On This Day — 7 April

2000s

2022

Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed for the Supreme Court of the United States, becoming the first black female justice.

Ketanji Brown Jackson

2021

COVID-19 pandemic: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces that the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant has become the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

2020

COVID-19 pandemic: China ends its lockdown in Wuhan.

COVID-19 pandemic

2020

COVID-19 pandemic: Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly resigns for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic on USS Theodore Roosevelt and the dismissal of Brett Crozier.

Thomas Modly

2018

Former Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is arrested for corruption by determination of Judge Sérgio Moro, from the "Car-Wash Operation". Lula stayed imprisoned for 580 days, before being released by the Brazilian Supreme Court.

Brazilians

📅

2018

Syria launches the Douma chemical attack during the Eastern Ghouta offensive of the Syrian Civil War.

Douma chemical attack

2017

A man deliberately drives a hijacked truck into a crowd of people in Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people and injuring fifteen others.

2017 Stockholm truck attack

2017

U.S. President Donald Trump orders the 2017 Shayrat missile strike against Syria in retaliation for the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack.

Donald Trump

2011

The Israel Defense Forces use their Iron Dome missile system to successfully intercept a BM-21 Grad launched from Gaza, marking the first short-range missile intercept ever.

Israel Defense Forces

2011

A gunman opens fire at an elementary school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killing twelve children and injuring 22 others before committing suicide.

Rio de Janeiro school shooting

2009

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings and kidnappings by security forces.

Peru

2009

Mass protests begin across Moldova under the belief that results from the parliamentary election are fraudulent.

April 2009 Moldovan parliamentary election protests

2005

First release of Git distributed version control system.

Git

2003

Iraq War: U.S. troops capture Baghdad; Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime falls two days later.

Iraq War

2003

Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide demands reparations of $21 billion from France for the Haitian independence debt.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide

2001

NASA launches the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter.

NASA

1900s

1999

Turkish Airlines Flight 5904 crashes near Ceyhan in southern Turkey, killing six people.

Turkish Airlines Flight 5904

1995

First Chechen War: Russian paramilitary troops begin a massacre of civilians in Samashki, Chechnya.

First Chechen War

1994

Rwandan genocide: Massacres of Tutsis begin in Kigali, Rwanda, and soldiers kill the civilian Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana.

Rwandan genocide

1994

Auburn Calloway attempts to destroy Federal Express Flight 705 in order to allow his family to benefit from his life insurance policy.

Federal Express Flight 705

1990

A fire breaks out on the passenger ferry Scandinavian Star, killing 159 people.

Ferry

1990

John Poindexter is convicted for his role in the Iran–Contra affair. In 1991 the convictions are reversed on appeal.

John Poindexter

1989

Soviet submarine Komsomolets sinks in the Barents Sea off the coast of Norway, killing 42 sailors.

Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

1988

Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov orders the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Dmitry Yazov

1983

During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first Space Shuttle spacewalk.

STS-6

1982

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh is arrested.

Sadegh Ghotbzadeh

1980

During the Iran hostage crisis, the United States severs relations with Iran.

Iran hostage crisis

📅

1978

Development of the neutron bomb is canceled by President Jimmy Carter.

Neutron bomb

1977

German Federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback and his driver are shot by two Red Army Faction members while waiting at a red light.

Siegfried Buback

1976

Member of Parliament and suspected spy John Stonehouse resigns from the Labour Party after being arrested for faking his own death.

John Stonehouse

1972

Vietnam War: Communist forces overrun the South Vietnamese town of Loc Ninh.

Viet Cong

1971

Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces his decision to quicken the pace of Vietnamization.

Vietnam War

1969

The Internet's symbolic birth date: Publication of RFC 1.

Internet

1968

Two-time Formula One British World Champion Jim Clark dies in an accident during a Formula Two race in Hockenheim.

Formula One

1965

Representatives of the National Congress of American Indians testify before members of the US Senate in Washington, D.C., against the termination of the Colville tribe.

National Congress of American Indians

1964

IBM announces the System/360.

IBM

1956

Francoist Spain agrees to surrender its protectorate in Morocco.

Francoist Spain

1954

United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech during a news conference.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

1948

The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.

World Health Organization

1946

The Soviet Union annexes East Prussia as the Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

Soviet Union

1945

World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Yamato, one of the two largest ever constructed, is sunk by United States Navy aircraft during Operation Ten-Go.

World War II

1944

In the Fragheto massacre, soldiers belonging to the German 356th Infantry Division kill 30 Italian civilians and 15 partisans near Casteldelci in central-northern Italy.

Fragheto massacre

1943

The Holocaust in Ukraine: In Terebovlia, Germans order 1,100 Jews to undress and march through the city to the nearby village of Plebanivka, where they are shot and buried in ditches.

The Holocaust in Ukraine

1943

Ioannis Rallis becomes collaborationist Prime Minister of Greece during the Axis Occupation.

Ioannis Rallis

1943

The National Football League makes helmets mandatory.

National Football League

1940

Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.

Booker T. Washington

1939

Benito Mussolini declares an Italian protectorate over Albania and forces King Zog I into exile.

Benito Mussolini

1939

Italy invades Albania.

Italian invasion of Albania

1933

Prohibition in the United States is repealed for beer of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight, eight months before the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution. (Now celebrated as National Beer Day in the United States.)

Prohibition in the United States

1933

Nazi Germany issues the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service banning Jews and political dissidents from civil service posts.

Nazi Germany

1926

Violet Gibson attempts to assassinate Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini.

Violet Gibson

1922

Teapot Dome scandal: United States Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leases federal petroleum reserves to private oil companies on excessively generous terms.

Teapot Dome scandal

1906

Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples.

Mount Vesuvius

1906

The Algeciras Conference gives France and Spain control over Morocco.

Algeciras Conference

1800s

1868

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, one of the Canadian Fathers of Confederation, is assassinated by a Fenian activist.

Thomas D'Arcy McGee

1862

American Civil War: The Union's Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio defeat the Confederate Army of Mississippi near Shiloh, Tennessee.

American Civil War

1831

Pedro II becomes emperor of the Empire of Brazil.

Pedro II of Brazil

1824

The Mechanics' Institution is established in Manchester, England at the Bridgewater Arms hotel, as part of a national movement for the education of working men. The institute is the precursor to three Universities in the city: the University of Manchester, UMIST and the Metropolitan University of Manchester (MMU).

Mechanics' institute

1805

Lewis and Clark Expedition: The Corps of Discovery breaks camp among the Mandan tribe and resumes its journey West along the Missouri River.

Lewis and Clark Expedition

1805

German composer Ludwig van Beethoven premieres his Third Symphony, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Before 1800

1798

The Mississippi Territory is organized from disputed territory claimed by both the United States and the Spanish Empire. It is expanded in 1804 and again in 1812.

Mississippi Territory