February 7

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).

• 457 – Leo I becomes emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
• 1074 – Pandulf IV of Benevento is killed battling the invading Normans at the Battle of Montesarchio.
• 1301 – Edward of Caernarvon (later King Edward II of England) becomes the first Prince of Wales.
• 1497 – The Bonfire of the Vanities occurs, in which supporters of Girolamo Savonarola burns thousands of objects like cosmetics, art and books in Florence, Italy.
• 1783 – Spanish and French forces end the Siege of Gibraltar.
• 1785 – William Herschel discovers the Antennae Galaxies.
• 1795 – The 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution is accepted.
• 1807 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Eylau in Poland begins.
• 1812 – The strongest in a series of earthquakes strikes New Madrid, Missouri.
• 1819 – Thomas Stamford Raffles leaves Singapore shortly after taking it over, leaving the governing duties to William Farquhar.
• 1855 – The Treaty of Shimoda is signed, determining which of the Kuril islands are Japanese and which are Russian.
• 1863 – The ship HMS Orpheus sinks off Auckland, New Zealand, killing 189 people.
• 1897 – The first full-scale battle of the Greco-Turkish War occurs.
• 1898 – Émile Zola is brought to trial for libel for publishing J'Accuse, in which he questioned the guilt of Alfred Dreyfus in the Dreyfus Affair.
• 1900 – The British Labour Party is formed.

• 1904 – A fire in Baltimore, Maryland, destroys 1,500 buildings.
• 1922 – Antonio Maria da Silva becomes Prime Minister of Portugal for a second time.
• 1935 – The Monopoly board game is invented.
• 1940 – The second full-length animated Walt Disney movie, Pinocchio, is shown for the first time.
• 1943 – World War II: Japanese forces complete the evacuation of the Imperial Japanese Army from Guadalcanal.
• 1948 – Neil Harvey becomes the youngest Australian to score a century in a test cricket match.
• 1951 – Korean War: Sancheong-Hamyang massacre.
• 1962 – The United States bans all Cuban imports and exports.
• 1971 – Women gain the right to vote in Switzerland.
• 1974 – Grenada becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
• 1976 – Daniel Sittler sets an National Hockey League record by scoring 10 points in a single game.
• 1979 – For the first time since its discovery, the dwarf planet Pluto orbits the Sun closer than Neptune.
• 1984 – US astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart perform the first untethered spacewalk.
• 1986 – The rule of the Duvalier family in Haiti comes to an end when Jean-Claude Duvalier ("Baby Doc") leaves the country.
• 1990 – Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly of power.
• 1991 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide becomes President of Haiti.
• 1992 – The Maastricht Treaty is signed to officially form the European Union.
• 1995 – Ramzi Yousef, who planned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan.
• 1998 – The 1998 Winter Olympics open in Nagano, Japan.
• 1999 – Abdullah II of Jordan becomes King, after the death of his father, King Hussein of Jordan.
• 1999 – A border conflict begins between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
• 1999 – NASA's Stardust probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida to study comets.

• 2005 – Ellen MacArthur becomes the fastest round-the-world sailor, though this record has since been beaten.
• 2009 – Bushfires in the Australian state of Victoria kill 173 people.
• 2012 – After a political crisis in the Maldives, President Mohamed Nasheed resigns, and is replaced my Mohammed Waheed Hassan.
• 2014 – The 2014 Winter Olympics begin in Sochi, southern Russia.
• 2015 – More than 30 people are killed in separate bomb attacks in Baghdad.
• 2016 – North Korea announces that it has launched a rocket.
• 2016 – The Denver Broncos win the 50th Super Bowl, defeating the Carolina Panthers 24–10.

