As of today, May 7, 2023

What happened like today in Greece and the world.

558: The dome of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul collapses due to an earthquake. Justinian orders its immediate reconstruction.

1429: Joan of Lorraine is victorious at the Siege of Orleans, pulling an arrow from her shoulder and returning wounded to lead the final assault. This victory marks a critical turning point in the Hundred Years War.

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

1697: Stockholm’s royal castle (dating back to medieval times) is destroyed by fire. It was replaced by the current Royal Palace in the 18th century.

1718: New Orleans is founded.

1824: Beethoven’s famous 9th Symphony premieres in Vienna.

1832: The Treaty of London is signed by the three Great Powers (England, France, Russia) and Bavaria, according to which Greece is defined as an independent hereditary monarchy with Otto as the first monarch, son of Louis I of Bavaria.

1846: The first page of the “Cambridge Chronicle”, the oldest surviving weekly newspaper in the USA, is published in Cambridge (Massachusetts).

1895: The Russian physicist, Alexander Popov, presents the first radio receiver in St. Petersburg.

1915: The German submarine U-20 torpedoes and sinks the British cruiser Lusitania off the coast of Ireland during World War I. Of the 1962 on board, 1198 lose their lives.

1920: Polish troops led by Józef Piuszki and supported by a token Ukrainian force occupy Kiev. A month later they are expelled after a counterattack by the Red Army.

1943: The Greek People’s Liberation Army attacks the headquarters of Georgios Papaioannou, in Thermos.

[1945: The Germans sign their surrender at Dwight Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims, France. The general and the Allied staff accept the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht, signed by General Alfred Jodl.

1946: The “Tokyo Telecommunications Company” is founded by Masaro Ibuka and Akio Morita, with a staff of 20 people. Today it is known as Sony and employs 158,500 employees.

1953: In Greece, the Central Information Service (KYP) is established, which in the 1980s will be renamed the National Information Service (EYP).

1960: Nikita Khrushchev announces that U2’s American pilot, Francis Gary Powers, is in Soviet hands.

1961: According to the results of the census, the population of Greece amounts to 10,357,526 people. The increase compared to the previous census is 724,725 people.

1973: In the USA, the “Washington Post” newspaper is honored with the Pulitzer Prize for its services in the Watergate case.

1975: The president of the USA, Gerald Ford, officially announces the end of the war in Vietnam.

1986: Canadian Patrick Morrow becomes the first person to climb each of the Seven Summits.

1995: In France, the conservative mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, with a percentage of 52.7%, is elected president, in his third attempt at elections, ending the 14-year presence of the Socialists in the Elysee Palace.

1996: The trial of Bosnian Serb Dusan Tadic begins at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes in Bosnia in 1992. This is the first international court trial for war crimes since the Nuremberg Trials.

1998: Mercedes-Benz is buying Chrysler for $40 billion.

1999: A NATO aircraft accidentally targets the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three employees and injuring 20.

2002: At least 15 Israelis are killed and 60 others injured when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonates a bomb in a nightclub in the city of Rishon Lezion.

2006: Arsenal play their last game at Highbury Stadium and beat Wigan 4-2.

2013: A total of 27 people are killed and over 30 injured when a tanker truck crashes and explodes outside Mexico City.

2015: Great victory of the Conservative Party in the parliamentary elections of England. David Cameron in his second term reaffirms his intention to organize a referendum by the end of 2017 on whether or not Great Britain remains in the European Union. In Scotland, nationalists win 56 of its 59 seats in the British Parliament.

Births

165 – Julia Maisa, Roman aristocrat

1480 – Philip of the Palatinate, bishop of Freising

1530 – Louis I of Comté, French general

1605 – Patriarch of Moscow Nikon

1711 – David Hume, Scottish philosopher and historian

1745 – Karl Stamitz, German composer

1833 – Johannes Brahms, German composer

1840 – Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Russian composer

1841 – Gustave Le Bon, French sociologist

1861 – Rabindranath Tagore, Indian writer

1867 – Władysław Raymond, Polish writer

1874 – Ilmari Kiando, Finnish writer

1884 – Tommy Solomon, the last Mariori

1892 – Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav politician

1901 – Gary Cooper, American actor

1917 – David Tomlinson, English actor

1919 – Evita Peron, Argentine wife of Juan Peron

1923 – Ann Baxter American actress

1923 – Bulent Ulusou, Turkish admiral and politician

1940 – Eugene Gerrard, Dutch football coach

1940 – Harry Clynn (born Vassilis Triantafyllidis), Greek comedian

1956 – Jan Peter Balkenende, Dutch politician

1965 – Owen Hart, Canadian wrestler

1968 – Tracy Lords, American actress

1971 – Thomas Piketty, French economist

1977 – Vladan Ivic, Serbian football player and coach

1981 – Georgia Kokloni, Greek athlete

1987 – Jeremy Menez, French soccer player

Deaths

685 – Marwan I, Arab caliph

973 – Othon I, Holy Roman Emperor

1166 – William I, King of Sicily

1315 – Isabella de Sabran, Princess of Majorca

1667 – Johann Jacob Fromberger, German composer and musician

1682 – Fyodor III, Czar of Russia

1793 – Pietro Nardini, Italian composer and violinist

1825 – Antonio Salieri, Italian composer

1840 – Caspar David Friedrich, German painter

1941 – James Fraser, Scottish anthropologist

1951 – Warner Baxter, American actor

1995 – Ioannis Toumbas, Greek politician

2003 – Panos Fidakis, Greek painter

2007 – Diego Corrales, American boxer

2007 – Tomazi Kulimoetoke II, King of Wallis and Futuna.