7 May in history
7 events that happened on 7 May, from 558 to 1945.
✦ Anniversary of the day
558 CE 1,468 years ago
Main dome of Hagia Sophia collapses
Weakened by earthquakes, the great dome of Justinian's cathedral fell. It was rebuilt taller and steeper by Isidore the Younger, and that dome, though repaired, still stands.
1664 CE 362 years ago
Louis XIV opens a grand festival at Versailles
Louis XIV began 'The Pleasures of the Enchanted Island', a week of spectacles and plays including Molière's first Tartuffe. Versailles became the seat of court and government in 1682.
1718 CE 308 years ago
Bienville founds New Orleans, by tradition on this day
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville chose a crescent of high ground on the Mississippi for a new French post. The city became a meeting point of French, Spanish, African and American cultures.
1765 CE 261 years ago
HMS Victory is launched at Chatham
The 100-gun first-rate HMS Victory was floated out of dry dock at Chatham. Forty years later she was Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, and she survives at Portsmouth as the oldest commissioned warship.
1824 CE 202 years ago
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is first performed in Vienna
Beethoven's Ninth, with its choral setting of Schiller's 'Ode to Joy', premiered at the Kärntnertortheater. The composer, almost entirely deaf, had to be turned to see the audience's applause.
1945 CE 81 years ago
Germany signs its unconditional surrender at Reims
General Alfred Jodl signed the surrender at Eisenhower's headquarters, to take effect the next night. A second signing in Berlin followed at Soviet insistence.