• 572 – Prince Shotoku of Japan (d. 622)
• 1102 – Princess Matilda, Princess of England and wife of Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1169)
• 1478 – Sir Thomas More, English statesman, humanist, and writer (d. 1535)
• 1606 – Nicolas Mignard, French painter (d. 1668)
• 1693 – Empress Anna of Russia (d. 1740)
• 1741 – Henri Fuseli, Swiss painter (d. 1825)
• 1758 – Benedikt Schack, Czech composer and tenor (d. 1826)
• 1804 – John Deere, American manufacturer (d. 1886)
• 1812 – Charles Dickens, English novelist (d. 1870)
• 1816 – Jean Frédéric Frenet, French astronomer, mathematician and meteorologist (d. 1900)
• 1817 – Frederick Douglass, American abolitionist (d. 1895)
• 1824 – William Huggins, British astronomer and physicist (d. 1910)
• 1825 – Karl Möbius, German zoologist (d. 1908)
• 1837 – James Murray, Scottish lexicographer and philologist (d. 1915)
• 1842 – Alexandre Ribot, Prime Minister of France (d. 1923)
• 1862 – Horace F. Graham, Governor of Vermont (d. 1941)
• 1867 – Laura Ingalls Wilder, American writer (d. 1957)
• 1870 – Alfred Adler, Austrian psychologist (d. 1937)
• 1873 – Thomas Andrews, Irish shipbuilder (d. 1912)
• 1877 – G.H. Hardy, British mathematician (d. 1947)
• 1878 – Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Russian-American pianist and conductor (d. 1936)
• 1885 – Sinclair Lewis, American writer, Nobel Prize winner (d. 1951)
• 1887 – Eubie Blake, American musician and composer (d. 1983)
• 1889 – Harry Nyquist, contributor to Information Theory (d. 1976)
• 1893 – Joseph Algernon Pearce, Canadian astrophysicist and astronomer (d. 1988)
• 1895 – Anita Stewart, American movie actress (d. 1961)
• 1898 – Dock Boggs, American musician (d. 1971)

• 1901 – Arnold Nordmeyer, New Zealand politician (d. 1989)
• 1905 – Paul Nizan, French writer (d. 1940)
• 1905 – Rene de Cossel, French mathematician (d. 1974)
• 1905 – Ulf von Euler, Swedish physiologist (d. 1983)
• 1906 – Henry Pu-yi, Emperor of China (d. 1967)
• 1906 – Oleg Antonov, Soviet aircraft designer (d. 1984)
• 1908 – Buster Crabbe, American swimmer and actor (d. 1983)
• 1909 – Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop (d. 1999)
• 1909 – Silvio Zavala, Mexican historian (d. 2014)
• 1912 – Roberta McCain, mother of John McCain (d. 2020)
• 1912 – Roy Sullivan, American survivor of seven lightning strikes (d. 1983)
• 1914 – Ramón Mercader, Spanish assassin of Leon Trotsky (d. 1978)
• 1915 – Teoctist, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church (d. 2007)
• 1915 – Eddie Bracken, American actor (d. 2002)
• 1920 – An Wang, Chinese-born computer pioneer (d. 1990)
• 1922 – Hattie Jacques, English actress (d. 1980)
• 1923 – Dora Bryan, English actress (d. 2014)
• 1926 – Konstantin Feoktistov, Soviet cosmonaut (d. 2009)
• 1926 – Mark Taimanov, Russian pianist and chess player (d. 2016)
• 1927 – Juliette Gréco, French singer and actress
• 1927 – Vladimir Kuts, Russian runner
• 1927 – Patsy Swayze, American dancer and choreographer (d. 2013)
• 1928 – Lincoln D. Faurer, American general (d. 2014)
• 1929 – Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chilean actor, director and screenwriter
• 1932 – Gay Talese, American writer
• 1932 – Alfred Worden, American astronaut
• 1933 – K. N. Choksy, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician (d. 2015)
• 1934 – Earl King, American musician (d. 2003)
• 1934 – Eddie Fenech Adami, former President of Malta
• 1934 – King Curtis, American jazz saxophonist (d. 1971)
• 1934 – Murtaza Rakhimov, former leader of Bashkortostan in Russia
• 1938 – S. Ramachandran Pillai, Indian Communist leader
• 1938 – Cayetano Ré, Paraguayan footballer and coach (d. 2013)
• 1939 – Ray Taliaferro, American radio talk show host
• 1939 – Francisco Mendès, Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau
• 1940 – Toshihide Maskawa, Japanese physicist
• 1940 – Tony Tan, former President of Singapore
• 1941 – Little Tony, Italian–Sammarinese singer (d. 2013)
• 1943 – Gareth Hunt, English actor
• 1945 – Gerald Davies, Welsh rugby player
• 1945 – Jörg Schneider, Swiss actor (d. 2015)
• 1946 – Pete Postlethwaite, English actor (d. 2011)
• 1946 – Héctor Babenco, Argentine-Brazilian screenwriter, producer and actor (d. 2016)
• 1947 – Wayne Allwine, American voice actor (d. 2009)
• 1947 – Flemming Jorgensen, Danish musician and actor (d. 2011)
• 1948 – Josef Ackermann, Swiss banker, former CEO of Deutsche Bank
• 1948 – Jimmy Greenspoon, American singer (d. 2015)
• 1949 – Paulo César Carpegiani, Brazilian footballer and coach
• 1949 – Regina Derieva, Russian poet and writer (d. 2013)
• 1950 – Mauro Bellugi, Italian footballer

