May 7

558 – In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapses, 20 years after its construction. Roman Emperor Justinian I immediately orders that the dome be rebuilt.

1487 – King Ferdinand of Aragon besieges the Emirate of Granada’s port of Málaga with an army of 20,000 horsemen, 50,000 laborers, and 8,000 support troops during the Spanish Reconquista.

1664 – Louis XIV of France begins construction of the Palace of Versailles.

1718 – The city of New Orleans is founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville.

1763 – Pontiac’s War begins with Chief Pontiac’s attempt to seize Fort Detroit from the British.

1840 – The Great Natchez Tornado strikes Natchez, Mississippi killing 317 people.

1846 – Although now owned by the Gannett conglomerate, The Cambridge Chronicle, America’s oldest surviving weekly newspaper, is published for the first time in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1915 – Off the coast of southern Ireland, German submarine U-20 sinks the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans.

1942 – During the Battle of the Coral Sea , U.S. Navy aircraft from carriers  Lexington and Yorktown attack and sink the Imperial Japanese Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō; marking the first time in naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.

1945 – German Wehrmacht Generaloberst Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at 02:41 hours Central European Time at SHAEF Headquarters at Reims, France, ending Germany’s participation in world War II, taking effect the next day at 23:01 hours.

1946 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (now Sony) is founded.

1954 – The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat by the Viet Minh

1960 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers who had been shot down over Russia

1992 – Michigan votes to ratify the 27th Amendment, originally sent to the states in 1789, in the Bill of Rights as the original 2nd Article of Amendment, barring Congress from giving itself a mid-term pay raise.

1998 – Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for $40 billion and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.

1999 – During the Kosovo War, 3 Chinese citizens are killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft apparently inadvertently bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Serbia.

2004 – American businessman Nick Berg is beheaded by moslem terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq.