May 7



Events

Up to 1900 
 558 – In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapses. Justinian I immediately orders the dome rebuilt.
 973 - Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor takes sole charge of the Holy Roman Empire after the death of his father and co-Emperor Otto I.
 1274 – In France, the Second Council of Lyons opens to regulate the election of the Pope.
 1429 - Joan of Arc leads a French attack on English bridgeheads on the south side of the Loire River.
 1487 - Siege of Malaga during the Spanish Reconquista.
 1664 – The Palace of Versailles is inaugurated by Louis XIV of France.
 1697 – Stockholm's royal castle (dating back to medieval times) is destroyed in a huge fire (in the 18th century, it is replaced with the current Royal Palace).
 1718 - City of New Orleans is founded by Jean-Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville.
 1763 – Indian Wars: Pontiac's Rebellion begins – Chief Pontiac begins the "Conspiracy of Pontiac" by attacking British forces at Fort Detroit.
 1824 – Ludwig van Beethoven, completely deaf, conducts the debut of his Ninth Symphony in Vienna.
 1832 – Greece was recognised independent by the Treaty of London. 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 United States 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.
 1864 - The world's oldest-surviving clipper ship, City of Adelaide, is launched by William Pile in Sunderland, Northeast England.
 1895 – In Saint Petersburg, Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrates an invention which became the prototype of radio. In the former Soviet Union this day was celebrated as Day of Radio.
 1896 – H. H. Holmes is hanged in Philadelphia.

1901  2000 
 1915 – World War I: a German U-boat sinks the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people.
 1920 – Polish-Bolshevik War: Polish-Ukrainian troops captured Kyiv during the Kiev Offensive.
 1937 – Spanish Civil War: The German Condor Legion arrive in Spain with Heinkel He 51 biplanes to assist Franco's forces.
 1940 - The Norway Debate begins in the British House of Commons. It eventually results in Winston Churchill replacing Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 
 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.
 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 - Pacific Air Lines flight 773, a Fairchild F-27 airliner crashes near San Ramon, California, killing 44. The pilot and co-pilot  had been shot by a suicidal passenger.
 1974 – Willy Brandt resigns as Chancellor of Germany.
 1986 - Canadian Patrick Morrow becomes the first person to climb to the top of the Seven Summits.
 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.
 1994 - The Scream by Edvard Munch is recovered after it was stolen from the National Gallery of Norway in Oslo, in February.
 1995 – Jacques Chirac is elected President of France.
 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 – Pope John Paul II travels to Romania becoming the first pope that had visited a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism in 1054.
 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 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) aircraft mistakenly bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
 1999 – In Guinea-Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a military coup.
 2000 – Vladimir Putin becomes President of Russia.

From 2001 
 2001 - Wanted train robber Ronnie Biggs returns to the UK after spending over 30 years on the run in Brazil.
 2002 – A China Southern Airlines MD-82 plunges into the Yellow Sea killing 112 people.
 2007 – The tomb of King Herod the Great, who is mentioned in the Bible, is discovered.
 2008 – Dmitry Medvedev becomes President of Russia, with Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister.
 2010 – Scientists working on the Neanderthal Genome Project announce that modern humans and Neanderthals could have interbred.
 2012 – Vladimir Putin becomes President of Russia for a second time, swapping places with Dmitry Medvedev, who becomes Prime Minister.
 2012 - Victor Ponta is elected Prime Minister of Romania.
 2013 - 27 people are killed and over 30 are injured when a tanker truck explodes outside Mexico City.
 2014 - Prime Minister of Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra is removed from office for abuse of power.
 2015 - The United Kingdom general election, 2015 is held. The Conservative Party of incumbent Prime Minister David Cameron wins a surprise overall majority, with the Labour Party losing seats across England, Scotland and Wales. The Scottish National Party wins all but three seats in Scotland.
 2016 - Sadiq Khan of the Labour Party becomes Mayor of London, after defeating Conservative Zac Goldsmith in the election. He is the first Muslim Mayor of a major Western city.
 2017 - Emmanuel Macron is elected President of France, defeating Marine Le Pen in the run-off.