• 1952 – John Hickenlooper, Governor of Colorado
• 1952 – Vasco Rossi, Italian singer
• 1953 – Dan Quisenberry, American baseball player (d. 1998)
• 1954 – Dieter Bohlen, German composer and media personality
• 1955 – Mario Coutinho, Brazilian physician
• 1955 – Miguel Ferrer, American actor (d. 2017)
• 1955 – Rolf Benirschke, American football player
• 1956 – Mark St. John, American musician (Kiss)
• 1958 – Giuseppe Baresi, Italian footballer
• 1959 – Mick McCarthy, English-Irish football manager
• 1960 – James Spader, American actor
• 1960 – Gabriel Humberto Calderon, Argentine footballer
• 1962 – Garth Brooks, American singer
• 1962 – David Bryan, American keyboardist and songwriter (Bon Jovi)
• 1962 – Eddie Izzard, British actor and comedian
• 1963 – Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, American astronaut
• 1964 – Ray Mears, British television presenter and outdoor survival expert
• 1965 – Petr Vasa, Czech poet, singer-songwriter, actor and artist
• 1965 – Jason Gedrick, American actor
• 1965 – Chris Rock, American comedian and actor
• 1966 – Kristin Otto, German swimmer
• 1966 – Monika Weber, German fencer
• 1967 – Richie Burnett, Welsh darts player
• 1968 – Peter Bondra, Ukrainian-born hockey player
• 1968 – Sully Erna, American singer (Godsmack)
• 1968 – Katja Kaan, Danish pornographic actress
• 1969 – Adriano Silva Francisco, Brazilian footballer
• 1969 – Yves Racine, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1970 – Stanley Roberts, American basketball player
• 1971 – Anita Tsoy, Russian singer-songwriter
• 1972 – Robyn Lively, American actress
• 1972 – Essence Atkins, American actress
• 1972 – Amon Tobin, Brazilian musician, composer and producer
• 1974 – Danny Goffey, English musician
• 1974 – Steve Nash, Canadian basketball player
• 1975 – Wes Borland, American guitarist (Limp Bizkit)
• 1975 – Rafik Saïfi, Algerian footballer

