May 7

May 7 is the 127th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (128th in leap years). There are 238 days remaining.

Events

558 - In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapses. Justinian immediately orders the dome rebuilt.

1429 - Joan of Arc leads a French attack on English bridgeheads on the south side of the Loire River.

1274 - In France the Second Council of Lyons opens to regulate the election of the Pope.

1763 - Indian Wars: Pontiac's Rebellion begins - Chief Pontiac begins the "Conspiracy of Pontiac" by attacking British forces at Fort Detroit.

1824 - A deaf Beethoven conducts the debut of his Ninth Symphony in Vienna.

1832 - Greece becomes independent. Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria is chosen King.

1840 - The Great Natchez Tornado strikes Natchez, Mississippi, killing 317 people. It is the second deadliest tornado in U.S. history.

1847 - In Philadelphia, the American Medical Association (AMA) is founded.

1864 - American Civil War: The Army of the Potomac, under General Ulysses S. Grant, breaks off from the Battle of the Wilderness and moves southwards.

1915 - World War I: a German U-boat sinks the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people.

1920 - Polish-bolshevik war: Polish-Ukrainian troops enter Kyiv.

1937 - Spanish Civil War: The German Condor Legion Fighter Group, equipped with Heinkel He-51 biplanes, arrive in Spain to assist Franco's forces.

1945 - World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document will take effect the next day.

1946 - Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (later renamed Sony) is founded with about 20 employees.

1947 - Kraft Television Theater debuts, running for the next 11 years).

1948 - The Council of Europe is founded during the Hague Congress.

1951 - The International Olympic Committee gives Russia permission to compete in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.

1952 - The concept for the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer.

1954 - Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat (the battle began on March 13).

1960 - Cold War: U-2 Crisis - Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers.

1964 - Three people are killed at a show of post rockets at Gerhard Zucker on Mount Hasselkopf near Braunlage, (Lower Saxonia, Germany) .

1977 - In London, United Kingdom, Marie Myriam wins the twenty-second Eurovision Song Contest for France singing "L'oiseau et l'enfant" (The bird and the child).

1992 - Michigan ratifies a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the United States Constitution making the 27th Amendment law. This amendment bars the U.S. Congress from giving itself a mid-term pay rise.

1992 - Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on its maiden voyage.

1992 - Three employees at a McDonald's Restaurant in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada are brutally murdered and a fourth permanently disabled after a botched robbery. It is the first fast-food murder in Canada.

1998 - Apple Computer unveils the iMac.

1998 - Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for US$40 billion and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.

1999 - A jury finds The Jenny Jones Show and Warner Bros liable in the shooting death of Scott Amedure, after the show purposely deceived Jonathan Schmitz to appear on a secret same-sex crush episode. Schmitz later killed Amedure and the jury awarded Amedure's family US$25 million.

1999 - Kosovo War: In Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, three Chinese embassy workers are killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft mistakenly bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

1999 - In Guinea-Bissau, President Jo�o Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a military coup.

2002 - A China Southern Airlines MD-82 plunges into the Yellow Sea killing 112 people.