Births

Up to 1800 
 1328 - Louis II, Elector of Brandenburg (d. 1365)
 1530 - Louis, Prince de Condé, French general (d. 1569)
 1605 – Patriarch Nikon of the Russian Orthodox Church (d. 1681)
 1643 - Stephanus Van Cortlandt, American politician (d. 1700)
 1704 - Carl Heinrich Graun, German composer and tenor (d. 1759)
 1711 – David Hume, Scottish philosopher and historian (d. 1776)
 1724 - Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, Austrian general (d. 1797)
 1740 - Nikolai Arkharov, Russian general (d. 1814)
 1748 – Olympe de Gouges, French playwright and feminist revolutionary (d. 1793)
 1763 – Jozef Antoni Poniatowski, Polish prince (d. 1813)
 1767 – Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia (d. 1820)
 1787 - Jacques Viger, 1st Mayor of Chicago (d. 1858)

1801  1900 
 1812 – Robert Browning, English poet (d. 1889)
 1819 – Otto Wilhelm von Struve, German astronomer (d. 1905)
 1826 – Varina Davis, First Lady of the Confederate States of America (d. 1906)
 1833 – Johannes Brahms, German composer (d. 1897)
 1836 - Joseph Gurney Cannon, American politician (d. 1926)
 1837 - Karl Mauch, German geographer and explorer (d. 1875)
 1840 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (d. 1893)
 1841 - Gustave Le Bon, French psychologist (d. 1931)
 1847 – Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, British Prime Minister (d. 1929)
 1857 - William A. MacCorkle, 9th Governor of West Virginia (d. 1930)
 1861 – Rabindranath Tagore, Indian poet and writer of the Bengali language (d. 1941)
 1867 – Wladyslaw Reymont, Polish writer (d. 1925)
 1875 - William Hoyt, American athlete (d. 1954)
 1882 - Willem Elsschot, Flemish writer (d. 1960)
 1891 - Harry McShane, Scottish engineer and activist (d. 1988)
 1892 – Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia (d. 1980)
 1892 – Archibald MacLeish, American poet and politician (d. 1982)
 1893 - Frank J. Selke, Canadian ice hockey player and manager (d. 1985)

1901  1950 
 1901 – Gary Cooper, American actor (d. 1961)
 1901 - Marcel Poot, Belgian composer (d. 1988)
 1905 - Bumble Bee Slim, American musician (d. 1968)
 1908 - Max Grundig, German businessman (d. 1989)
 1909 – Edwin H. Land, American inventor (d. 1991)
 1911 – Ishiro Honda, Japanese movie director (d. 1993)
 1913 - Simon Ramo, American physicist (d. 2016)
 1914 - Arthur Snelling, English diplomat (d. 1996)
 1917 - Domenico Bartolucci, Italian cardinal (d. 2013)
 1919 - Joe Mitty, British philanthropist (d. 2007)
 1919 – Eva Perón, First Lady of Argentina (d. 1952)
 1921 - Gaston Rebuffat, French mountaineer (d. 1985)
 1923 - Anne Baxter, American writer and actress (d. 1985)
 1923 - Bülend Ulusu, 18th Prime Minister of Turkey (d. 2015)
 1924 - Albert Band, French-American director and producer (d. 2002)
 1924 - Marjorie Boulton, British author and poet (d. 2017)
 1925 - Lauri Vaska, Estonian-American chemist and academic (d. 2015)
 1926 - Val Bisoglio, American actor
 1927 – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, German screenwriter (d. 2013)
 1928 - John Ingle, American actor (d. 2012)
 1931 – Teresa Brewer, American singer (d. 2007)
 1932 - Jordi Bonet, Canadian-Catalan painter, muralist and sculptor (d. 1979)
 1932 - Pete Domenici, American politician (d. 2017)
 1933 - Nexhmije Pagarusha, Kosovar singer and actress
 1935 - Avraham Heffner, Israeli television and movie director, producer and writer (d. 2014)
 1936 – Tony O'Reilly, Irish billionaire
 1936 - Jimmy Ruffin, American singer (d. 2014)
 1939 – Sidney Altman, Canadian molecular biologist
 1939 – Ruud Lubbers, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 2018)
 1939 - Ruggero Deodato, Italian director, actor and screenwriter
 1939 - Volker Braun, German writer
 1940 - Angela Carter, English novelist and journalist (d. 1992)
 1943 – Peter Carey, Australian writer
 1944 - Richard O'Sullivan, English actor
 1945 - Christy Moore, Irish singer-songwriter and guitarist
 1945 - Robin Strasser, American actress
 1946 - Thelma Houston, American singer-songwriter and actress
 1946 – Michael Rosen, English poet and writer
 1946 – Bill Kreutzmann, American drummer (The Grateful Dead)
 1947 – Gary Herbert, American politician
 1947 - Antonio de la Cruz, Spanish footballer
 1947 - Numa Sadoul, French writer
 1948 – Susan Atkins, American murderer (d. 2009)
 1950 – Tim Russert, American broadcast journalist (d. 2008)
 1950 - Mark Warawa, Canadian politician (d. 2019)