• 1977 – Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, Japanese footballer
• 1977 – Dimitris Papanikolaou, Greek basketball player
• 1978 – Ashton Kutcher, American actor
• 1978 – Daniel Van Buyten, Belgian footballer
• 1979 – Tawakel Karman, Yemeni activist, co-winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize
• 1979 – Cerina Vincent, American actress
• 1979 – Daniel Bierofka, German footballer
• 1980 – Sasa Papac, Bosnia and Herzegovina footballer
• 1981 – Lee Ok-Sung, South Korean boxer
• 1985 – Tina Majorino, American actress
• 1986 – Stephen Colletti, American actor
• 1986 – Pippa Wilson, English sailor
• 1986 – Giorgi Tsintzade, Georgian basketball player
• 1987 – Joe Cardle, British footballer
• 1987 – Kerli, Estonian singer
• 1988 – Lee Don-Ku, South Korean ice hockey player
• 1988 – Lee Joon, South Korean singer, dancer and actor
• 1988 – Ai Kapo, Japanese singer and actress
• 1988 – Matthew Stafford, American football player
• 1989 – Louisa Lytton, English actress
• 1990 – Anna Abreu, Finnish singer
• 1991 – Zhou Yimiao, Chinese tennis player
• 1992 – Maimi Yajima, Japanese singer and actress
• 1993 – David Dorfman, American actor
• 1993 – Chris Mears, English diver
• 1996 – Mai Hagiwara, Japanese singer
• 1996 – Aaron Ekblad, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1999 – Bea Miller, American singer

• 531 – Emperor Keitai of Japan (b. 450)
• 590 – Pope Pelagius II (b. 1520)
• 812 – Li Ning, Chinese prince (b. 793)
• 999 – Boleslaus II of Bohemia
• 1045 – Emperor Go-Suzaku of Japan (b. 1009)
• 1074 – Pandulf IV of Benevento
• 1317 – Robert, Count of Clermont, French founder of the Bourbon Royal Family (b. 1526)
• 1560 – Bartolomeo Bandinelli, Italian sculptor (b. 1493)
• 1603 – Hermann Wilken, German humanist and mathematician (b. 1522)
• 1609 – Ferdinando I de'Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1549)
• 1626 – William V, Duke of Bavaria (b. 1548)
• 1652 – Gregorio Allegri, Italian composer (b. 1852)
• 1693 – Paul Pellisson, French writer (b. 1624)
• 1736 – Stephen Gray, English astronomer (b. 1666)
• 1779 – William Boyce, English composer (b. 1711)
• 1799 – Qianlong, Emperor of China (b. 1711)
• 1801 – Daniel Chodowiecki, Polish painter (b. 1726)
• 1823 – Ann Radcliffe, British writer (b. 1764)
• 1837 – Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden (b. 1778)
• 1839 – Karl August Nicander, Swedish poet (b. 1799)
• 1862 – Francisco de Paula Martinez de la Rosa, Spanish statesman and dramatist (b. 1787)
• 1864 – Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, Serbian philologist and linguist (b. 1787)
• 1873 – Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish author (b. 1814)
• 1878 – Pope Pius IX (b. 1792)
• 1883 – Edmund J. Davis, American general and 15th Governor of Texas (b. 1827)
• 1897 – Galileo Ferraris, Italian physicist (b. 1847)

