July 7 – Some important events on this day.
1456 👉🏼 A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death
1520 👉🏼 Battle of Otumba, Mexico: Hernán Cortés and the Tlaxcalans defeat a numerically superior Aztec force
1534 👉🏼 European colonization of the Americas: first known exchange between Europeans and natives of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in New Brunswick
1550 👉🏼 Traditional date Chocolate thought to have been introduced to Europe 🍫
1713 👉🏼 1st performance of George Frideric Handel’s “Te Deum” & “Jubilate”
1802 👉🏼 1st comic book “The Wasp” is published in Hudson, New York criticizing Republican politicians
1807 👉🏼 First Treaty of Tilsit signed by Napoleon I of France, and Alexander I of Russia.
In 1807, Napoleon’s French Empire was almost at its zenith. It had crushed the Fourth Coalition at the Battle of Friedland earlier in June, and the defeated nations set out to make peace with Napoleon.
Napoleon and Alexander met in a raft on the Neman River on this day. There they signed the Treaty of Tilsit, where they formed an alliance. Russia became a part of the Continental System, which was the attempt by Napoleon to blockade Britain.
This uneasy alliance would not last long. Russia was unable to withstand the economic pressure of blockading Britain, and violated the system several times, leading Napoleon to launch his disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812.
1865 👉🏼 Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt are executed for their role in the conspiracy to assassinate US President Abraham Lincoln.
After the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, there was a national manhunt for his killers and those involved in the conspiracy to kill the president. John Wilkes Booth, the man who pulled the trigger, was killed in a shootout with government troops 12 days after the murder.
Four of the eight people put on trial by a military tribunal for their part in the conspiracy to assassinate the president were sentenced to hang. They were Mary Surratt, whose boardinghouse had been frequented by the conspirators and her tavern had been visited by Booth and David Herold after killing Lincoln; Lewis Powell, who had been tasked with killing Secretary of State William H. Seward on the night of the assassination; George Atzerodt, who was assigned to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson, but lost his nerve; and Herold, who was also tasked with killing Seward.
The conspirators were executed on this day, at Fort McNair in Washington D.C. Mary Surratt thus became the first woman to be executed by the United States government, though after her conviction five jurors recommended clemency. President Andrew Johnson claimed he never received the letter. Her son, John Surratt, was the only person on trial who was not convicted and released.
1928 👉🏼 Sliced bread sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company, Missouri, using a machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder. Described as the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped. 🍞
1937 👉🏼 Japanese and Chinese troops clash at the Marco Polo Bridge, beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War
1947 👉🏼 Alleged and disputed Roswell UFO incident 👽
1990 👉🏼 First Three Tenors concert featuring Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti at Baths of Caracalla in Rome – recording of is world’s best-selling classical record 🎵
2005 👉🏼 Coordinated terrorist bomb blasts strike London’s public transport system during the morning rush hour killing 52 and injuring 700
2005 👉🏼 Influenced by Live 8, the G8 leaders pledge to double 2004 levels of aid to Africa from US$25 to US$50 billion by the year 2010