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
1742 A Spanish force invading Georgia runs headlong into the colony’s British defenders. The battle decides the fate of a colony.
1791 Benjamin Rush, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones found the Non-denominational African Church.
1795 Thomas Paine defends the principal of universal suffrage at the Constitutional Convention in Paris.
1797 William Blount of Tennessee became the first U.S. senator to be impeached.
1814 Sir Walter Scott’s novel Waverley is published anonymously so as not to damage his reputation as a poet.
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.
1865 4 Lincoln assassination conspirators, including Mary Surratt, hanged
1925 Afrikaans is recognized as one of the official languages of South Africa, along with English and Dutch.
1930 Construction begins on the Hoover Dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada.
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
1969 The first U.S. units to withdraw from South Vietnam leave Saigon.
1981 President Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O’Connor for the Supreme Court. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/oconnor-nominated-to-supreme-court
1998 Riots have broken out in Lagos, Nigeria following the death of the opposition leader “Chief Moshood Abiola”. The riots continued for 4 days leaving over 50 dead.
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
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
