On this day: July 7

Events on July 7

• 1456 Joan of Arc was declared innocent of heresy in a retrial twenty-five years after her death. Wikipedia
• 1456 A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her execution. Wikipedia
• 1534 Jacques Cartier makes his first contact with aboriginal peoples in what is now Canada. Wikipedia
• 1585 The Treaty of Nemours abolishes tolerance to Protestants in France. Wikipedia
• 1667 An English fleet completes the destruction of a French merchant fleet off Fort St Pierre, Martinique during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Wikipedia
• 1770 The Battle of Larga between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire takes place. Wikipedia
• 1846 US troops occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena, thus beginning the US conquest of California. Wikipedia
• 1915 World War I: The First Battle of the Isonzo between Italy and Austria-Hungary comes to an end. Wikipedia
• 1916 The New Zealand Labour Party was founded in Wellington. Wikipedia
• 1928 Sliced bread is sold for the first time (on the inventor's 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri. Wikipedia
• 1930 The Finnish far-right Lapua Movement organises the Peasant March demonstration in Helsinki to put pressure on the government to prohibit communist activities. Wikipedia
• 1944 World War II: Largest Banzai charge of the Pacific War at the Battle of Saipan. Wikipedia
• 1953 Ernesto "Che" Guevara sets out on a trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador. Wikipedia
• 1958 US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into law. Wikipedia
• 1959 Venus occults the star Regulus. This rare event is used to determine the diameter of Venus and the structure of the Venusian atmosphere. Wikipedia
• 1962 Alitalia Flight 771 crashes in Junnar, Maharashtra, India, killing 94 people. Wikipedia
• 1978 The Solomon Islands becomes independent from the United Kingdom. Wikipedia
• 1980 Institution of sharia law in Iran. Wikipedia
• 1981 US President Ronald Reagan nominates Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. Wikipedia
• 1983 Cold War: Samantha Smith, a United States schoolgirl, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov. Wikipedia
• 1991 Yugoslav Wars: The Brioni Agreement ends the ten-day independence war in Slovenia against the rest of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Wikipedia
• 2003 NASA Opportunity rover, MER-B or Mars Exploration Rover–B, was launched into space aboard a Delta II rocket. Wikipedia
• 2012 At least 172 people are killed in a flash flood in the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia. Wikipedia
• 2016 A U.S. Army Reserve veteran ambushed and shot at police officers (memorial service pictured) in Dallas, killing five of them and injuring nine others, before being killed by a bomb attached to a police robot. Wikipedia
• 2016 Ex-US Army soldier Micah Xavier Johnson shoots fourteen policemen, killing five of them, in downtown Dallas, Texas at the end of a protest of recent police killings of Black men. He is subsequently killed by a robot-delivered bomb. Wikipedia
• 2019 The United States defeated the Netherlands 2–0 at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup final in Lyon, France. Wikipedia

Born on July 7

• 611 Eudoxia Epiphania, daughter of Byzantine emperor Heraclius Wikipedia
• 1207 Elizabeth of Hungary (died 1231) Wikipedia
• 1752 Joseph Marie Jacquard, French merchant, invented the Jacquard loom (died 1834) Wikipedia
• 1843 Camillo Golgi, Italian physician and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1926) Wikipedia
• 1848 Rodrigues Alves, Brazilian politician, 5th President of Brazil (died 1919) Wikipedia
• 1860 Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer and conductor (died 1911) Wikipedia
• 1882 Yanka Kupala, Belarusian poet and writer (died 1941) Wikipedia
• 1884 Lion Feuchtwanger, German author and playwright (died 1958) Wikipedia
• 1891 Tadamichi Kuribayashi, Japanese general and poet (died 1945) Wikipedia
• 1893 Miroslav Krleža, Croatian author, poet, and playwright (died 1981) Wikipedia
• 1899 George Cukor, American director and producer (died 1983) Wikipedia
• 1901 Vittorio De Sica, Italian actor and director (died 1974) Wikipedia
• 1906 Anton Karas, Austrian zither player and composer (died 1985) Wikipedia
• 1907 Robert A. Heinlein, American science fiction writer and screenwriter (died 1988) Wikipedia
• 1932 Joe Zawinul, Austrian jazz keyboardist and composer (died 2007) Wikipedia
• 1940 Ringo Starr, English singer-songwriter, drummer, and actor Wikipedia
• 1947 Gyanendra, King of Nepal Wikipedia
• 1949 Shelley Duvall, American actress, writer, and producer (died 2024) Wikipedia
• 1976 Bérénice Bejo, Argentinian-French actress Wikipedia
• 1980 Michelle Kwan, American figure skater Wikipedia
• 1981 Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Indian cricketer Wikipedia
• 1984 Alberto Aquilani, Italian footballer Wikipedia

Died on July 7

• 1285 Tile Kolup, German impostor claiming to be Frederick II Wikipedia
• 1304 Benedict XI, pope of the Catholic Church (born 1240) Wikipedia
• 1307 Edward I, king of England (born 1239) Wikipedia
• 1890 Henri Nestlé, German businessman, founded Nestlé (born 1814) Wikipedia
• 1901 Johanna Spyri, Swiss author (born 1827) Wikipedia
• 1922 Cathal Brugha, Irish revolutionary and politician, active in the Easter Rising, Irish War of Independence; first Ceann Comhairle and first President of Dáil Éireann (born 1874) Wikipedia
• 1930 Arthur Conan Doyle, British writer, creator of Sherlock Holmes (born 1859) Wikipedia
• 1965 Moshe Sharett, Ukrainian-Israeli lieutenant and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Israel (born 1894) Wikipedia
• 1973 Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist (born 1895) Wikipedia
• 2006 Syd Barrett, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1946) Wikipedia
• 2014 Eduard Shevardnadze, Georgian general and politician, 2nd President of Georgia (born 1928) Wikipedia
• 2014 Alfredo Di Stéfano, Argentinian-Spanish footballer and coach (born 1926) Wikipedia
• 2021 Jovenel Moïse, Haitian entrepreneur and politician, President of Haiti (born 1968) Wikipedia
• 2021 Dilip Kumar, Indian film actor (born 1922) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Æthelburh of Faremoutiers Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Felix of Nantes Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Illidius Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Job of Manyava (Ukrainian Orthodox Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed María Romero Meneses Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Pantaenus Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Peter To Rot Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blesseds Józef and Wiktoria Ulma with seven children (Catholic Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Willibald (Catholic Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: July 7 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Solomon Islands from the United Kingdom in 1978. Wikipedia
• Ivan Kupala Day (Belarus, Poland, Russia, Ukraine) Wikipedia
• Saba Saba Day (Tanzania) Wikipedia
• Tanabata (Japan) Wikipedia
• World Chocolate Day Wikipedia

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “July 7” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.