• 1920 – Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak, Russian military commander (b. 1876)
• 1931 – Tommaso Tittoni, Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1855)
• 1932 – Augusto B. Leguia, President of Peru (b. 1863)
• 1935 – Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Scottish writer (b. 1901)
• 1937 – Elihu Root, American politician (b. 1845)
• 1938 – Harvey Samuel Firestone, American businessman (b. 1868)
• 1939 – Boris Grigoriev, Russian painter (b. 1886)
• 1942 – Ivan Bilibin, Russian illustrator (b. 1876)
• 1944 – Lina Cavalieri, Italian soprano (b. 1874)
• 1959 – Nap Lajoie, American baseball player (b. 1874)
• 1959 – Guitar Slim, American guitarist (b. 1926)
• 1959 – Daniel Francois Malan, South African politician, father of Apartheid (b. 1874)
• 1960 – Igor Kurchatov, Russian physicist (b. 1903)
• 1964 – Sophoklis Venizelos, Greek Prime Minister (b. 1894)
• 1967 – William Preston Lane, Jr., Governor of Maryland (b. 1892)
• 1971 – Douglass Cadwallader, American golfer (b. 1884)
• 1972 – Walter Lang, American movie director (b. 1896)
• 1979 – Josef Mengele, Nazi doctor (b. 1911)
• 1980 – Secondo Campini, Italian jet aircraft pioneer (b. 1904)
• 1985 – Matt Monro, English singer (b. 1930)
• 1986 – Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegalese historian, anthropologist and physicist (b. 1923)
• 1987 – Claudio Villa, Italian singer (b. 1926)
• 1990 – Jimmy Van Heusen, American songwriter (b. 1913)
• 1993 – Nic Broca, Belgian comic artist (b. 1932)
• 1994 – Witold Lutoslawski, Polish composer (b. 1913)
• 1994 – Stephen Milligan, English journalist and politician (b. 1948)
• 1994 – Arnold Smith, Canadian diplomat (b. 1915)
• 1996 – Boris Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (b. 1925)
• 1999 – King Hussein of Jordan (b. 1935)
• 2000 – Big Pun, American rapper (b. 1971)
• 2000 – Doug Henning, Canadian magician (b. 1947)

• 2001 – Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American writer and pilot (b. 1906)
• 2001 – Dale Evans, American actress and singer (b. 1912)
• 2005 – Atli Dam, 5th Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands (b. 1932)
• 2005 – Bob Turner, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1934)
• 2006 – Princess Duhru Shehvar of the Ottoman Empire (b. 1914)
• 2008 – Tamara Desni, German-born British actress (b. 1913)
• 2010 – Franco Ballerini, Italian road racing cyclist (b. 1964)
• 2010 – André Kolingba, Prime Minister of the Central African Republic (b. 1936)
• 2013 – Krsto Papic, Croatian director and screenwriter (b. 1933)
• 2014 – Doug Mohns, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1933)
• 2014 – Georgina Henry, British journalist (b. 1960)
• 2014 – Nico Nicolaiewsky, Brazilian actor, musician and comedian (b. 1957)
• 2014 – Mohamed Guessous, Moroccan sociologist and politician (b. 1937)
• 2015 – Dean Smith, American basketball coach (b. 1931)
• 2015 – Joe B. Mauldin, American musician (b. 1940)
• 2015 – John C. Whitehead, American financier and civil servant (b. 1922)
• 2015 – Billy Casper, American golfer (b. 1931)
• 2015 – René Lavand, Argentine magician and illusionist (b. 1928)
• 2015 – Donald H. Clausen, American politician (b. 1923)
• 2015 – Marshall Rosenberg, American psychologist (b. 1934)
• 2016 – Roger Willemsen, German author, essayist and television presenter (b. 1955)
• 2017 – Svend Asmussen, Danish jazz violinist (b. 1916)
• 2017 – Sotsha Dlamini, 5th Prime Minister of Swaziland (b. 1940)
• 2017 – Smail Hamdani, 11th Prime Minister of Algeria (b. 1930)
• 2017 – Richard Hatch, American actor, writer and producer (b. 1945)
• 2017 – Hans Rosling, Swedish physician, statistician and public speaker (b. 1948)
• 2017 – Tzvetan Todorov, Bulgarian-French philosopher (b. 1939)
• 2017 – Richard B. Wright, Canadian novelist (b. 1937)
• 2017 – Valeriu Bularca, Romanian wrestler (b. 1931)
• 2017 – Loukianos Kilaidonis, Greek singer-songwriter (b. 1943)
• 2017 – John Salt, British Anglican bishop (b. 1941)
• 2018 – Mickey Jones, American drummer and actor (b. 1941)
• 2018 – Pat Torpey, American drummer (b. 1953)

• Independence Day in Grenada