May 7th - Definition and Overview

May 7 is the 127th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (128th in leap years). There are 238 days remaining.

Events

• 558 - In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapses. Justinian immediately orders the dome rebuilt.
• 1429 - Joan of Arc leads a French attack on English bridgeheads on South side of Loire River.
• 1274 - In France the Second Council of Lyons opens to regulate the election of the Pope.
• 1763 - Indian Wars: Pontiac's Rebellion begins - Chief Pontiac begins the "Conspiracy of Pontiac" by attacking British forces at Fort Detroit.
• 1824 - A deaf Beethoven conducts the debut of his Ninth Symphony in Vienna.
• 1832 - Greece becomes independent. Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria is chosen King.
• 1840 - The Great Natchez Tornado occurred. It is the second deadliest tornado in U.S. history. 317 people were killed.
• 1847 - In Philadelphia, the American Medical Association (AMA) is founded.
• 1864 - American Civil War: The Army of the Potomac, under General Ulysses S. Grant, breaks off from the Battle of the Wilderness and moves southwards.
• 1915 - World War I: The RMS Lusitania is sunk by a German U-boat killing 1,198 people.
• 1920 - Polish-bolshevik war: Polish-Ukrainian troops enter Kyiv.
• 1937 - Spanish Civil War: The German Condor Legion Fighter Group, equipped with Heinkel He-51 biplanes arrive in Spain to assist Franco's forces.
• 1945 - World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document will take effect the next day.
• 1946 - Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (later renamed Sony) is founded with about 20 employees.
• 1947 - Kraft Television Theater debuts (ran for 11 years).
• 1948 - The Council of Europe is founded during the Hague Congress.
• 1951 - The International Olympic Committee gives Russia permission to compete in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.
• 1952 - The concept for the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer.
• 1954 - Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat (the battle began on March 13).
• 1960 - Cold War: U-2 Crisis - Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers.
• 1964 - At a show of post rockets from Gerhard Zucker on the mountain Hasselkopf near Braunlage (Lower Saxonia, Germany) three persons were killed by an explosion of a rocket.
• 1977 - In London, United Kingdom, Marie Myriam wins the twenty-second Eurovision Song Contest for France singing "L'oiseau et l'enfant" (The bird and the child).
• 1992 - Michigan ratifies a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the United States Constitution making the 27th Amendment law. This amendment bars the U.S. Congress from giving itself a mid-term pay rise.
• 1992 - Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on its maiden voyage.
• 1992 - Three employees at a McDonald's Restaurant in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada are brutally murdered and a fourth permanently disabled after a botched robbery. It is the first fast-food murder in Canada.
• 1998 - Apple Computer unveils the iMac.
• 1998 - Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for US$40 billion and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.
• 1999 - A jury finds The Jenny Jones Show and Warner Bros liable in the shooting death of Scott Amedure after the show purposely deceived Jonathan Schmitz to appear on a secret same-sex crush episode. Schmitz later killed Amedure and the jury awarded Amedure's family US$25 million.
• 1999 - Kosovo War: In Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, three Chinese embassy workers are killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft mistakenly bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
• 1999 - In Guinea-Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a military coup.
• 2002 - A China Southern Airlines MD-82 plunges into the Yellow Sea killing 112 people.

Births

• 1812 - Robert Browning, poet and husband to Elizabeth Barrett Browning (d. 1889)
• 1833 - Johannes Brahms, composer (d. 1897)
• 1840 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer (d. 1893)
• 1885 - George 'Gabby' Hayes, actor (d. 1969)
• 1892 - Archibald MacLeish, poet, Pulitzer Prize winner (d. 1982)
• 1892 - Josip Broz Tito, president of Yugoslavia (d. 1980)
• 1901 - Gary Cooper, actor (d. 1961)
• 1908 - Max Grundig, industrialist (d. 1989)
• 1909 - Edwin H. Land, inventor and founder of Polaroid (d. 1991)
• 1919 - Eva Peron, wife of Argentina's President Juan Peron (d. 1952)
• 1922 - Darren McGavin, actor
• 1923 - Anne Baxter, actress (d. 1985)
• 1927 - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, screenwriter
• 1930 - Totie Fields, comedienne (d. 1978)
• 1931 - Teresa Brewer, singer
• 1933 - Johnny Unitas, American football star (d. 2002)
• 1939 - Ruud Lubbers, politician and Prime Minister of the Netherlands
• 1939 - Jimmy Ruffin, singer
• 1940 - Angela Carter, novelist, journalist (d. 1992)
• 1942 - Gerhard Polt, German cabaretist
• 1946 - Thelma Houston, singer
• 1946 - Bill Kreutzmann, drummer (for Grateful Dead)
• 1950 - Randall 'Tex' Cobb, boxer, actor
• 1950 - Tim Russert, host of NBC's Meet the Press
• 1951 - Janis Ian, singer/songwriter
• 1954 - Amy Heckerling, director
• 1956 - Anne Dudley, musician
• 1956 - Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
• 1957 - Sinjin Smith, volleyball player
• 1968 - Traci Lords, actress
• 1969 - Eagle Eye Cherry, musician
• 1978- Ganesh Krishnan,Information Technology Evangelist from India

Deaths

• 973 - Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 912)
• 1539 - Guru Nanak Dev ji, The Founder of the Sikh religion (b. 1469)
• 1825 - Antonio Salieri, composer (b. 1750)
• 1840 - Caspar David Friedrich, painter (b. 1774)
• 1868 - Henry Peter Brougham, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1778)
• 1896 - H. H. Holmes, serial killer (b. 1861)
• 1942 - Felix Weingartner, Yugoslavian conductor (b. 1863)
• 1951 - Warner Baxter, actor (b. 1889)
• 1998 - Eddie Rabbitt, musician
• 2000 - Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., actor (b. 1909)
• 2002 - Seattle Slew, last triple crown winner
• 2004 - Waldemar Milewicz, Polish reporter (b. 1956)

Holidays and observances

Recorded this date

• 1941 - "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" (w. Mack Gordon, m. Harry Warden) Glenn Miller and his Orchestra

May 6 - May 8 - April 7 - June 7 -- listing of all days