July 7th

1754 - Kings College opened in New York City. It was renamed Columbia College 30 years later.

1846 - U.S. annexation of California was proclaimed at Monterey after the surrender of a Mexican garrison.

1862 - The first railroad post office was tested on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad in Missouri.

1865 - Four people were hanged in Washington, DC, after being convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate U.S. President Lincoln.

1885 - G. Moore Peters patented the cartridge-loading machine.

1898 - The United States annexed Hawaii.

1920 - A device known as the radio compass was used for the first time on a U.S. Navy airplane near Norfolk, VA.

1930 - Construction began on Boulder Dam, later Hoover Dam, on the Colorado River.

1981 - U.S. President Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

1987 - Public testimony at the Iran-Contra hearing began.

1998 - A jury in Santa Monica, CA, convicted Mikail Markhasev of murdering Ennis Cosby, Bill Cosby's only son, during a roadside robbery.

2000 - Amazon.com announced that they had sold almost 400,000 copies of "Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire," making it the biggest selling book in e-tailing history.

2005 - In London, at least 66 people were killed and at least 700 were injured when several bombs were set off in subway cars and double-decker buses.