July 7: Independence Day in the Solomon Islands (1978); Tanabata in Japan

• 1834 – In New York City, evangelical Protestants began four nights of rioting against abolitionists.
• 1911 – The United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and Russia signed the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention banning open-water seal hunting, the first international treaty to address wildlife conservation issues.
• 1963 – The police of Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother and chief political adviser of President of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem, attacked a group of American journalists who were covering a protest during the Buddhist crisis.
• 1983 – After writing a letter to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov, American schoolgirl Samantha Smith visited the Soviet Union as Andropov’s personal guest, becoming known as “America’s Youngest Ambassador”.
• 1994 – Troops from the former North Yemen captured Aden, ending the Yemeni civil war.
• 2005 – Suicide bombers killed 52 people in a series of four explosions on London’s public transport system (victims trapped in train pictured).