TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JULY 7
1456 Twenty-five years after her execution, Pope Calixtus III annulled the heresy charges brought against Joan of Arc.
1520 Battle of Otumba, Mexico: Hernán Cortés and the Tlaxcalans defeat a numerically superior Aztec force
1777 American troops give up Fort Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, to the British.
1791 Benjamin Rush, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones found the Non-denominational African Church.
1797 William Blount of Tennessee became the first U.S. senator to be impeached.
1807 Czar Alexander meets with Napoleon Bonaparte.
1846 Commodore John D. Sloat occupied Monterey and declared California annexed to the United States.
1853 Japan opens its ports to trade with the West after 250 years of isolation.
1863 1st military draft by US (exemptions cost $100)
1898 Pres McKinley signs resolution of annexation of Hawaiian Is
1930 Construction begins on Boulder (Hoover) Dam
1941 Although a neutral country, the United States sends troops to occupy Iceland to keep it out of Germany’s hands.
1958 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into law. Under the law, Alaska became the 49th state of the United States of America on January 3, 1959.
1960 USSR shoots down a US aircraft over Barents sea
1976 Women are enrolled into the United States Military Academy at West Point for the first time in history.
1976 Viking 2 goes into orbit around Mars
1981 Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
1986 Supreme Court struck down Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law –https://www.csmonitor.com/1986/0707/agramm.html
2004 Former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay is indicted on 11 counts of securities fraud and related charges following the collapse of Enron.
2005 Coordinated terrorist bomb blasts strike London’s public transport system during the morning rush hour killing 52 and injuring 700
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
