July 7 is the 189th day of 2020.
Chocolate Day – In 1550, Europe introduced the first chocolate.
National Strawberry Sundae Day
National Macaroni Day
On July 7, 1456, a retrial verdict acquitted Joan of Arc of heresy. Unfortunately, this was 25 years after her death.
Mexican–American War: American troops occupied Monterey and Yerba Buena (now called San Francisco) on July 7, 1846, thus beginning the U.S. acquisition of California.
From Today in Science
Nettie Maria Stevens born 7 July 1861
American geneticist who was born in the year that the Civil War began, and despite difficult times and limited women’s educational opportunities, became one of the first American women to achieve recognition for her contributions to scientific research. As a cell biologist and geneticist, her great contribution to science was as one of the first scientists to find that sex is determined by a single difference between two classes of sperm – the presence or absence of an X chromosome.
United States begins its first military draft in 1863; exemptions cost $300.
Execution by hanging of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt on July 7, 1865, at Fort McNair in Washington City; they had been convicted of conspiracy in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
1907 – Birth of Robert A. Heinlein, American science fiction writer (d. 1988); author of “Stranger in a Strange Land”, “Starship Troopers”, etc.
A couple of quotes:
Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men.
My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels.
Specialization is for insects.
Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died on July 7, 1930 at age 71 (born 22 May 1859). Scottish author and physician whose fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, emulates the scientist, diligently searching through data and to make sense of it. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” Later in life Doyle was a spiritualist.
The Roswell incident, the (supposed) crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell in New Mexico on July 7, 1947.
Elvis Presley made his radio debut in 1954 when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, “That’s All Right.”
1981 –U.S. President Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate with a vote of 99–0.