1478 English lawyer and politician Thomas More was born in Milk Street in London, on February 7, 1478. He was the eldest son of Sir John More, a successful lawyer who served as a judge in the King's Bench court. In his early teens Thomas entered the household of Cardinal Morton as a page who predicted young Thomas would be a "marvelous man."
1497 Supporters of Dominican friar and preacher Girolamo Savonarola burnt Florentine luxury goods on February 7, 1497 at the carnival of Florence. Savonarola organised the “bonfire of the vanities” at the carnival celebration before Lent, in which thousands of works of art, pornographic books and gambling equipment were publicly burnt. Such bonfires were not invented by Savonarola, but had been a common accompaniment to the outdoor sermons of San Bernardino di Siena (1380-1444).
1597 English author and statesman Francis Bacon's February 7, 1597 publication Essays, were the first pieces of writing to be actually called essay. Bacon wrote over 30 philosophical books and many other legal, scientific and many other popular works. He often didn't finish ambitious works which he'd started such as Novum Organium.
1812 Charles Dickens was born at 393 Commercial Road, Portsea, near Portsmouth on February 7, 1812. His father John Dickens was a naval pay clerk at Chatham, Kent when Charles was young. A friendly man, he had an inability to keep out of debt and debtors prison. His mother, Elizabeth, spent time in debtor's prison as well. Charles was fonder of his easy going father than his unsympathetic practical mother. He based Mr Micawber on his father and Mrs Nickleby on his mother.
1817 Until 1817 the streets of Baltimore were lighted by oil-lamps. On February 7, 1817, it became the first American city with gas streetlights, provided by Peale's Gas Light Company of Baltimore. Peale's lit its first street lamp at Market and Lemon Streets (currently Baltimore and Holliday Streets) on that day.
1837 Florence Nightingale was raised as a Unitarian and was a devout Christian. On February 7, 1837 the 16-year-old heard the voice of God telling her that she had a mission. At first unsure what it was, Florence came to realize that God was calling her to devote her life to the service of others. She came to realize it was to be in the form of nursing, but acknowledged the difficulties this entailed in the climate of her era where the respectable lady's place was thought to be at home.
1863 William McKinley was the last US president to have served in the American Civil War, beginning as a private in the Union Army. He was promoted to First Lieutenant on February 7, 1863 and ended the war as a brevet major.
1868 Anglo Irish Veterinary surgeon Aleen Cust was born February 7, 1868. Cust completed her veterinary studies in 1897, but was denied permission to sit the final examination and consequently not be admitted as a member of Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). She nevertheless went on to practice in Ireland. In 1922 she became the first female veterinary surgeon to be recognized by the RCVS following the enactment of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919.
1904 A fire broke out in Baltimore in the evening of February 7, 1904, and continued into the next day. It is considered one of the most destructive urban fires in U.S. history., destroying over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours. Damages were estimated at $125 million (equivalent to several billion dollars today when adjusted for inflation).
1931 Amelia Earhart married publisher George P. Putnam, who was known as GP, on February 7, 1931, in Putnam's mother's house in Noank, Connecticut. Earhart insisted on an open marriage to the point where she included the stipulation in her prenup.
1949 On February 7, 1949, Joe DiMaggio signed a record contract worth $100,000 with the Yankees and became the first baseball player to break $100,000 in earnings. It would be another 13 years before any other player reached that level.
1953 In 1938 the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams met Ursula Wood, the wife of an army officer. She was a poet, and had approached the composer with a proposed scenario for a ballet. Despite their both being married, and a forty year age-gap, they fell in love and maintained a secret affair for over a decade. Vaughan Williams' wife died in 1951 and the composer married Ursula on February 7, 1953 Their marriage brought him much happiness in his last years.
1957 Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, once had a beard. He took it off with an electric razor 24 hours before he arrived on the royal yacht at Gibraltar on February 7, 1957. The Queen was disappointed not to see his facial hair, she'd told her husband by radio-telephone that she thought it "rather fun" and was looking forward to seeing it.