1951  1975 
 1951 – Robert Hegyes, American actor (d. 2012)
 1956 – Jan Peter Balkenende, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands
 1956 - Nicholas Hytner, English director and producer
 1958 – Christine Lieberknecht, German politician
 1961 - Hans-Peter Bartels, German politician
 1961 - Sue Black, Scottish forensic anthropologist
 1962 - Tony Campbell, American basketball player and coach
 1962 - Dominik Moll, German-French director and screenwriter
 1965 – Owen Hart, Canadian professional wrestler (died 1999)
 1965 - Andrew Little, New Zealand politician
 1965 – Norman Whiteside, Northern Irish footballer
 1966 - Andrea Tafi, Italian cyclist
 1967 – Martin Bryant, Australian criminal
 1968
 Traci Lords, American actress & singer
 Lisa Raitt, Canadian politician
 1969 – Rick Porras, American movie producer
 1969 - Eagle-Eye Cherry, Swedish singer-songwriter
 1969 - Katerina Maleeva, Bulgarian tennis player
 1972 - Jennifer Yuh Nelson, South Korean-American animator
 1973 - Paolo Savoldelli, Italian cyclist
 1975 – Arni Gautur Arason, Icelandic footballer

From 1976 
 1976 - Calvin Booth, American basketball player
 1977 – Lisa Kelly, Irish singer
 1978 – Stian Arnesen, Norwegian musician and songwriter
 1978 – Shawn Marion, American basketball player
 1979 – Katie Douglas, American basketball player
 1981 - Maria Radner, German opera singer (d. 2015)
 1983 – Julio dos Santos, Paraguayan footballer
 1983 – Garry O'Connor, Scottish footballer
 1983 - Makano, Panamanian singer and composer
 1986 – Matt Helders, English musician
 1987 – Stefan Read, Canadian ski jumper
 1988 - Nathan Burns, Australian footballer
 1988 – Natalie Mejia, American dancer and singer
 1988 - Takayuki Morimoto, Japanese footballer
 1988 - Eino Puri, Estonian footballer
 1988 - Sander Puri, Estonian footballer
 1989 – Master Shortie, English singer-songwriter, rapper and producer
 1989 - Raina, South Korean singer, dancer, model and rapper
 1990 - Yoon Bit-Garam, South Korean footballer
 1992 - Alexander Ludwig, Canadian actor
 1992 - Tyler Johnson, American basketball player
 1999 – Masaki Sato, Japanese singer (Morning Musume)
 2000 - Maxwell Perry Cotton, American actor

Deaths

Up to 1900 
 685 - Mawan I, Umayyah Caliph (b. 623)
 973 – Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (born 912)
 1266 – Farid-ud-din Ganj Shakar, Islamic saint in South Asia (b. 1179)
 1539 – Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism (born 1469)
 1539 – Ottaviano Petrucci, Italian printer (born 1466)
 1615 - Sanada Yukimura, Japanese samurai (born 1567)
 1617 – David Fabricius, German astronomer (born 1564)
 1682 – Tsar Feodor III of Russia (born 1661)
 1718 - Mary of Modena, wife of James II of England (born 1658)
 1793 - Pietro Nardini, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1722)
 1805 – William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1737)
 1825 – Antonio Salieri, Italian composer (born 1750)
 1840 – Caspar David Friedrich, German painter (born 1774)
 1868 - Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, English statesman (born 1778)
 1872 - Alexander Loyd, 4th Mayor of Chicago (born 1805)
 1873 - Salmon P. Chase, American politician (born 1808)

