| 7 July 371 BC | Greece [wars] | Theban general Epaminondas wins a decisive victory over the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra in southern Boetia. The victory shocks Greece, as Spartan soldiers have always been believed to be invincible; Athens does not welcome the victory, fearing the rising aggression of the city of Thebes. The Arcadians decide to reassert their independence from Sparta and form an Arcadian League; they rebuild their city of Mantinea as well as building a new federal city, Megalopolis. |
| 7 July 711 | Spain, Arab Caliphate [wars] | At the invitation of the rebel governor of Ceuta, the Arabs and their Moorish allies invade the Visigoth kingdom of Spain. Led by the Moorish chief Tariq, the Muslim army lands at Gibraltar (Jebel el-Tariq, ‘the mountain of Tariq’). At the battles of Guadelete and Ecija the smaller Arab army decisively defeats Roderick, the last Visigoth king of Spain, and before the end of the year the Visigoth capital of Toledo falls without resistance. Except for the mountainous northwest, all of Spain comes under Muslim control within two years. |
| 7 July 817 | Arab Caliphate [political events] | In an attempt to end the factional rivalry of the Sunni Muslims and breakaway minority Shiite Muslims, the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun appoints Ali al-Rida, leader of the Shiites, as his heir. This proves unacceptable to the Sunnite majority, however, and a revolt breaks out in Baghdad (in modern Iraq). |
| 7 July 897 | Italy [administration] | Pope Stephen VI's treatment of the late Pope Formosus's corpse causes a popular rebellion in Rome: Stephen is deposed, jailed, and shortly afterwards strangled. The papacy now falls prey to bitter faction fighting – six Popes rule in the next six years. |
| 7 July 1002 | Germany, Holy Roman Empire, Poland [diplomacy] | Boleslaw Chrobry (the Brave) recognizes King Henry II of Germany as overlord and cedes his recent conquests, retaining Lusatia and Milsko. As Boleslaw leaves their meeting, an attempt is made to murder him, for which he blames Henry, so beginning a war. |
| 7 July 1185 | France, Flanders [treaties] | By the Treaty of Boves with Count Philip of Flanders, King Philip II of France acquires Amiens and other lands and titles in northeast France, thus doubling the extent of the royal domain. |
| 7 July 1196 | Ayyubid Sultanate [administration] | Al-`Adil, the brother of the late Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria gains control of Egypt and much of Syria, styling himself sultan. |
| 7 July 1198 | Holy Roman Empire, Germany [administration] | Otto IV, a member of the Welf dynasty and son of Henry the Lion, is crowned as ‘king of the Romans’ (king of Germany) after he captures the city of Cologne; civil war breaks out in Germany between him and the Hohenstaufen party of Philip, Duke of Swabia, who has already been elected ‘king of the Romans’. |
| 7 July 1236 | Holy Roman Empire, Italy [political events] | In a diet (legislative assembly) in Piacenza, Italy, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II announces his intention of restoring imperial authority in Italy. Pope Gregory IX replies by claiming the supreme temporal dominion of the papacy in Italy under the ‘Donation of Constantine’ (an 8th-century forgery, purporting to show that the Roman Emperor Constantine granted control of all of Italy to Pope Sylvester I and the papacy in the 4th century). |
| 7 July 1251 | Florence, Italy, Holy Roman Empire [political events] | The imperialist party, the Ghibellines, are exiled from the Italian city-republic of Florence, following the return of the papist Guelphs the year before. |
| 7 July 1260 | Lithuania [wars] | The Lithuanians defeat the Teutonic Knights (a German Christian military order) at Durben in Lithuania. This is followed by the revolt of Courland (Kurland) against the Knights and the apostasy (rejection of his Christian faith) of Prince Mindovg of Lithuania, who conquers the north Baltic region of Livonia. |
| 7 July 1307 | England [Anglo–Scottish Wars 1296–1371)] | When King Edward I of England dies whilst leading an army to Scotland, he is succeeded by his son, Edward II. |
| 7 July 1438 | France [political events] | The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges is published. It is a declaration by a council of the French church held by King Charles VII of France restricting papal authority in France. |
| 7 July 1501 | France, Spain, Naples, Italy [wars] | The French army under King Louis XII, aided by Cesare Borgia, captain general of the papal army, storms and sacks the city of Capua, while its Spanish allies under Gonzalo de Córdoba take control of the provinces of Apulia and Calabria. |
| 7 July 1510 | Papal States, Spain, France, Naples, Italy [political events] | Pope Julius II secures King Ferdinand II of Aragon's alliance against France, whose aid Ferdinand no longer requires now that his position in Castile is secured. The Pope invests him with the crown of Naples. |
