May 7
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Featured Event
George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file no. LC-USZC4-13287); Photo Illustration Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
On this day in 1915, during World War I, a torpedo fired by a German submarine sank the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. Of the nearly 2,000 people on board, about 1,200 died, including more than a hundred American citizens. Public outrage in the United States ran high. Though the country would not enter World War I until 1917, the sinking of the Lusitania helped set the country’s course. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (file no. LC-USZ62-128254)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky—the most popular Russian composer in history, whose impressive harmonies, openhearted melodies, and colourful orchestration provoke profound emotional responses—was born this day in 1840.
Famous Birthdays
More on May 7
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
2025
India launched a series of missile strikes on multiple bases in Pakistan in response to a terrorist attack several weeks earlier that had killed 26 people near the resort town of Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir.
Philippe Wojazer—AFP/Getty Images
2017
Emmanuel Macron won the second round of France’s presidential election, making him, at age 39, the country’s youngest president. [How many people have been president of France?]
President of Russia, The Kremlin, Moscow
2000
Vladimir Putin was sworn in as the elected president of Russia. (He had been serving as acting president after Boris Yelstin’s resignation several months earlier.)
© Matthias Balk—picture alliance/Getty Images
1998
Chrysler Corporation and Daimler-Benz announced plans to merge, with Daimler-Benz acquiring the U.S. automaker for more than $35 billion in a stock swap. [What’s the strategy behind mergers and acquisitions?]
NARA
1992
More than 200 years after it was first proposed, the Twenty-seventh Amendment was ratified. It requires any change to the rate of compensation for members of the U.S. Congress to take effect only after the subsequent election in the House of Representatives. [Take our amendments quiz.]
Central Press—Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1954
Viet Minh General Vo Nguyen Giap took the French by surprise at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, surrounding their base with 40,000 men and employing heavy artillery to capture it during the First Indochina War. [Test your knowledge of significant moments in military history.]
Courtesy of Sony Electronics Inc.
1946
Sony Corporation, a major Japanese manufacturer of consumer electronics products, was founded by Ibuka Masaru and Morita Akio. [Take our electronics and gadgets quiz.]
Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1919
Eva Perón—who, as the wife of Agentina’s President Juan Perón, became a powerful political leader—was born in Los Toldos, Argentina. [Test your knowledge of South America.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./Kenny Chmielewski
1918
The Treaty of Bucharest forced Romania to make territorial and financial reparations following its defeat by the Central Powers during World War I. [How much do you know about World War I?]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1915
Japan delivered an ultimatum to China, known as the Twenty-one Demands, claiming special privileges and control over Chinese affairs. Yuan Shikai, the first president of the Republic of China, accepted nearly all the demands several weeks later.
Hershenson-Allen Archive
1911
Director Honda Ishirō, widely known for a series of Godzilla movies, was born in Yamagata prefecture, Japan. [Read more about Godzilla and 10 other famous movie monsters.]
Historic Collection/Alamy
1896
H.H. Holmes, widely considered the first known serial killer in the United States, was hanged. He confessed to 130 murders, though some believe the real number exceeded 200.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1861
Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, essayist, and painter who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, was born in what is today Kolkata. [Test your knowledge of literary Nobelists.]
Fine Art Images—Heritage Images/age fotostock
1711
David Hume, known for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism, was born in Edinburgh. [Take our Philosophy 101 quiz.]
World Digital Library Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (2021667604)
1697
During a fire at Stockholm’s Tre Kronor Royal Palace, someone saved what is thought to be the largest surviving medieval codex—the Codex Gigas, also known as the Devil’s Bible, which weighs about 165 pounds (75 kg)—by throwing it out a window.
Courtesy of the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California
1663
The Theatre Royal, built by the dramatist Thomas Killigrew for his company of actors, opened in London. Now commonly known as the Drury Lane Theatre, it is the oldest English theater still in use. [How much do you know about theater?]