City, four nights of rioting against abolitionists began.

1846 – American troops occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena, thus beginning the conquest of California.

1863 – The United States begins its first military draft; exemptions cost $300.

1865 – Four conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln are hanged.

1892 – The Katipunan is established, the discovery of which by Spanish authorities initiated the Philippine Revolution.

1898 – U.S. President William McKinley signs the Newlands Resolution annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States.

1907 – Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. staged his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.

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.

1915 – The First Battle of the Isonzo comes to an end.

1915 – An International Railway trolley with an extreme overload of 157 passengers crashes near Queenston, Ontario, killing 15.

1915 – Colombo Town Guard officer Henry Pedris is executed in British Ceylon for allegedly inciting persecution of Muslims.

1916 – The New Zealand Labour Party was founded in Wellington.

1928 – Sliced bread is sold for the first time (on the inventor’s 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri.

1930 – Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser begins construction of Boulder Dam (now known as Hoover Dam).

1930 – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, dies.

1937 – The Marco Polo Bridge Incident provides the Imperial Japanese Army with a pretext for starting the Second Sino-Japanese War.

1941 – The American occupation of Iceland replaces the British occupation.

1941 – World War II: Beirut is occupied by Free France and British troops.

1944 – World War II: Largest Banzai charge of the Pacific War at the Battle of Saipan.

1946 – Mother Francesca S. Cabrini becomes the first American to be canonized.

1946 – Howard Hughes nearly dies when his XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood.

1947 – The Roswell incident, the (supposed) crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell in New Mexico.

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.

1953 – Ernesto “Che” Guevara sets out on a trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador.

1954 – Elvis Presley makes his radio debut when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, “That’s All Right.”

1956 – Fritz Moravec and two other Austrian mountaineers make the first ascent of Gasherbrum II (8,035 m).

1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into law.

1959 – Venus occults the star Regulus. This rare event is used to determine the diameter of Venus and the structure of the Venusian atmosphere.

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.

1978 – The Solomon Islands becomes independent from the United Kingdom

1980 – Institution of sharia in Iran.

1980 – During the Lebanese Civil War, 83 Tiger militants are killed during what will be known as the Safra massacre.

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.

1983 – Cold War: Samantha Smith, a U.S. schoolgirl, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov.

1985 – Boris Becker becomes the youngest player ever to win Wimbledon at age 17

1991 – Yugoslav Wars: The Brioni Agreement ends the ten-day independence war in Slovenia against the rest of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

1997 – The Turkish Armed Forces withdraw from northern Iraq after assisting the Kurdistan Democratic Party in the Iraqi Kurdish Civil War.

2003 – NASA Opportunity rover, MER-B or Mars Exploration Rover–B, was launched into space aboard a Delta II rocket.

2005 – A series of four explosions occurs on London’s transport system killing 56 people including four suicide bombers and injuring over 700 others.

2007 – The first Live Earth benefit concert was held in 11 locations around the world.

2012 – At least 172 people are killed in a flash flood in the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia.

2013 – A De Havilland Otter air taxi crashes in Soldotna, Alaska, killing ten people.