| 7 July 1572 | Poland-Lithuania [political events] | King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland dies, the last of the Jagiello dynasty; the Sejm (parliament) declares itself free to elect whomever it chooses as a successor. |
| 7 July 1585 | France [treaties] | Henri, Duke of Guise, at the head of the Catholic League, forces King Henry III of France and his mother Catherine de' Medici into signing the Treaty of Nemours, in which he capitulates to their demands for revoking all toleration of the Huguenots (French Protestants), and recognizing Cardinal Charles de Bourbon as his successor, rather than the Protestant king Henry of Navarre; this provokes the War of the Three Henries. |
| 7 July 1807 | Prussia, France [treaties] | The Treaty of Tilsit (Prussia) ends the war between France and Russia. The French emperor Napoleon I, having defeated Austria and now Russia and Prussia, is the master of continental Europe. Russia agrees to the establishment of a Grand Duchy of Warsaw (as a French satellite in eastern Europe), recognizes the Confederation of the Rhine (association of German states under French protection), agrees to close all ports to British ships, and, by a secret agreement, Tsar Alexander I agrees to coerce Denmark, Sweden, and Portugal into joining the alliance against Britain. In return he is given a free hand against Sweden in Finland and the Ottoman Empire in the Danubian provinces (Moldavia and Wallachia). |
| 7 July 1815 | France [political events] | The ‘White Terror’ begins in southern France, as fanatical royalists attack revolutionary elements, Bonapartists, and Protestants. |
| 7 July 1834 | Spain [political events] | A civil war begins in Spain as Don Carlos, brother of the late King Ferdinand VII of Spain, claims the throne occupied by the infant queen, Isabella II. The Carlists are supported by the Catholic Church, the Basques, and other conservative elements, and are opposed by Britain and France. |
| 7 July 1839 | China, UK [wars] | The First Opium War between China and Britain begins after the Chinese authorities seize and burn cargoes of opium due to be exported from China by British merchants, in an attempt to combat smuggling of the drug. |
| 7 July 1854 | Germany [births and deaths] | Georg Simon Ohm, German physicist who discovered Ohm's law, which relates electric current to voltage, dies in Munich, Germany (67). |
| 7 July 1868 | New Zealand, UK [wars] | The Third Maori War breaks out in New Zealand between the aboriginal inhabitants and British settlers encroaching on their land. |
| 7 July 1871 | Germany [Catholicism] | The German government begins its Kulturkampf (cultural struggle) with the Catholic Church, when Chancellor Otto von Bismarck suppresses the Roman Catholic department for spiritual affairs. |
| 7 July 1904 | Colombia [law and government] | Rafael Reyes becomes dictator in Colombia and begins an attempt to reorganize the country's finances. |
| 7 July 1927 | United Kingdom [radio] | The first regular programme of recorded music on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is broadcast, presented by Christopher Stone, considered to be the world's first disc-jockey. |
| 7 July 1930 | [births and deaths] | Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish novelist who created the detective Sherlock Holmes, dies in Crowborough, Sussex, England (71). |
| 7 July 1946 | UK [television] | The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) launches the first children's television series For the Children: it is shown every week. |
| 7 July 1967 | USA [astronomy] | British astronomers Jocelyn Bell and Anthony Hewish, at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, Cambridge, England, discover the first pulsar (announced in 1968). |
| 7–16 July 1973 | USA [law and government] | The former White House aide Alexander P Butterfield discloses the existence of the so-called ‘Watergate tapes’, when he tells a US Senate committee during the hearing on the Watergate affair that President Richard Nixon secretly tape-records all conversations in his office. Within a week, both the US Senate and special prosecutor subpoena them. |
| 7 July 1978 | Solomon Islands, UK [decolonization] | The Solomon Islands gain their independence from Britain. |
| 7 July 1998 | Japan [space exploration] | Two Japanese satellites, using sensors and lasers, perform the first automatic docking of a space vehicle. |
| 7 July 2003 | [space exploration] | Following a two-week delay due to bad weather and technical problems, the USA's latest Mars rover is launched from Cape Canaveral space centre aboard a Delta II rocket. Opportunity, and another rover vehicle Spirit which was launched the previous month, are due to land on the planet in early 2004. |
| 7 July 2005 | England [terrorism] | In a major coordinated terrorist attack on London, England, three bombs explode on the city's underground railway network and another on a bus, killing 56 people including the bombers. Three of the suicide bombers are subsequently identified on surveillance cameras as British Muslims. |
