WHAT HAPPENED ON 7. AUGUST
Want to find out what all happened on 7. August

The Simele massacre: The Iraqi government slaughters over 3,000 Assyrians in the village of Simele. The day becomes known as Assyrian Martyrs Day. (7. August 1933)

The Holocaust: The building of Mauthausen concentration camp begins. (7. August 1938)

World War II: Alsace-Lorraine is annexed by the Third Reich. (7. August 1940)

World War II: the Battle of Guadalcanal begins – United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands. (7. August 1942)

IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I). (7. August 1944)

Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America. (7. August 1947)

The Bombay Municipal Corporation formally takes over the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST). (7. August 1947)

Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, sells its first transistor radios in Japan. (7. August 1955)

The Lincoln Memorial design on the U.S. penny goes into circulation. It replaces the "sheaves of wheat" design, and was minted until 2008. (7. August 1959)

Explorer program: Explorer 6 launches from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (7. August 1959)

Côte d'Ivoire becomes independent from France. (7. August 1960)

Vietnam War: the U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces. (7. August 1964)

The infamous first Reyes party between Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and motorcycle gang the Hells Angels takes place at Kesey's estate in La Honda, California introducing psychedelics to the gang world and forever linking the hippie movement to the Hell's Angels. (7. August 1965)

Race riots occur in Lansing, Michigan. (7. August 1966)

California judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during an effort to free George Jackson from police custody. (7. August 1970)

Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center 1,368 feet (417 m) in the air. (7. August 1974)

Viking program: Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars. (7. August 1976)

U.S. President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal due to toxic waste that had been negligently disposed of. (7. August 1978)

Several tornadoes strike the city of Woodstock, Ontario, Canada and the surrounding communities. (7. August 1979)

The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication. (7. August 1981)