TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – AUG 7
1461 Ming Dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin stages a coup against the Tianshun Emperor
1498 Columbus arrives in Caribbean
1620 Kepler’s mother arrested for witchcraft
1782 General George Washington authorizes the award of the Purple Heart for soldiers wounded in combat.
1789 Congress established the U.S. War Department.
1882 Hatfields of south WV & McCoys of east Ky feud, 100 wounded or die
1888 Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia receives a patent for the revolving door.
1906 In North Carolina, a mob defies a court order and lynches three African Americans which becomes known as “The Lyerly Murders.”
1927 Peace Bridge between US & Canada dedicated
1933 The Iraqi Government slaughters over 3,000 Assyrians in the village of Sumail. The day becomes known as Assyrian Martyrs Day.
1934 In Washington, the U.S. Court of Appeals rules that the government can neither confiscate nor ban James Joyce’s novel Ulysses.
1959 This big blue sphere.. The United States launched Explorer 6, which sent back a picture of Earth.
1964 Congress overwhelmingly passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing the president to use unlimited military force to prevent attacks on U.S. forces.
1970 4, including presiding judge, killed in courthouse shootout in San Rafael, Calif (Police charge Angela Davis provided weapons)
1973 A U.S. plane accidentally bombs a Cambodian village, killing 400 civilians.
1976 The US Viking 2 spacecraft goes into orbit around Mars.
1981 The Washington (D.C.) Star ceases publication after 128 years.
1990 Operation Desert Shield begins as US troops deploy to Saudi Arabia to discourage Iraq’s Saddam Hussein from invading that country as he had Kuwait.
1998 Coordinated bomb attacks in American embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya kill over 200 people
2008 War Between Russia and Georgia Breaks Out The conflict began over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway regions of Georgia
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
