January 7 in History

January 7 is the Festival of Seven Herbs (Nanakusa no sekku) in Japan

• 1608 – Fire destroyed Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America.
• 1610 – Galileo Galilei observed three of the four largest moons of Jupiter for the first time.
• 1782 – The first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opened.
• 1894 – W.K. Dickson received a patent for motion picture film.
• 1904 – The first distress signal for radio, “CQD,” was established, but replaced 2 years later by "SOS.”
• 1920  – The New York State Assembly refused to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen.
• 1927 – The first transatlantic telephone service was established between New York City and London.
• 1952 – President Harry Truman announced that the United States had developed the hydrogen bomb.
• 1980 – President Jimmy Carter authorized legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.
• 1985 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched Sakigake, Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft, becoming only the third nation to do so.
• 1999 – The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton began.