Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 7
- 1782 – General George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit (pictured) to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed the Purple Heart, after its appearance.
- 1927 – The Peace Bridge, a bridge between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York, opens.
- 1944 – IBM officially presents the electro-mechanical computer Harvard Mark I, (originally named the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator), to Harvard University. While not the first computer, the Mark I was comparatively fast and reliable among early computers, and has been called "the beginning of the era of the modern computer".
- 1964 – Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.
- 1978 – President Jimmy Carter declares that the situation at Love Canal, a residential community built on what had at one time been a toxic waste dump, is a federal emergency. The declaration would allow for federal emergency funds to be used in the cleanup of the site, marking the first time that federal emergency funds were used other than for the handling of natural disasters.
On this day for the United States
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Events
- 1782 – George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart.
- 1789 – The United States War Department is established.
- 1794 – Whiskey Rebellion begins: Farmers in the Monongahela Valley of Pennsylvania rebel against the federal tax on liquor and distilled drinks.
- 1927 – The Peace Bridge opens, between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.
- 1942 – World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal begins – U.S. Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.
- 1944 – IBM dedicates the first program–controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).
- 1945 – President Harry Truman announces the bombing of Hiroshima with an atomic bomb while returning from the Potsdam Conference aboard the heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1959 – The Lincoln Memorial design on the U.S. penny goes into circulation. It replaces the "sheaves of wheat" design and is still in use.
- 1959 – Explorer program: Explorer 6 launched from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
- 1964 – Vietnam War: The U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving US President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.
- 1966 – Race riots occur in Lansing, Michigan.
- 1970 – California judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during an effort to free George Jackson from police custody.
- 1973 – NBC airs the final day of the Watergate hearings on U.S. daytime television.
- 1974 – Philippe Petit performed a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center 1,368 ft (417.0 m) in the air.
- 1976 – Viking program: Viking 2 enters into orbit around Mars.
- 1978 – United States President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal.
- 1981 – The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication.
- 1988 – Rioting in New York City's Tompkins Square Park.
- 1989 – U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (D–TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.
- 1989 – The Beach Boys release "Still Cruisin'" as a single.
- 2007 – Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants breaks baseball great Hank Aaron's record by hitting his 756th home run.