1958 A Cessna 172 was used in 1958 to set the world record for flight endurance; the record still stands. On December 4, 1958 Robert Timm and John Cook took off from McCarran Airfield in Las Vegas, in a used Cessna 172, registration number N9172B. Sixty-four days, 22 hours, 19 minutes and 5 seconds later on February 7, 1959, they landed at the same airfield.
1962 Country star Garth Brooks was born on February 7, 1962. His actual first name is Troyal (Garth is his middle name), the same first name as his father's. Brooks went to Oklahoma State University on a javelin throwing scholarship and earned a bachelor's degree in advertising in 1985, He signed with Capitol Records on June 17, 1988 launching one of the most successful music careers of all time.
1967 On February 7, 1967 heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali outclassed yet another challenger, this time Ernie Terrell. By the eighth round, Clay began to punctuate each of his punches with the words: "What’s my name?" Terrell had insisted on calling him by his birth name of Cassius Clay, rather than the name he changed to when he joined the Black Muslim religious sect, Muhammad Ali.
1979 On February 7, 1979 the Vietnam People's Army captured the Cambodian capital city Phnom Penh, deposing Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, which marked the end of large-scale fighting in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. This ended four years of genocide when between 1.7 million and 2 million Cambodians were killed (20–30% of the population).
1984 Usually astronauts are connected to the spacecraft through an umbilical cable; Untethered spacewalks were first performed on three missions in 1984 using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart performed the first untethered spacewalk during the Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-41-B on February 7, 1984.
1497 Supporters of Dominican friar and preacher Girolamo Savonarola burnt Florentine luxury goods on February 7, 1497 at the carnival of Florence. Savonarola organised the “bonfire of the vanities” at the carnival celebration before Lent, in which thousands of works of art, pornographic books and gambling equipment were publicly burnt. Such bonfires were not invented by Savonarola, but had been a common accompaniment to the outdoor sermons of San Bernardino di Siena (1380-1444).
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| Savonarola Preaching in Florence, painting by Nikolay Lomtev (1850s) |
1597 English author and statesman Francis Bacon's February 7, 1597 publication Essays, were the first pieces of writing to be actually called essay. Bacon wrote over 30 philosophical books and many other legal, scientific and many other popular works. He often didn't finish ambitious works which he'd started such as Novum Organium.
1812 Charles Dickens was born at 393 Commercial Road, Portsea, near Portsmouth on February 7, 1812. His father John Dickens was a naval pay clerk at Chatham, Kent when Charles was young. A friendly man, he had an inability to keep out of debt and debtors prison. His mother, Elizabeth, spent time in debtor's prison as well. Charles was fonder of his easy going father than his unsympathetic practical mother. He based Mr Micawber on his father and Mrs Nickleby on his mother.
1817 Until 1817 the streets of Baltimore were lighted by oil-lamps. On February 7, 1817, it became the first American city with gas streetlights, provided by Peale's Gas Light Company of Baltimore. Peale's lit its first street lamp at Market and Lemon Streets (currently Baltimore and Holliday Streets) on that day.
1837 Florence Nightingale was raised as a Unitarian and was a devout Christian. On February 7, 1837 the 16-year-old heard the voice of God telling her that she had a mission. At first unsure what it was, Florence came to realize that God was calling her to devote her life to the service of others. She came to realize it was to be in the form of nursing, but acknowledged the difficulties this entailed in the climate of her era where the respectable lady's place was thought to be at home.
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| Painting of Nightingale by Augustus Egg, c. 1840s |
1863 William McKinley was the last US president to have served in the American Civil War, beginning as a private in the Union Army. He was promoted to First Lieutenant on February 7, 1863 and ended the war as a brevet major.
1868 Anglo Irish Veterinary surgeon Aleen Cust was born February 7, 1868. Cust completed her veterinary studies in 1897, but was denied permission to sit the final examination and consequently not be admitted as a member of Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). She nevertheless went on to practice in Ireland. In 1922 she became the first female veterinary surgeon to be recognized by the RCVS following the enactment of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919.
1904 A fire broke out in Baltimore in the evening of February 7, 1904, and continued into the next day. It is considered one of the most destructive urban fires in U.S. history., destroying over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours. Damages were estimated at $125 million (equivalent to several billion dollars today when adjusted for inflation).
