January 7

1536 Catherine of Aragon died at Kimbolton Castle on January 7, 1536. She was the first of Henry VIII of England's six wives. They divorced because of the king's infatuation with Anne Boleyn and dissatisfaction that his marriage to Catherine had produced no surviving sons. Catherine was buried in Peterborough Cathedral with the ceremony due to a Dowager Princess of Wales, not a queen. Henry did not attend the funeral and forbade their daughter Mary to attend.

Catherine of Aragon

1558 England's King Edward III annexed Calais from the French in 1347. Siege guns were used by the English for one of the first times. Half the population of Calais in the fifteenth century worked for the British wool trade. Francis, Duke of Guise, finally captured Calais for France on January 7, 1558. It had been England's last continental possession.

1610 During 1609 Galileo Galilei developed an improved version of the telescope which had been developed for military applications. Between January 7-13, 1610, Galileo observed with his telescope Jupiter's four largest moons. His observations caused a revolution in astronomy: a planet with smaller planets orbiting it did not conform to the principles of Aristotelian cosmology, which held that all heavenly bodies should circle the Earth.

19th-century painting depicting Galileo Galilei displaying his telescope in 1609.

1782 The first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on January 7, 1782. It was thus the Nation's first de facto central bank. By 1783, Congress and several states including Massachusetts enacted legislation, allowing Americans to pay taxes with Bank of North America certificates. Within three years, the Bank was considered a creditworthy institution.

1785 Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809), the inventor of the parachute, successfully made the first balloon crossing of the English Channel from Dover to Calais on January 7, 1785. Mr. Blanchard and his American passenger, Dr. John Jeffries, had to shed all of their clothes as the wind died and the balloon’s airbag cooled too quickly over the sea. Neither man could swim.

Crossing of the English Channel by Blanchard in 1785.

1789 America’s first presidential election was held on January 7, 1789. Only white men who owned property were allowed to vote. The result of this historic election saw George Washington unanimously elected as the first president of the United States, receiving all 69 electoral votes cast. John Adams became the first vice president.

1797 The Italian flag is often referred to in Italy as il Tricolore because of its three colors. Green represents hope, white represents faith, and red represents charity. The first official Italian tricolor flag was adopted by the government of the Cispadane Republic on January 7, 1797 (see below).

1844 Bernadeta Soubirous (Saint Bernadette) was born in Lourdes, France on January 7, 1844. Her parents were François Soubirous, a poor miller with no regular employment, and Louise (née Castérot) a laundress. Bernadette did farm work, notably sheep herding, for a family friend in nearby Bartres, and also waited tables in her Aunt Bernarde's tavern. Bernadette had the first of several visions of the Virgin Mary in a grotto when she was 14.

1876 The world's first mechanically frozen ice rink, The Glaciarium, opened in a tent in a small building just off the Kings Road in Chelsea, London, on January 7, 1876. It moved two months later to a permanent venue at 379 Kings Road, where a rink measuring 40 by 24 feet was established. It contained special galleries for spectators and a French artist decorated its walls with Swiss alpine and forest scenes.

Interior of the Glaciarium in 1876

1894 Thomas Edison assigned Scotsman William Kennedy Dickson, an assistant at his lab at West Orange, New Jersey to work on the development of his film viewing machine  During Dickson's work he invented the first motion picture film, which he received a patent for on January 7, 1894. Dickson received little thanks for his work and left Edison in 1895. His former employer refused to concede that anyone but himself was responsible for bringing the invention to fruition.

1896 The disabled principal of Boston Cooking School, Fannie Farmer, wrote The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, which was first published on January 7, 1896. Farmer was the first person to standardize the methods and measurements of her recipes, rather than such vague terms as "heaping spoonful", assuring reliable results to her readers. She also recognized in her comprehensive and organised book the relationship between good nutrition and health.

1927 The first transatlantic telephone service was established on January 7, 1927 from New York to London. The first transatlantic telephone call that was made on that day by two men testing the line cost £15 ($19) for 3 minutes — a hefty £840 ($1,071) in today's money. Their conversation included: "How's the weather over in London?"

1931 Guy Menzies made the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) on January 7, 1931. Poor weather forced Menzies off course, and after 11 hours and 45 minutes he crash-landed upside-down in the La Fontaine Swamp near Hari Hari on New Zealand's west coast.

1939 The French physicist Marguerite Perey identified francium, the last element first discovered in nature, rather than by synthesis on January 7, 1939. It's important to note that while francium was the last naturally occurring element discovered, several elements first synthesized in labs were later found to exist in trace amounts in nature.

1943 Serbian-American electrical engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla died of coronary thrombosis in a hotel room in Manhattan, New York City on January 7, 1943. Tesla's work fell into relative obscurity after his death. However in 1960 the General Conference on Weights and Measures named the SI unit of magnetic flux density the Tesla in his honor. Since then his reputation has experienced a comeback in popular culture.

1944 Herbert Hoover first met Lou Henry at Stanford University and they started courting. They married in 1899 and she served as the First Lady of the United States from 1929 to 1933. She was the first First Lady to make regular nationwide radio broadcasts. Lou Hoover died of a heart attack in New York City on January 7, 1944 predeceasing her husband by 20 years.

1946 On January 7, 1946, a tornado struck Tupelo, Mississippi. It was a devastating tornado that caused significant damage to the city. Among those affected was a young Elvis Presley, who was 10 years old at the time. Elvis and his mother, Gladys, took shelter in a nearby cellar to protect themselves from the tornado.

1948 On January 7, 1948, Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell died in a crash while pursuing an unidentified flying object (UFO) near Fort Knox, Kentucky. Mantell was flying a P-51 Mustang fighter plane as part of a flight of four planes investigating a UFO sighting reported by multiple witnesses, including military personnel.

1955 Marian Anderson became the first African-American singer to appear at New York City's Metropolitan Opera on January 7, 1955. Her performance as Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera at the Met broke barriers for black artists in the States.

1970 The Woodstock rock festival held at Max Yasgur’s farm in New York between August 15-18, 1969. About 400,000 people attended, making it the largest rock festival of the 1960s. On January 7, 1970: Max Yasgur was sued for $35,000 in property damages by neighboring farmers.

1978 The first person born in Antarctica was Emilio Marcos Palma of Argentina on January 7, 1978. He was born in Fortín Sargento Cabral at the Esperanza Base near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and weighed 3.4 kg (7 lb 8 oz). His father, Captain Jorge Emilio Palma, was head of the Argentine army detachment at the base.

1989 Emperor Hirohito of Japan died of duodenal cancer on January 7, 1989. Emperor Hirohito ruled Japan for 62 years, including during World War II. With the deaths of Hitler and Mussolini, he was the only Axis leader to remain after the war and stayed in office until his death.

2005 Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, who were one of Hollywood's most high-profile couples at the time, announced their separation on January 7, 2005 after four years of marriage. The news attracted significant media attention, and their divorce was finalized later that year. 

2015 Two armed Al-Qaeda terrorists forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 7, 2015 at about 11:30 local time, They killed 12 people and injured 11 others. The copy of Charlie Hebdo magazine released after the terror attack, sold nearly 8 million copies, compared to their prior usual of 60,000 copies.

Charlie Hebdo tribute Berlin By Dirk Ingo Franke

2019 On January 7, 2019, 32,315.5 m³ (1,141,211.1 ft³)  of concrete was poured at the site of Polavaram Dam Project, in Polavaram, Andhra Pradesh, India. It set two Guinness World Records, one for Largest Continuous Concrete Pour and one for Most Concrete Continuously Poured in 24 Hours. The project aims to be a critical water resource for millions of people.