On This Day August 7th

  OTD

August 7th is the two-hundredth-nineteenth day of the year, and there are 146 days remaining until the end of the year.

 

Events

626 – The Avar and Slav armies leave the siege of Constantinople.

1479 – Battle of Guinegate: French troops of King Louis XI were defeated by the Burgundians led by Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg.

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 Department of War is established.

1794 – U.S. President George Washington invokes the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.

1858 – The first Australian rules football match is played between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College.

1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, taking 59 days to travel from New York, New York, to San Francisco, California.

1942—World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal began when the United States Marines initiated the first American war offensive, landing on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

1959 – Explorer program: Explorer 6 launches from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1964 – 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.

1976 – Viking program: Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars.

2007 – At AT&T Park, Barry Bonds hits his 756th career home run to surpass Hank Aaron's 33-year-old record.

 

Birthdays

1560 – Elizabeth Báthory, Hungarian aristocrat and purported serial killer (d. 1614)

1574 – Robert Dudley, English explorer and cartographer (d. 1649)

1742 – Nathanael Greene, American general (d. 1786)

1779 – Carl Ritter, German geographer and academic (d. 1859)

1868 – Ladislaus Bortkiewicz, Russian-German economist and statistician (d. 1931)

1876 – Mata Hari, Dutch dancer and spy (d. 1917)

1903 – Louis Leakey, Kenyan-English paleontologist and archaeologist (d. 1972)

1929 – Don Larsen, American baseball player (d. 2020)

1935 – Lee Corso, American college football coach and broadcaster.

1942 – Garrison Keillor, American humorist, novelist, short story writer, and radio host

1945 – Alan Page, American football player and jurist.

1958 – Bruce Dickinson, English singer-songwriter and guitarist.

 

 

Holiday Spotlight

National Sea Serpent Day

National Sea Serpent Day remembers sightings of sea serpents and the many other stories about them. Unlike their predecessor, the innocuous oarfish, serpents are typically portrayed as dangerous monsters.

During their voyage to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic in August 1848, men and officers aboard the HMS Daedalus reported witnessing a 60-foot-long creature poking its maned head and torso out of the water.

One can only imagine the awe and wonder they must have felt upon sighting such a creature. Other stories have emerged over the years of equally incredible sightings. Each story, unsurprisingly, presents different facts that often dispute other accounts. The stories, however, continue to spread.

A sea serpent is a mythological and legendary aquatic beast that resembles a gigantic snake. The belief in enormous sea animals was common across the ancient world. Large water species such as whales, sharks, and sea lions have often been mistaken for sea serpents. On the other hand, Cryptozoologists believe that sea serpents are relict plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, or other Mesozoic marine reptiles.

Serpent sightings are the stuff of folklore. We may call them marine sirens. Cetus is the name given to the sea creature in Greek mythology. The Kraken was mentioned by the Vikings. Even we land-locked New World beings have names for the serpents that reside in the watery depths of our major lakes and waterways.

 

Holidays And Observance.

Aged Care Employee Day

Mom's Equal Pay Day

National Beach Party Day

National Lighthouse Day

National Psychiatric Technician Appreciation Day

National Raspberries and Cream Day

National Sea Serpent Day

Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day

Professional Speakers Day

Purple Heart Day

 

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