July 7

Events

• 1456 - A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.
• 1863 - United States begins first military draft
• 1865 - American Civil War: Four conspirators in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln were hanged.
• 1898 - President William McKinley signs the Newlands Resolution annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States.
• 1941 - World War II: American forces invade Iceland
• 1946 - Howard Hughes nearly dies when his XF-11 spy plane prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood.
• 1967 - Beginning of the civil war in Biafra.
• 1969 - In Canada, the Official Languages Act is adopted making the French language equal to the English language throughout the Federal government.
• 1978 - The Solomon Islands become independent from the United Kingdom.
• 2005 - A series of four terrorist explosions occur on London's transport system killing 56 people, including four suicide bombers.

Births

• 1907 - Robert A. Heinlein, American writer (d. 1988)
• 1908 - Revilo P. Oliver, White nationalist writer (d. 1994)
• 1921 - Adolf von Thadden, Far-Right German politician (d. 1996)
• 1927 - James Madole, American leader of the National Renaissance Party (d. 1979)
• 1941 - Michael Howard, British politician

Deaths

• 1307 - King Edward I of England (b. 1239)
• 1865 - Mary Surratt, Lincoln conspirator (b. 1823)
• 1930 - Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish writer (b. 1859)
• 1981 - Mildred Lisette Norman a.k.a. Peace Pilgrim, American pacifist,activist and tax resister.
• 1990 - George Eggleston, editor of Scribner’s Commentator (b. 1906)
• 1994 - Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte, German Luftwaffe Officer (b. 1907)