October 7 is:
National Frappe Day (foam-covered iced coffee drink)
1542 – Explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo discovered Santa Catalina Island off of the California coast. The 1958 song “26 Miles (Santa Catalina)” by the Four Preps hit number 2 on the Billboard charts. The main theme of the song is summed up in the last line in the refrain, stating that Santa Catalina is “the island of romance”, with the word “romance” repeated four times.
King George III of Great Britain issued British Royal Proclamation of 1763, closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements.
1765 – The Stamp Act Congress convened in New York to draw up colonial grievances against England.
Birthday of James Whitcomb Riley (October 7, 1849), known as “the Hoosier Poet”, specializing in children’s poetry. Considered by some critics as “the Burns of America.” Authored “When the Frost is on the Punkin”, “Little Orphant Annie” and “The Raggedy Man.” Poetry-Archive.com
Edgar Allan Poe, American writer, poet and critic, died in Baltimore in 1849. He was 40 years old.
Poe’s most famous works include the poems “The Raven”, and “Annabelle Lee”, and stories “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, and “The Tell-Tale Heart”.
FromThe Raven:
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“‘Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
1952 Birthday of 
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.
The Fox News Channel began broadcasting in 1996.
2001: Triggered by the September 11 attacks, the Afghanistan War began, as U.S. and British warplanes started bombing Taliban targets.