September 7th in history

   70CE   A Roman army under Titus occupies and plunders Jerusalem, including the destruction of the second temple in the first Jewish-Roman War.  The Arch of Titus is still standing in Rome, celebrating the Roman victory.  The Jews still mourn the destruction of the first and second temple with the fast of Tisha B'Av.

Geoffrey of Anjou

Richard Lionheart

1151   Death of Geoffrey of Anjou (b. 1113) aka Geoffrey V, aka Geoffrey le Bel (the Handsome), Count of Anjou, Touraine, Maine, Duke of Norrmandy, grandson of William the Conqueror, father of King Henry II of England, and grandfather of Richard the Lionheart.  His widow, Empress Matilda, was 11 years older than he was, and survived him despite it being her second marriage.  His brother Elias had revolted against Geoffrey, and was imprisoned from 1145 until 1151.  This became unfortunate family trends for his son Henry II - stormy marriages to women who had been prominently married before, who were older by a decade or more, and who were not shy about taking the field with an army to take territory they felt belonged to them; and, family rebellions resulting in imprisonments.  Geoffrey was the grandson of William the Conqueror, and the first to use the name 'Plantaganet'.  Geoffrey was a redhead, and passed on his distinctive coloring, along with his considerable military talents, to his son Henry II, and grandson, Richard I the Lionheart.

1191   During the Third Crusade, Richard I of England defeats Saladin at Arsuf.  You can see the family resemblance, above,  between grandfather and grandson.

1524   Birth of Thomas Erastus, Swiss physician and theologian, founder of Erastianism, the premise that the state is supreme in Church matters, and should punish sinners through civil law, rather than the church refusing sacraments.  Erastus was part of the reformation.

1552   Death of Guru Angad Dev, second Sikh Guru (b. 1504) one of the ten founders of Sikhism.

1652   Around 15,000 Han Chinese farmers and militia rebells against Dutch rule on Taiwan in the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion.  The Dutch East India Company had established a colonial government on the Chinese Island of Formosa (aka Taiwan).  The Dutch, in an effort to Christianize the population and to 'civilize' it according to western ideas,  was somewhat brutal to the Chinese and aborigines.  In the Dutch suprresion of the rebellion, approximately 25% of the rebels were killed.  Leader Guo Huaiyi was captured, shot, and decapitated, with his head on display on a pike; approximately 4,000 Chinese Han were executed for the rebellion.
1776   World's first submarine attack: the American submersible craft Turtle attempts to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe's flagship HMS Eagle in New York Harbor.  While the submarine functioned well enough, the attempts failed because of the ships having a metal lining installed to prevent hull damage from parasites.

1818   Carl III of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Norway, in Trondheim.  The Union of Sweden and Norway lasted until 1905, after the Swedish-Norwegian War, and after Norway gained independence from Denmark.

1821   The Republic of Gran Colombia (a federation covering much of present day Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador) is established, with Simón Bolívar as the founding President and Francisco de Paula Santander as vice president

Grandma Moses painting

1860    Birth of Grandma Moses, self-taught American folk artist who didn't start painting until she was in her 70s. (d. 1961)

1876   In Northfield, Minnesota, Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang attempt to rob the town's bank but are driven off by armed citizens.  The bank cashier and a Swedish immigrant to Northfield were both killed, as were most of the gang members.  Frank and Jesse James escaped to the Dakotas.

1895   The first game of what would become known as rugby league football is played, in England, starting the 1895-96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.

1901   The Boxer Rebellion, aka the 'Socieity of Rightious and Harmonious Fists ' Uprising, was a rebellion of Chinese opposing colonialism and Christianity imposed on Chinese by westerners, and specifically the opium trade. The movement hoped to expel foreigners from China.  In China it officially ended with the signing of the Boxer Protocol.  The English called the members of the secret society which trained in unarmed and armed martial arts 'Boxers'. The Boxers had attacked missionary compounds in 1898, and with the support of the Qing Dynasty, the Boxers laid seige to the Foreign Embassy legation quarter in 1900.  The 'Eight Nation Alliance' sent 20,000 troops to Beijing to rescue those trapped in the embassy quarter.  The Qing Dynasty was subsequently overthrown in the 1911 revolution.

