Today in History, July 7th
On July 7, 1937, a clash at the Marco Polo Bridge began the Second Sino-Japanese War. Plus Hoover Dam work begins and O'Connor's nomination.
Published · Last updated
July 7 is best known for 1937, when a clash at the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beijing set off the Second Sino-Japanese War. The date also saw work begin on the Hoover Dam in 1930 and President Ronald Reagan name Sandra Day O’Connor as his Supreme Court pick in 1981.
The big story: The Marco Polo Bridge Incident starts a war (1937)
On July 7, 1937, Chinese and Japanese soldiers clashed near the Marco Polo Bridge, just outside Peiping, as Beijing was then called. On its own the skirmish was small. What followed was not. Japan’s leaders decided that Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government would not give way and had to be broken, and the local fight spread fast. Japanese troops held Peiping and Tianjin before the month was out. Shanghai fell after hard fighting in November, and the Nationalist capital, Nanjing, fell in December, followed by the mass killings known as the Nanjing Massacre. Chiang moved his government inland, eventually to Chongqing, and by late 1938 the war had settled into a long stalemate. Oddly, neither side formally declared war until December 1941. The fighting ended only with Japan’s surrender in 1945, forced mainly by Allied attacks across the Pacific and on Japan’s home islands.
More events on July 7
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1456 | An appeals court in Rouen, France, overturned Joan of Arc’s heresy conviction on appeal. |
| 1797 | The U.S. House impeached Senator William Blount of Tennessee, the first senator ever impeached. |
| 1798 | Congress canceled its treaties with France, opening the undeclared naval conflict known as the Quasi-War. |
| 1865 | Mary Surratt was hanged for her part in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government. |
| 1917 | Britain formally established the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps during World War I. |
| 1930 | Preliminary construction work began on what became the Hoover Dam. |
| 1976 | Women enrolled at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for the first time. |
| 1981 | President Ronald Reagan announced Sandra Day O’Connor as his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. |
| 2005 | Coordinated suicide bombings on London’s transit system killed 39 people on three Underground trains and 13 on a bus, and injured more than 700. |
| 2019 | The U.S. women’s soccer team won a record fourth Women’s World Cup title. |
Born on July 7
- 1887: Marc Chagall, painter and printmaker, born in Vitebsk in the Russian Empire (now Belarus).
- 1907: Robert A. Heinlein, science-fiction author, born in Butler, Missouri.
- 1980: Michelle Kwan, figure skater and nine-time U.S. champion, born in Torrance, California.
Sources
- Second Sino-Japanese War, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- This Day in History: July 7, History.com
- On This Day: July 7, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Marc Chagall, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Robert A. Heinlein, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Michelle Kwan, Encyclopaedia Britannica