1901  2000 
 1902 - Agostino Roscelli, Italian priest (born 1818)
 1922 – Max Wagenknecht, German composer (born 1857)
 1924 - Alluri Sita Rama Raju, Indian activist (born 1897)
 1940 - George Lansbury, English politician (born 1859)
 1941 – James George Frazer, Scottish ethnologist and classical philologist (born 1854)
 1942 – Felix Weingartner, Yugoslavian conductor (born 1863)
 1943 - Fethi Okyar, Turkish diplomat and politician (born 1880)
 1951 – Warner Baxter, American actor (born 1889)
 1958 - Mihkel Lüdig, Estonian organist, composer and conductor (born 1880)
 1985 - Dawn Addams, British actress (born 1930)
 1986 - Jeffrey Mylett, American actor (born 1949)
 1986 - Haldun Taner, Turkish playwright and short story writer (born 1915) 
 1987 – Colin Blakely, English actor (born 1930)
 1989 – Guy Williams, American actor (born 1924)
 1991 - István Zsolt, Hungarian football referee (born 1921)
 1995 – Ray McKinley, American jazz musician (born 1910)
 1998 – Allan McLeod Cormack, South African physicist (born 1924)
 2000 – Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., American actor (born 1909)

From 2001 
 2001 - Jacques de Borbon Busset, French novelist, essayist and politician (born 1912)
 2005 – Otilino Tenorio, Ecuadorean footballer (born 1980)
 2010 – Wally Hickel, American politician, 2nd Governor of Alaska (born 1919)
 2011 – Seve Ballesteros, Spanish golfer (born 1957)
 2011 – Willard Boyle, Canadian physicist (born 1924)
 2011 - Gunter Sachs, German businessman, art patron and playboy (born 1932)
 2013 - Ray Harryhausen, American animator, director and producer (born 1920)
 2013 - Aubrey Woods, English actor and singer (born 1928)
 2013 - Ferruccio Mazzola, Italian footballer and manager (born 1948)
 2014 - Colin Pillinger, British planetary scientist (born 1943)
 2014 - Nazim Al-Haqqani, Turkish-Cypriot spiritual leader (born 1922)
 2014 - Neville McNamara, Royal Australian Air Force commander (born 1923)
 2014 - Manuel Jiménez de Parga, Spanish politician (born 1929)
 2015 - John Dixon, Australian cartoonist (born 1929)
 2015 - Maurice Flanagan, British businessman (born 1928)
 2015 - Frank DiPascali, American financier and fraudster (born 1956)
 2016 - Bernardo Ribeiro, Brazilian footballer (born 1989)
 2016 - John Stabb, American punk music singer (born 1961)
 2017 - Gran Apache, Mexican professional wrestler (born 1959)
 2017 - Elon Lages Lima, Brazilian mathematician (born 1929)
 2017 - Beppo Mauhart, Austrian football executive and journalist (born 1933)
 2017 - Gholamreza Pahlavi, Iranian prince and writer (born 1923)
 2017 - Lee Weissenborn, American politician (born 1929)
 2017 - Wu Wenjun, Chinese mathematician (born 1919)
 2018 - Maurane, Belgian singer and actress (born 1960)
 2018 - Miki Muster, Slovenian artist (born 1925)
 2018 - Jesús Kumate Rodríguez, Mexican physician and politician (born 1924)
 2018 - Crosbie E. Saint, American military officer (born 1936)
 2019 - Vicente Emano, Filipino politician (born 1943)
 2019 - Georg Katzer, German composer (born 1935)
 2019 - Te Wharehuia Milroy, New Zealand Maori language academic (born 1937)
 2019 - Adam Svoboda, Czech ice hockey player (born 1978)
 2019 - Jean Vanier, Canadian philosopher and theologian (born 1928)
 2019 - Joel Virador, Filipino politician (born 1967)

Observances 
 Radio Day (Russia, Bulgaria)
 Defender of the Fatherland Day (Kazakhstan)
 Dien Bien Phu Victory Day (Vietnam)

May 07