August 7 in History

Cao Qin mobilized his troops to storm the palace gates and seize the Tianshun Emperor, only for the rebellion to collapse within hours as loyalist forces crushed the uprising. This failed coup solidified the emperor's authority and eliminated a major faction of military dissenters, ensuring the Ming court remained stable through the rest of his reign.

Majorian was the last capable Western Roman emperor. He rebuilt the army, recovered parts of Gaul and Spain, and was planning a campaign to retake North Africa when Ricimer had him arrested. Ricimer was the generalissimo who actually controlled the western court — a German general who couldn't become emperor himself because of his barbarian ancestry, so he made and unmade emperors instead. Majorian was executed near the river Iria in 461, having reigned for four years. After him, the Western Empire had 15 more years.

French troops under King Louis XI crumbled against Archduke Maximilian's Burgundian forces at Guinegate, shattering Louis's dream of reclaiming Burgundian lands. This defeat forced France to abandon its expansionist ambitions in the Low Countries and cemented Habsburg dominance over the region for centuries.

Le Griffon was the first full-sized sailing ship to navigate the upper Great Lakes of North America. René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, had it built to carry furs from the interior to Lake Ontario. It was launched in August 1679, sailed to Green Bay on Lake Michigan, loaded with furs, and sent back east. It never arrived. Somewhere on the Great Lakes, Le Griffon disappeared — the first recorded shipwreck on the upper lakes. The furs, the crew, the ship: all gone. The search for the wreck has been ongoing for over 300 years.

The Battle of Kenapacomaqua in August 1791 was one of the American military's few successes during the Northwest Indian War — a conflict it was otherwise losing badly. General Arthur St. Clair's campaign that year ended in November when Miami-led warriors ambushed and nearly destroyed his army. Nearly 900 soldiers killed or wounded. It remains the worst defeat ever inflicted on a US Army by Native Americans. Kenapacomaqua was a different story: a small town destroyed, its inhabitants fled or captured. A tactical win in a strategic catastrophe.

The Whiskey Rebellion began in August 1794 when western Pennsylvania farmers rose up against the federal excise tax on distilled spirits. The tax was the first domestic tax levied by the new US government, and it fell hardest on small frontier distillers for whom whiskey was both income and currency. Washington federalized 13,000 militiamen and personally led part of the force — the only time a sitting US president commanded troops in the field. The rebellion collapsed without a major battle. The farmers dispersed. The tax stayed. The test of federal authority had passed.

In 1794, President George Washington invoked the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania, asserting federal authority over state matters. This action was significant in establishing the power of the federal government and the rule of law in the newly formed United States.

Anna Månsdotter stood on the gallows after a conviction for the 1889 Yngsjö murder, becoming Sweden's final female execution. Her death immediately ended the practice of executing women in the country, compelling the legal system to adopt life imprisonment as the maximum penalty for female offenders.

Alice Huyler Ramsey left New York on June 9, 1909, with three female companions who couldn't drive. She drove every mile herself — 3,800 of them across roads that were mostly unpaved, through 11 states, repairing flat tires and navigating by sun and landmarks because road maps barely existed. She arrived in San Francisco on August 7. The trip took 59 days. She was 22. She went on to drive the route 30 more times. The car was a Maxwell.

Thomas Shipp and Abner Smith were accused of the robbery and murder of a white factory worker and the rape of his girlfriend in Marion, Indiana. On August 7, 1930, a mob broke into the jail where they were being held, beat them, and hanged them from a maple tree in the courthouse square. Photographs were taken. Postcards were made. One photographer's picture — two Black men hanging, a crowd of white faces smiling below — became the basis for the song Strange Fruit. Lawrence Beitler sold thousands of prints. Nobody was charged.