February 7 is the 38th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 327 days remaining until the end of the year (328 in leap years).
Up to 1900
- 457 – Leo I becomes emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
- 1074 – Pandulf IV of Benevento is killed battling the invading Normans at the Battle of Montesarchio.
- 1301 – Edward of Caernarvon (later King Edward II of England) becomes the first Prince of Wales.
- 1497 – The Bonfire of the Vanities occurs, in which supporters of Girolamo Savonarola burns thousands of objects like cosmetics, art and books in Florence, Italy.
- 1783 – Spanish and French forces end the Siege of Gibraltar.
- 1785 – William Herschel discovers the Antennae Galaxies.
- 1795 – The 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution is accepted.
- 1807 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Eylau in Poland begins.
- 1812 – The strongest in a series of earthquakes strikes New Madrid, Missouri.
- 1819 – Thomas Stamford Raffles leaves Singapore shortly after taking it over, leaving the governing duties to William Farquhar.
- 1855 – The Treaty of Shimoda is signed, determining which of the Kuril islands are Japanese and which are Russian.
- 1863 – The ship HMS Orpheus sinks off Auckland, New Zealand, killing 189 people.
- 1897 – The first full-scale battle of the Greco-Turkish War occurs.
- 1898 – Émile Zola is brought to trial for libel for publishing J'Accuse, in which he questioned the guilt of Alfred Dreyfus in the Dreyfus Affair.
- 1900 – The British Labour Party is formed.
1901 – 2000
- 1904 – A fire in Baltimore, Maryland, destroys 1,500 buildings.
- 1922 – Antonio Maria da Silva becomes Prime Minister of Portugal for a second time.
- 1935 – The Monopoly board game is invented.
- 1940 – The second full-length animated Walt Disney movie, Pinocchio, is shown for the first time.
- 1943 – World War II: Japanese forces complete the evacuation of the Imperial Japanese Army from Guadalcanal.
- 1948 – Neil Harvey becomes the youngest Australian to score a century in a test cricket match.
- 1951 – Korean War: Sancheong-Hamyang massacre.
- 1962 – The United States bans all Cuban imports and exports.
- 1971 – Women gain the right to vote in Switzerland.
- 1974 – Grenada becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
- 1976 – Daniel Sittler sets an National Hockey League record by scoring 10 points in a single game.
- 1979 – For the first time since its discovery, the dwarf planet Pluto orbits the Sun closer than Neptune.
- 1984 – US astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart perform the first untethered spacewalk.
- 1986 – The rule of the Duvalier family in Haiti comes to an end when Jean-Claude Duvalier ("Baby Doc") leaves the country.
- 1990 – Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly of power.
- 1991 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide becomes President of Haiti.
- 1992 – The Maastricht Treaty is signed to officially form the European Union.
- 1995 – Ramzi Yousef, who planned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan.
- 1998 – The 1998 Winter Olympics open in Nagano, Japan.
- 1999 – Abdullah II of Jordan becomes King, after the death of his father, King Hussein of Jordan.
- 1999 – A border conflict begins between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
- 1999 – NASA's Stardust probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida to study comets.
From 2001
- 2005 – Ellen MacArthur becomes the fastest round-the-world sailor, though this record has since been beaten.
- 2009 – Bushfires in the Australian state of Victoria kill 173 people.
- 2012 – After a political crisis in the Maldives, President Mohamed Nasheed resigns, and is replaced my Mohammed Waheed Hassan.
- 2014 – The 2014 Winter Olympics begin in Sochi, southern Russia.
- 2015 – More than 30 people are killed in separate bomb attacks in Baghdad.
- 2016 – North Korea announces that it has launched a rocket.
- 2016 – The Denver Broncos win the 50th Super Bowl, defeating the Carolina Panthers 24–10.
Up to 1900
- 572 – Prince Shotoku of Japan (d. 622)
- 1102 – Princess Matilda, Princess of England and wife of Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1169)
- 1478 – Sir Thomas More, English statesman, humanist, and writer (d. 1535)
- 1606 – Nicolas Mignard, French painter (d. 1668)
- 1693 – Empress Anna of Russia (d. 1740)
- 1741 – Henri Fuseli, Swiss painter (d. 1825)
- 1758 – Benedikt Schack, Czech composer and tenor (d. 1826)
- 1804 – John Deere, American manufacturer (d. 1886)
- 1812 – Charles Dickens, English novelist (d. 1870)
- 1816 – Jean Frédéric Frenet, French astronomer, mathematician and meteorologist (d. 1900)
- 1817 – Frederick Douglass, American abolitionist (d. 1895)
- 1824 – William Huggins, British astronomer and physicist (d. 1910)
- 1825 – Karl Möbius, German zoologist (d. 1908)
- 1837 – James Murray, Scottish lexicographer and philologist (d. 1915)
- 1842 – Alexandre Ribot, Prime Minister of France (d. 1923)
- 1862 – Horace F. Graham, Governor of Vermont (d. 1941)
- 1867 – Laura Ingalls Wilder, American writer (d. 1957)
- 1870 – Alfred Adler, Austrian psychologist (d. 1937)
- 1873 – Thomas Andrews, Irish shipbuilder (d. 1912)
- 1877 – G.H. Hardy, British mathematician (d. 1947)
- 1878 – Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Russian-American pianist and conductor (d. 1936)
- 1885 – Sinclair Lewis, American writer, Nobel Prize winner (d. 1951)
- 1887 – Eubie Blake, American musician and composer (d. 1983)
- 1889 – Harry Nyquist, contributor to Information Theory (d. 1976)
- 1893 – Joseph Algernon Pearce, Canadian astrophysicist and astronomer (d. 1988)
- 1895 – Anita Stewart, American movie actress (d. 1961)
- 1898 – Dock Boggs, American musician (d. 1971)
1901 – 1950
- 1901 – Arnold Nordmeyer, New Zealand politician (d. 1989)
- 1905 – Paul Nizan, French writer (d. 1940)
- 1905 – Rene de Cossel, French mathematician (d. 1974)
- 1905 – Ulf von Euler, Swedish physiologist (d. 1983)
- 1906 – Henry Pu-yi, Emperor of China (d. 1967)
- 1906 – Oleg Antonov, Soviet aircraft designer (d. 1984)
- 1908 – Buster Crabbe, American swimmer and actor (d. 1983)
- 1909 – Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop (d. 1999)
- 1909 – Silvio Zavala, Mexican historian (d. 2014)
- 1912 – Roberta McCain, mother of John McCain (d. 2020)
- 1912 – Roy Sullivan, American survivor of seven lightning strikes (d. 1983)
- 1914 – Ramón Mercader, Spanish assassin of Leon Trotsky (d. 1978)
- 1915 – Teoctist, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church (d. 2007)
- 1915 – Eddie Bracken, American actor (d. 2002)
- 1920 – An Wang, Chinese-born computer pioneer (d. 1990)
- 1922 – Hattie Jacques, English actress (d. 1980)
- 1923 – Dora Bryan, English actress (d. 2014)
- 1926 – Konstantin Feoktistov, Soviet cosmonaut (d. 2009)
- 1926 – Mark Taimanov, Russian pianist and chess player (d. 2016)
- 1927 – Juliette Gréco, French singer and actress
- 1927 – Vladimir Kuts, Russian runner
- 1927 – Patsy Swayze, American dancer and choreographer (d. 2013)
- 1928 – Lincoln D. Faurer, American general (d. 2014)
- 1929 – Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chilean actor, director and screenwriter
- 1932 – Gay Talese, American writer
- 1932 – Alfred Worden, American astronaut
- 1933 – K. N. Choksy, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician (d. 2015)
- 1934 – Earl King, American musician (d. 2003)
- 1934 – Eddie Fenech Adami, former President of Malta
- 1934 – King Curtis, American jazz saxophonist (d. 1971)
- 1934 – Murtaza Rakhimov, former leader of Bashkortostan in Russia
- 1938 – S. Ramachandran Pillai, Indian Communist leader
- 1938 – Cayetano Ré, Paraguayan footballer and coach (d. 2013)
- 1939 – Ray Taliaferro, American radio talk show host
- 1939 – Francisco Mendès, Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau
- 1940 – Toshihide Maskawa, Japanese physicist
- 1940 – Tony Tan, former President of Singapore
- 1941 – Little Tony, Italian–Sammarinese singer (d. 2013)
- 1943 – Gareth Hunt, English actor
- 1945 – Gerald Davies, Welsh rugby player
- 1945 – Jörg Schneider, Swiss actor (d. 2015)
- 1946 – Pete Postlethwaite, English actor (d. 2011)
- 1946 – Héctor Babenco, Argentine-Brazilian screenwriter, producer and actor (d. 2016)
- 1947 – Wayne Allwine, American voice actor (d. 2009)
- 1947 – Flemming Jorgensen, Danish musician and actor (d. 2011)
- 1948 – Josef Ackermann, Swiss banker, former CEO of Deutsche Bank
- 1948 – Jimmy Greenspoon, American singer (d. 2015)
- 1949 – Paulo César Carpegiani, Brazilian footballer and coach
- 1949 – Regina Derieva, Russian poet and writer (d. 2013)
- 1950 – Mauro Bellugi, Italian footballer
1951 – 1975
- 1952 – John Hickenlooper, Governor of Colorado
- 1952 – Vasco Rossi, Italian singer
- 1953 – Dan Quisenberry, American baseball player (d. 1998)
- 1954 – Dieter Bohlen, German composer and media personality
- 1955 – Mario Coutinho, Brazilian physician
- 1955 – Miguel Ferrer, American actor (d. 2017)
- 1955 – Rolf Benirschke, American football player
- 1956 – Mark St. John, American musician (Kiss)
- 1958 – Giuseppe Baresi, Italian footballer
- 1959 – Mick McCarthy, English-Irish football manager
- 1960 – James Spader, American actor
- 1960 – Gabriel Humberto Calderon, Argentine footballer
- 1962 – Garth Brooks, American singer
- 1962 – David Bryan, American keyboardist and songwriter (Bon Jovi)
- 1962 – Eddie Izzard, British actor and comedian
- 1963 – Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, American astronaut
- 1964 – Ray Mears, British television presenter and outdoor survival expert
- 1965 – Petr Vasa, Czech poet, singer-songwriter, actor and artist
- 1965 – Jason Gedrick, American actor
- 1965 – Chris Rock, American comedian and actor
- 1966 – Kristin Otto, German swimmer
- 1966 – Monika Weber, German fencer
- 1967 – Richie Burnett, Welsh darts player
- 1968 – Peter Bondra, Ukrainian-born hockey player
- 1968 – Sully Erna, American singer (Godsmack)
- 1968 – Katja Kaan, Danish pornographic actress
- 1969 – Adriano Silva Francisco, Brazilian footballer
- 1969 – Yves Racine, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1970 – Stanley Roberts, American basketball player
- 1971 – Anita Tsoy, Russian singer-songwriter
- 1972 – Robyn Lively, American actress
- 1972 – Essence Atkins, American actress
- 1972 – Amon Tobin, Brazilian musician, composer and producer
- 1974 – Danny Goffey, English musician
- 1974 – Steve Nash, Canadian basketball player
- 1975 – Wes Borland, American guitarist (Limp Bizkit)
- 1975 – Rafik Saïfi, Algerian footballer
From 1976
- 1977 – Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, Japanese footballer
- 1977 – Dimitris Papanikolaou, Greek basketball player
- 1978 – Ashton Kutcher, American actor
- 1978 – Daniel Van Buyten, Belgian footballer
- 1979 – Tawakel Karman, Yemeni activist, co-winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize
- 1979 – Cerina Vincent, American actress
- 1979 – Daniel Bierofka, German footballer
- 1980 – Sasa Papac, Bosnia and Herzegovina footballer
- 1981 – Lee Ok-Sung, South Korean boxer
- 1985 – Tina Majorino, American actress
- 1986 – Stephen Colletti, American actor
- 1986 – Pippa Wilson, English sailor
- 1986 – Giorgi Tsintzade, Georgian basketball player
- 1987 – Joe Cardle, British footballer
- 1987 – Kerli, Estonian singer
- 1988 – Lee Don-Ku, South Korean ice hockey player
- 1988 – Lee Joon, South Korean singer, dancer and actor
- 1988 – Ai Kapo, Japanese singer and actress
- 1988 – