On This Day — 7 January

2025

A series of wildfires ravage the Greater Los Angeles area, resulting in at least 16 deaths and 13,401 structures destroyed.

January 2025 Southern California wildfires

2023

The longest U.S. House of Representatives speaker election since the December 1859 – February 1860 U.S. speaker election concludes and Kevin McCarthy is elected 55th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

January 2023 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election

2020

The 6.4Mw  2019–20 Puerto Rico earthquakes kill four and injure nine in southern Puerto Rico.

2019–20 Puerto Rico earthquakes

2015

Two gunmen commit mass murder at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, executing twelve people and wounding eleven others.

Charlie Hebdo shooting

2015

A car bomb explodes outside a police college in the Yemeni capital Sanaa with at least 38 people reported dead and more than 63 injured.

January 2015 Sanaa bombing

2012

A hot air balloon crashes near Carterton, New Zealand, killing all 11 people on board.

Hot air balloon

1999

The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton begins.

Impeachment of Bill Clinton

1994

A British Aerospace Jetstream 41 operating as United Express Flight 6291 crashes in Gahanna, Ohio, killing five of the eight people on board.

British Aerospace Jetstream 41

1993

The Fourth Republic of Ghana is inaugurated with Jerry Rawlings as president.

History of Ghana

1993

Bosnian War: The Bosnian Army executes a surprise attack at the village of Kravica in Srebrenica.

Bosnian War

1991

Roger Lafontant, former leader of the Tonton Macoute in Haiti under François Duvalier, attempts a coup d'état, which ends in his arrest.

Roger Lafontant

1989

Sutton United, a team in the fifth tier of English league football, defeated top-tier Coventry City in one of the biggest upsets in FA Cup history.

Sutton United F.C.

1985

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches Sakigake, Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union.

JAXA

1984

Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Brunei

1980

U.S. President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.

Jimmy Carter

1979

Third Indochina War: Cambodian–Vietnamese War: Phnom Penh falls to the advancing Vietnamese troops, driving out Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Sino-Vietnamese War

1973

In his second shooting spree of the week, Mark Essex fatally shoots seven people and wounds five others at Howard Johnson's Hotel in New Orleans, before being shot to death by police officers.

Mark Essex

1972

Iberia Flight 602 crashes near Ibiza Airport, killing all 104 people on board.

Iberia Flight 602

1968

Surveyor program: Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifts off from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36A.

Surveyor program

1959

The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

Cuba

1955

Contralto Marian Anderson becomes the first person of color to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.

Marian Anderson

1954

Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York at the head office of IBM.

Georgetown–IBM experiment

1950

In the Sverdlovsk air disaster, all 19 of those on board are killed, including almost the entire national ice hockey team (VVS Moscow) of the Soviet Air Force – 11 players, as well as a team doctor and a masseur.

1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash

1948

Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of a supposed UFO.

Kentucky Air National Guard

1940

Winter War: Battle of Raate Road: The Finnish 9th Division finally defeat the numerically superior Soviet forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road.

Winter War

1935

Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval sign the Franco-Italian Agreement.

Benito Mussolini

1931

Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing on New Zealand's west coast.

Guy Menzies

1928

A disastrous flood of the River Thames kills 14 people and causes extensive damage to much of riverside London.

1928 Thames flood

1927

The first transatlantic commercial telephone service is established from New York City to London.

History of the telephone

1922

Dáil Éireann ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by a 64–57 vote.

Dáil Éireann

1920

The New York State Assembly refuses to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen.

New York State Assembly

1919

Montenegrin guerrilla fighters rebel against the planned annexation of Montenegro by Serbia, but fail.

Montenegro

1904

The distress signal "CQD" is established only to be replaced two years later by "SOS".

Distress signal

1894

Thomas Edison makes a kinetoscopic film of someone sneezing. On the same day, his employee, William Kennedy Dickson, receives a patent for motion picture film.

Thomas Edison

1867

The Kingstree jail fire kills 22 freedmen in Reconstruction-era South Carolina.

Kingstree jail fire

1835

HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin on board, drops anchor off the Chonos Archipelago.

HMS Beagle

1785

Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon.

Jean-Pierre Blanchard

1782

The first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opens.

Bank of North America

1738

A peace treaty is signed between Peshwa Bajirao and Jai Singh II following Maratha victory in the Battle of Bhopal.

Bajirao I

1708

Battle of Zlatoust: Battle between Bashkir and Tatar rebels and the government troops of the Tsardom of Russia. It is one of the events of the Bashkir rebellion of 1704–1711.

Tsardom of Russia

1708

Bashkir rebels besiege Yelabuga.

Siege of Yelabuga (1708)

1610

Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, although he is not able to distinguish the last two until the following night.

Galileo Galilei

1608

Fire destroys Jamestown, Virginia.

Jamestown, Virginia

1558

French troops, led by Francis, Duke of Guise, take Calais, the last continental possession of England.

François, Duke of Guise

1325

Afonso IV becomes King of Portugal.

Afonso IV of Portugal

1078

The people of Constantinople revolt, lynch the unpopular official Nikephoritzes and proclaim Nikephoros Botaneiates as emperor.

Constantinople

-49

The Senate of Rome says that Caesar will be declared a public enemy unless he disbands his army, prompting the tribunes who support him to flee to where Caesar is waiting in Ravenna.

Senate of the Roman Republic