August 7

1679 – The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned the year before by French explorer René-Robert de La Salle, is towed to the southeastern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.

1782 – General Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed the Purple Heart.

1789 – The United States Department of War is established.

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

1819 – Simón Bolívar’s army triumphs over Spanish troops near Casa de Teja in what is now the department of Boyacá, Columbia.

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 City to San Francisco.

1927 – The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.

1942 – On earlier learning the Japanese Army is building an airfield on the island, U.S. Marines begin invasion landings on Guadalcanal along with Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

1947 – 101 days after launching from Callao, Peru, Thor Heyerdahl and crew aboard the balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki, ground on the reef at Raroia atoll in the Tuamotu Islands

1959 – NASA launches Explorer 6, a satellite to study the upper atmosphere from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral.

1964 – Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving President Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnam

1969 – President Nixon appoints Luis R. Bruce, a Mohawk-Oglala Sioux and co-founder of the National Congress of American Indians, as commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

1978 – President Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal, New York due to negligent disposal of toxic waste

1987 – Lynne Cox becomes first person to swim  from the U.S to Russia, crossing the Bering Strait from Little Diomede Island in Alaska to Big Diomede in the Soviet Union. 2 1/4 miles away. Brrrrrrrrr.

1990 – In response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the concern that the invading forces will continue on towards the Saudi Arabian oilfields, the first wave of 15,000 U.S. troops arrive in Saudi Arabia.

1997 – Fine Air cargo flight 101, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8, crashes after takeoff from Miami International Airport, killing all 4 crew aboard and 1 person on the ground.

1998 – Bombings at United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya by Islamic Jihad, kill 212 people.

2007 – At AT&T Park, in San Francisco, during the game between his San Francisco Giants against the Washington Nationals, Barry Bonds hits his 756th career home run to surpass Hank Aaron’s 33 year old record.