This Day in History

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August 7

Today marks the approximate midpoint of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and of Winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

936 – Coronation of King Otto I of Germany.

1679 – The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed to the south-eastern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.

1782 – George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart.

1794 – U.S. President George Washington invokes the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.

1858 – The first Australian rules football match is played between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College.

1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, taking 59 days to travel from New York, New York to San Francisco, California.

1930 – The last confirmed lynching of blacks in the Northern United States occurs in Marion, Indiana. Two men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, are killed.

1942 – World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal begins as the United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

1947 – Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.

1955 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, sells its first transistor radios in Japan.

1959 – The Lincoln Memorial design on the U.S. penny goes into circulation. It replaces the "sheaves of wheat" design, and was minted until 2008.

1962 – Canadian-born American pharmacologist Frances Oldham Kelsey is awarded the U.S. President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service for her refusal to authorize thalidomide.

1970 – California judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during an effort to free George Jackson from police custody.

The Goose Lake International Music Festival was held in Leoni, Michigan. Over 200,000 fans attended the three day festival.

1978 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal due to toxic waste that had been disposed of negligently.

1979 – Several tornadoes strike the city of Woodstock, Ontario, Canada and the surrounding communities.

1987 – Lynne Cox becomes first person to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union, crossing from Little Diomede Island in Alaska to Big Diomede in the Soviet Union, a distance of ~2.5 miles.

1989 – U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.

1997 - Garth Brooks played to the largest crowd ever in New York's Central Park. An estimated 1 million people attended the live concert with an additional 14.6 million viewing live on HBO.

1998 – The United States embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya kill approximately 212 people.

2008, Elvis Presley's peacock jumpsuit, was sold at auction for $300,000, making it the most expensive piece of Elvis memorabilia ever sold at an auction. The white outfit with a plunging V-neck and high collar featured a blue-and-gold peacock design, hand-embroidered on the front and back and along the pant legs.

Births

1560 – Elizabeth Báthory; 1876 – Mata Hari; 1884 – Billie Burke; 1903 – Louis Leakey; 1926 – Stan Freberg; 1927 – Carl Switzer ('Alfalfa' in Our Gang); 1928 – James Randi (magician); 1935 – Rahsaan Roland Kirk; 1942 – Tobin Bell ('Jigsaw' in the Saw movies), Garrison Keillor, B. J. Thomas♪ ♫; 1944 – John Glover, Robert Mueller (former director FBI); 1950 – Rodney Crowell♪ ♫; 1954 – Jonathan Pollard (spy); Wayne Knight ('Newman' on Seinfeld); 1958 – Bruce Dickinson(Iron Maiden); 1960 – David Duchovny; 1966 – Jimmy Wales(co-founded Wikipedia); 1975 – Charlize Theron

Deaths

1817 – Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours; 1957 – Oliver Hardy (Laurel & Hardy); 1970 – Jonathan P. Jackson (involved in the above-noted 1970 courtroom hostage situation); 1989 – U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland; 1999 – Brion James (Bladerunner); 2004 – Red Adair; 2005 – Peter Jennings; 2013 – Margaret Pellegrini (one of the last three Munchkins)