February 7 is the 38th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 327 days remaining until the end of the year (328 in leap years).
Holidays
- Christian feast day:
- Richard the Pilgrim
- Blessed Eugénie Smet
- Blessed Pope Pius IX
- Chrysolius
- Egidio Maria of Saint Joseph
- Colette of Corbie
- February 7 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church Typically observed on the Sunday closest to January 25 (O.S.)/February 7 (N.S.)
- Independence Day (Grenada), celebrates the independence of Grenada from the United Kingdom in 1974.
- National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (United States)
History
In 457, Leo I becomes emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
In 987, Bardas Phokas the Younger and Bardas Skleros, Byzantine generals of the military elite, begin a wide-scale rebellion against Emperor Basil II
In 1074, Pandulf IV of Benevento is killed battling the invading Normans at the Battle of Montesarchio.
In 1301, Edward of Caernarvon (later King Edward II of England) becomes the first English Prince of Wales.
In 1497, The bonfire of the vanities occurs in which supporters of Girolamo Savonarola burn thousands of objects like cosmetics, art, and books in Florence, Italy.
In 1779, William Boyce, English composer (b. 1711) dies. He was widely regarded as one of the most important English-born composers of the 18th century. Born in London, Boyce was a choirboy at St Paul’s Cathedral before studying music with Maurice Greene after his voice broke. A house in the present choir school is named after him. His first professional appointment came in 1734 when he was employed as an organist at the Oxford Chapel. He went on to take a number of similar posts before being appointed Master of the King’s Musick in 1755 and becoming one of the organists at the Chapel Royal in 1758. One of his students was the prodigy Thomas Linley. When Boyce’s deafness became so bad that he was unable to continue in his organist posts, he retired and worked on completing the compilation Cathedral Music that his teacher Greene had left incomplete at his death. This led to Boyce editing works by the likes of William Byrd and Henry Purcell. Many of the pieces in the collection are still used in Anglican services today. Boyce is best known for his set of eight symphonies, his anthems and his odes. He also wrote the masque Peleus and Thetis and songs for John Dryden‘s Secular Masque, incidental music for William Shakespeare‘s The Tempest, Cymbeline, Romeo and Juliet and The Winter’s Tale, and a quantity of chamber music including a set of twelve trio sonatas. He also composed the British and Canadian Naval March “Heart of Oak“. The lyrics were later written by David Garrick for his 1759 play Harlequin’s Invasion.
In 1783, American Revolutionary War: French and Spanish forces lift the Great Siege of Gibraltar.
In 1795, The 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
In 1807, Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Eylau – Napoléon‘s French Empire begins fighting against Russian and Prussian forces of the Fourth Coalition at Eylau, Poland.
In 1812, The strongest in a series of earthquakes strikes New Madrid, Missouri.
In 1813, Action of 7 February 1813: stalemate two evenly matched frigates from the French Navy and the British Royal Navy, Aréthuse and HMS Amelia.
In 1819, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles leaves Singapore after just taking it over, leaving it in the hands of William Farquhar.
In 1823, Ann Radcliffe, English author (b. 1764) passes. She was an English author and a pioneer of the Gothic novel. Her style is romantic in its vivid descriptions of landscapes and long travel scenes, yet the Gothic element is obvious through her use of the supernatural. It was her technique of explained Gothicism, the final revelation of inexplicable phenomena, that helped the Gothic novel achieve respectability in the 1790s. Radcliffe published six novels in all. These are (listed alphabetically): The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, Gaston de Blondeville, The Italian, The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Romance of the Forest, and A Sicilian Romance. She also published a book of poetry, but her talent for prose far exceeded her poetic ability. She also authored a work based on her one excursion to the Continent, A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794, through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany…To Which Are Added Observations of a Tour to the Lakes (1795). Radcliffe is considered one of the founders of Gothic literature. While there were others that preceded her, Radcliffe was the one that legitimised the genre. Sir Walter Scott called her the “founder of a class or school”. Jane Austen parodied Radcliffe’s novel The Mysteries of Udolpho in Northanger Abbey. Radcliffe did not like where Gothic literature was headed, and her final novel, The Italian, was written in response to Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk. It is assumed that this frustration is what caused Radcliffe to cease writing. After Radcliffe’s death, her husband released her unfinished essay “On the Supernatural in Poetry,” which details the difference between the sensation of terror her works aimed to achieve and the horror Lewis sought to evoke.