1931 Amelia Earhart married publisher George P. Putnam, who was known as GP, on February 7, 1931, in Putnam's mother's house in Noank, Connecticut. Earhart insisted on an open marriage to the point where she included the stipulation in her prenup.
1949 On February 7, 1949, Joe DiMaggio signed a record contract worth $100,000 with the Yankees and became the first baseball player to break $100,000 in earnings. It would be another 13 years before any other player reached that level.
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| DiMaggio salutes his bat |
1953 In 1938 the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams met Ursula Wood, the wife of an army officer. She was a poet, and had approached the composer with a proposed scenario for a ballet. Despite their both being married, and a forty year age-gap, they fell in love and maintained a secret affair for over a decade. Vaughan Williams' wife died in 1951 and the composer married Ursula on February 7, 1953 Their marriage brought him much happiness in his last years.
1957 Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, once had a beard. He took it off with an electric razor 24 hours before he arrived on the royal yacht at Gibraltar on February 7, 1957. The Queen was disappointed not to see his facial hair, she'd told her husband by radio-telephone that she thought it "rather fun" and was looking forward to seeing it.
1958 A Cessna 172 was used in 1958 to set the world record for flight endurance; the record still stands. On December 4, 1958 Robert Timm and John Cook took off from McCarran Airfield in Las Vegas, in a used Cessna 172, registration number N9172B. Sixty-four days, 22 hours, 19 minutes and 5 seconds later on February 7, 1959, they landed at the same airfield.
1962 Country star Garth Brooks was born on February 7, 1962. His actual first name is Troyal (Garth is his middle name), the same first name as his father's. Brooks went to Oklahoma State University on a javelin throwing scholarship and earned a bachelor's degree in advertising in 1985, He signed with Capitol Records on June 17, 1988 launching one of the most successful music careers of all time.
1967 On February 7, 1967 heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali outclassed yet another challenger, this time Ernie Terrell. By the eighth round, Clay began to punctuate each of his punches with the words: "What’s my name?" Terrell had insisted on calling him by his birth name of Cassius Clay, rather than the name he changed to when he joined the Black Muslim religious sect, Muhammad Ali.
1979 On February 7, 1979 the Vietnam People's Army captured the Cambodian capital city Phnom Penh, deposing Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, which marked the end of large-scale fighting in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. This ended four years of genocide when between 1.7 million and 2 million Cambodians were killed (20–30% of the population).
1988 Mike Tyson has been married three times; the boxer's first wife was the actress Robin Givens, best known for her work on the sitcom Head of the Class. They were married from February 7, 1988 to February 14, 1989. He has fathered seven children, one deceased, by three women; in addition to his biological children.
1991 A Roman Catholic priest of the Salesian order, Jean-Bertrand Aristide became a focal point for the pro-democracy movement in Haiti first under Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier and then under the military transition regime which followed. Aristide became Haiti's first democratically-elected president winning 67% of the vote in the 1990-91 election. He was sworn in on February 7, 1991.
1992 Members of the European Community signed the Maastricht Treaty on February 7, 1992 at the Limburg Province government building in Maastricht, Netherlands. Upon the treaty's entry into force on November 1, 1993 during the Delors Commission, it created the European Union and the single European currency, the euro.
1997 After Apple's Board of Directors fired co-founder Steve Jobs from the company in 1985, he started NeXT, a computer platform development company which dealt with higher education and business market. Apple's 1997 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he'd co-founded. He returned to Apple Inc. as a consultant on February 7, 1997. He was formally named interim chief executive half a year later.
2007 Gmail initially started as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004. It became available to the general public on February 7, 2007. Before Google launched their email service, “G-Mail” was the name of a free email service offered by Garfield’s website.
2009 The Black Saturday bushfires were a series of bushfires that ignited or were burning across the Australian state of Victoria on and around February 7, 2009. They left 173 dead and 414 injured in what was then the worst natural disaster in Australia's history.
2013 Until February 7, 2013, Mississippi had never submitted the required documentation to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, meaning it never officially had abolished slavery. It was only when a university professor Dr. Ranjan Batra decided to do some research after watching the movie Lincoln that it was discovered that Mississippi had never officially ratified it. It thus became the last state to approve the abolition of slavery in 2013.
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