Today in History: Friday, July 7

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1124 – Tyre falls to the Crusaders. 1456 – A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death. 1520 – Spanish conquistadores defeat a larger Aztec army at the Battle of Otumba. 1534 – Jacques Cartier makes his first contact with aboriginal peoples in what is now Canada. 1543 – French troops invade Luxembourg. 1575 – The Raid of the Redeswire is the last major battle between England and Scotland. 1585 – The Treaty of Nemours abolishes tolerance to Protestants in France. 1770 – The Battle of Larga between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire takes place. 1777 – American forces retreating from Fort Ticonderoga are defeated in the Battle of Hubbardton. 1798 – As a result of the XYZ Affair, the U.S. Congress rescinds the Treaty of Alliance with France sparking the "Quasi-War". 1807 – The Peace of Tilsit between France, Prussia and Russia ends the War of the Fourth Coalition. 1834 – In New York City, four nights of rioting against abolitionists began. 1846 – American troops occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena, thus beginning the conquest of California. 1863 – The United States begins its first military draft; exemptions cost $300. 1865 – Four conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln are hanged. 1892 – The Katipunan is established, the discovery of which by Spanish authorities initiated the Philippine Revolution. 1898 – U.S. President William McKinley signs the Newlands Resolution annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States. 1907 – Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. staged his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City. 1911 – The United States, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia sign the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911 banning open-water seal hunting, the first international treaty to address wildlife preservation issues. 1915 – The First Battle of the Isonzo comes to an end. 1915 – An International Railway trolley with an extreme overload of 157 passengers crashes near Queenston, Ontario, killing 15. 1915 – Colombo Town Guard officer Henry Pedris is executed in British Ceylon for allegedly inciting persecution of Muslims. 1916 – The New Zealand Labour Party was founded in Wellington. 1928 – Sliced bread is sold for the first time (on the inventor's 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri. 1930 – Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser begins construction of Boulder Dam (now known as Hoover Dam). 1930 – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, dies. 1937 – The Marco Polo Bridge Incident provides the Imperial Japanese Army with a pretext for starting the Second Sino-Japanese War. 1937 – The Peel Commission Report recommends the partition of Palestine - the first formal recommendation for partition in the history of Palestine 1941 – The American occupation of Iceland replaces the British occupation. 1941 – World War II: Beirut is occupied by Free France and British troops. 1944 – World War II: Largest Banzai charge of the Pacific War at the Battle of Saipan. 1946 – Mother Francesca S. Cabrini becomes the first American to be canonized. 1946 – Howard Hughes nearly dies when his XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood. 1947 – The Roswell incident, the (supposed) crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell in New Mexico. 1948 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 53 is adopted. 1950 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 84 is adopted. 1952 – The ocean liner SS United States passes Bishop Rock on her maiden voyage, breaking the transatlantic speed record to become the fastest passenger ship in the world. 1953 – Ernesto "Che" Guevara sets out on a trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador. 1954 – Elvis Presley makes his radio debut when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, "That's All Right." 1956 – Fritz Moravec and two other Austrian mountaineers make the first ascent of Gasherbrum II (8,035 m). 1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into law. 1959 – Venus occults the star Regulus. This rare event is used to determine the diameter of Venus and the structure of the Venusian atmosphere. 1963 – Buddhist crisis: The police of Ngô Đình Nhu, brother and chief political adviser of President Ngô Đình Diệm, attacked a group of American journalists who were covering a protest. 1978 – The Solomon Islands becomes independent from the United Kingdom 1980 – Institution of sharia in Iran. 1980 – During the Lebanese Civil War, 83 Tiger militants are killed during what will be known as the Safra massacre. 1981 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan appoints Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. 1983 – Cold War: Samantha Smith, a U.S. schoolgirl, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov. 1985 – Boris Becker becomes the youngest player ever to win Wimbledon at age 17 1991 – Yugoslav Wars: The Brioni Agreement ends the ten-day independence war in Slovenia against the rest of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. 1992 – New York Court of Appeals ruled women had the same right as men to go topless in public. 1997 – The Turkish Armed Forces withdraw from northern Iraq after assisting the Kurdistan Democratic Party in the Iraqi Kurdish Civil War. 2003 – NASA Opportunity rover, MER-B or Mars Exploration Rover–B, was launched into space aboard a Delta II rocket. 2005 – A series of four explosions occurs on London's transport system, killing 56 people, including four suicide bombers, and injuring over 700 others. 2007 – The first Live Earth benefit concert was held in 11 locations around the world. 2012 – At least 172 people are killed in a flash flood in the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia. 2013 – A De Havilland Otter air taxi crashes in Soldotna, Alaska, killing ten people. 2016 – Former U.S. Army soldier Micah Xavier Johnson shoots fourteen policemen during an anti-police protest in downtown Dallas, Texas, killing five of them. He is subsequently killed by a robot-delivered bomb.