In 1842, Battle of Debre Tabor: Ras Ali Alula, Regent of the Emperor of Ethiopia defeats warlord Wube Haile Maryam of Semien.
In 1856, The colonial Tasmanian Parliament passes the second piece of legislation (the Electoral Act of 1856) anywhere in the world providing for elections by way of a secret ballot.
In 1863, HMS Orpheus sinks off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand, killing 189.
In 1894, The Cripple Creek miner’s strike, led by the Western Federation of Miners, begins in Cripple Creek, Colorado.
In 1897, Greco-Turkish War: The first full-scale battle takes place when the Greek expeditionary force in Crete defeats a 4,000-strong Ottoman force at Livadeia.
In 1898, Émile Zola is brought to trial for libel for publishing J’Accuse.
In 1900, Second Boer War: British troops fail in their third attempt to lift the Siege of Ladysmith.
In 1904, A fire in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.
In 1907, The Mud March is the first large procession organized by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).
In 1935, The classic board game Monopoly is invented.
In 1940, The second full length animated Walt Disney film, Pinocchio, premieres.
In 1943, Imperial Japanese naval forces complete the evacuation of Imperial Japanese Army troops from Guadalcanal during Operation Ke, ending Japanese attempts to retake the island from Allied forces in the Guadalcanal Campaign.
In 1944, World War II: In Anzio, Italy, German forces launch a counteroffensive during the Allied Operation Shingle.
In 1951, Korean War: Sancheong-Hamyang massacre
In 1962, The United States bans all Cuban imports and exports.
In 1964, The Beatles first arrive in the United States. Their performance on The Ed Sullivan Show two days later would mark the beginning of the British Invasion.
In 1968, Nick Adams, American actor and screenwriter (b. 1931) dies. On the night of February 7, 1968, his lawyer and friend, ex-LAPD officer Ervin Roeder, drove to the actor’s house at 2126 El Robles Lane in Beverly Hills to check on him after a missed dinner appointment. Seeing a light on and his car in the garage, Roeder broke through a window and discovered Adams in his upstairs bedroom, slumped dead against a wall. During the autopsy Dr. Thomas Noguchi found enough paraldehyde, sedatives and other drugs in the body “to cause instant unconsciousness.” The death certificate lists “paraldehyde and promazine intoxication” as the immediate cause of death, along with the notation “accident; suicide; undetermined”. During the 1960s, drug interaction warnings were not so prominent as they later would be, and the American Medical Association has subsequently warned these two types of drugs should never be taken together.
In 1974, Grenada gains independence from the United Kingdom.
In 1979, Pluto moves inside Neptune‘s orbit for the first time since either was discovered.
In 1984, Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B Mission – Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).
In 1986, Twenty-eight years of one-family rule end in Haiti, when President Jean-Claude Duvalier flees the Caribbean nation.
In 1990, Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly on power.
In 1991, Haiti‘s first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is sworn in.
In 1992, The Maastricht Treaty is signed, leading to the creation of the European Union.
In 1995, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan.
In 1999, Crown Prince Abdullah becomes the King of Jordan on the death of his father, King Hussein.