1909   Eugene Lefebvre (1878–1909), while test piloting a new French-built Wright biplane, crashes at Juvisy France when his controls jam. Lefebvre dies, becoming the first 'pilot' in the world to lose his life in a powered heavier-than-air craft.

1911   French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and put in jail on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum.  Apollinaire was released, and subsequently  Pablo Picasso was questioned by police regarding the theft.  Eventually an employee of the Louvre was discovered to have stolen the painting, Vincenzo Perrugia.  He was caught trying to sell the painting to the Uffizi gallery in Florence; Perrugia believed that the painting belonged in Italy as part of the national heritage.  It was exhibited throughout Italy before being returned to the Louvre.  Leonardo had completed the painting in France, shortly before he died there.

1912   Birth of David Packard, American engineer, and co-founder of Hewlitt Packard.

1914   Birth of James Alfred Van Allen, American space scientist (d. 2006) for whom the Van Allen radiation belts were named.  He was a space scientist at the University of Iowa.

1916   Federal employees win the right to Workers' compensation by(Federal Employers Liability Act (39 Stat. 742; 5 U.S.C. 751)

1921   In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant, a two-day event, is held.

1927   The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Taylor Farnsworth.TV pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth succeeded in transmitting an image through purely electronic means by using a device called an image dissector.

'Benjamin' the last Thylacine

1936   The last surviving member of the thylacine species, Benjamin, dies alone in her cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.  The thylacine was better known as variously, the Tasmanian Tiger or the Tasmanian Wolf; but it was neither a feline or canine.  It was a large, carnivorous marsupial, related to the Tasmanian Devil.  It was hunted to (possible) extinction, in conjunction with habitat encroachment.  There are rare reports of thylcacine sightings, but none have been confirmed in the last 50 years, making the official status of an extinct species.  Because in this variety of marsupial both male and females had pouches, and in the male the pouch obscured the genitalia from view, 'Benjamin's gender was ambiguous.

1940  World War II: The Blitz,Nazi Germany begins to rain bombs on London. This will be the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing.

1942   Holocaust: 8,700 Jews of Kolomyia (western Ukraine) sent by German Gestapo to death camp in Belzec.
           First flight of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator.

1953   Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1969  Death of Senate Republican leader Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois at age 73.  Dirksen was Senate Minority Leader for the decade of the 1960s, supporting the Viet Nam War, and Civil Rights legislation.
1970   An anti-war rally is held at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, attended by John Kerry, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.
           Fighting occurs between Arab guerillas and government forces in Amman, Jordan.
 
1977   The Torrijos-Carter Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed. The United States agrees to transfer control of the canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.
          Convicted Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy was released after serving more than four years in prison.

1978   While walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is assassinated by Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Giullino by means of a ricin pellet fired from in a specially-designed umbrella.
            British Prime Minister James Callaghan announces that he will not call a general election for October, considered to be a major political blunder.

1979    The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, better known as ESPN, makes its debut.
            The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for USD $1.5 billion to avoid bankruptcy.

1986    Desmond Tutu becomes the first black man to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.
            Gen. Augusto Pinochet, president of Chile, escapes attempted assassination.

1988    Abdul Ahad Mohmand, the first Afghan in space, returns aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-5 after 9 days on the Mir space station.

'Uzi' Gal

1999    A 5.9 magnitude earthquake rocks Athens, rupturing a previously unknown fault, killing 143, injuring more than 500, and leaving 50,000 people homeless.

2002    Death of German-born Uziel Gal, Israeli firearm designer of the 'Uzi' submachine gun (b. 1923).  Gal had moved from Germany in 1933 to England; from England he moved to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1936.  In 1975 he moved to Pennsylvania.

2005    First presidential election is held in Egypt.

2008    The US Government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing companies in the US, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.