| 7 March 1080 | Germany [administration] | Pope Gregory VII again prohibits lay investiture, declares Henry IV to be deposed as king of Germany, and recognizes the ‘antiking’ Rudolph of Swabia in his place. |
| 7 March 1274 | Italy [thought and scholarship] | St Thomas Aquinas (‘Doctor Angelicus’), Italian Dominican theologian, outstanding medieval scholasticist, dies in Fossanova, near Terracina, Italy (c. 50). He is the author of Summa contra gentiles/The Main Argument Against the Gentiles and his greatest work, Summa theologiae/Summary of Theology, which is left incomplete. A vast compendium of moral and political philosophy, it attempts to reconcile reason, faith, and Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology. |
| 7 March 1714 | France, Austria, Habsburg Monarchy, Bavaria, Spanish Netherlands, Holy Roman Empire, Germany [treaties] | The Peace of Rastatt is agreed between King Louis XIV of France and Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, by which France recognizes the Habsburg possessions in Italy, the electors of Bavaria and Cologne are restored, and the Habsburg Monarchy takes possession of the Spanish Netherlands. |
| 7 March 1793 | France, Spain [French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1801)] | France declares war on Spain. Spanish forces invade the French-occupied territories of Roussillon and Navarre on the border between the two countries. |
| 7 March 1820 | Spain [political events] | King Ferdinand VII of Spain is forced by popular pressure to restore the constitution of 1812 and to abolish the Inquisition, the body responsible for upholding Catholicism in Spain. |
| 7 March 1857 | USA [legislation] | The US Supreme Court rules in Dred Scott v. Sandford that no free black person was entitled to claim US citizenship. The decision renders the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. |
| 7 March 1876 | USA [technology] | Scottish-born US inventor Alexander Graham Bell patents a device for transmitting human speech over electric wires. It consists of an identical microphone and receiver each made of a solenoid placed next to an iron membrane; vibration in the microphone's membrane induces a current in the solenoid that travels down the wire and causes the membrane in the receiver to vibrate. |
| 7 March 1933 | Austria [political events] | The Austrian chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, suspends parliament after political polarization makes democratic government impossible: he rules by decree while a new constitution is drawn up. |
| 7–31 March 1951 | North Korea, South Korea, China [Korean War (1950–53)] | In the Korean War, United Nations (UN) forces move northwards to the 38th Parallel, recapturing the South Korean capital of Seoul 14 March: the UN commander General Douglas MacArthur advocates extending the war into China, using atomic bombs. |
| 7 March 1966 | UK [banking and finance] | The Midland Bank in Britain is the first to introduce cheque guarantee cards. |
| 7 March 1987 | India [cricket] | Sunil Gavaskar of India, playing in his 124th Test cricket match, against Pakistan in Ahmedabad, India, becomes the first batsman to score 10,000 Test runs. |
| 7 March 2007 | world [public health] | International scientists collaborating as part of the Cancer Genome Project announce the discovery of 120 new cancer causing genes. |