In 2001, Dale Evans, American singer-songwriter and actress (b. 1912) dies. She was an American writer, film star and singer-songwriter. She was the third wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers. Born Lucille Wood Smith in Uvalde, Texas, she had a tumultuous early life. While still in infancy her name was changed to Frances Octavia Smith. At age 14, she eloped with her first husband, Thomas F. Fox. She bore one son, Thomas F. Fox, Jr., when she was 15. Divorced in 1929, she took the name Dale Evans in the early 1930s to promote her singing career. In 1947 she married Roy Rogers. The marriage was his third and her fourth. Dale had a son from her first marriage, Tom Jr., while Roy had an adopted child, Cheryl, and two biological children, Linda and Roy (Dusty) Jr., from his second marriage. Evans and Rogers together had one child, Robin, who died before her second birthday, and adopted four others: Mimi, Dodie, Sandy, and Debbie. They were married for 51 years until Rogers’ death. Evans died of congestive heart failure on February 7, 2001 at the age of 88 in Apple Valley, California, USA. She was interred at Sunset Hills Memorial Park in Apple Valley, next to Roy.
In 2008, The Jackson Energy Authority Fitch Ratings for bonds are showing a negative direction. Fitch Ratings is a leading global rating agency committed to providing the world’s credit markets with independent, timely and prospective credit opinions. Fitch Ratings is dual-headquartered in New York and London, operating offices and joint ventures in more than 49 locations and covering entities in more than 90 countries, including insurer financial strength ratings on over 2,000 insurance companies. Fitch Ratings is a majority-owned subsidiary of Fimalac, S.A., an international business support services group headquartered in Paris, France.
The site showed that all areas of JEA except waste water past bonds and gas is downgrading either to AA or A. While this is not alarming to some; it shows that expansion with future taxpayer dollars would cost the utility and its citizens a great deal more than planned and the marketing of those bonds a little more difficult. While this didn’t bring JEA down to junk status, it was one step closer to speculative.
In 2009, Bushfires in Victoria left 173 dead in the worst natural disaster in Australia’s history.
In 2012, President Mohamed Nasheed of the Republic of Maldives resigns, after 23 days of anti-governmental protests calling for the release of Chief Judge unlawfully arrested by the military.
In 2013, Mississippi officially certifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was formally ratified by Mississippi in 1995.
In 2014, Official opening of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
In 2014, Over 350 people were injured in the anti-government unrest in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2014, The question of whether former Madison County Sheriff David Woolfork could lose his retirement benefits arose in December when he was indicted on charges of aggravated sexual battery, a felony, and domestic assault, a misdemeanor, against a female deputy, Sharon Sangster.
In 2015, Dean Smith, American basketball player and coach (b. 1931) died on the evening of February 7, 2015, at age 83, at his Chapel Hill home surrounded by his family. He was an American men’s college basketball head coach. Called a “coaching legend” by the Basketball Hall of Fame, he coached for 36 years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Smith coached from 1961 to 1997 and retired with 879 victories, which was the NCAA Division I men’s basketball record at that time. Smith had the ninth-highest winning percentage of any men’s college basketball coach (77.6%). During his tenure as head coach, North Carolina won two national championships and appeared in 11 Final Fours. Smith played college basketball at the University of Kansas, where he won a national championship in 1952 playing for Hall of fame coach Phog Allen.
In 2016, North Korea launches Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4 into outer space.
In 2019, Frank Robinson, American baseball player, coach, and manager (b. 1935) died of bone cancer in Los Angeles at the age of 83. He was an American professional baseball outfielder and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played for five teams, from 1956 to 1976. The only player to be named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of both the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), he was named the NL MVP after leading the Cincinnati Reds to the pennant in 1961 and was named the AL MVP in 1966 with the Baltimore Orioles after winning the Triple Crown; Robinson’s 49 home runs (HR) that year tied for the most by any AL player between 1962 and 1989, and stood as a franchise record for 30 years. He helped lead the Orioles to the first two World Series titles in franchise history in 1966 and 1970, and was named the Series MVP in 1966 after leading the Orioles to a four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 1975, Robinson became the first black manager in big league history, as the Cleveland Indians’ player-manager.
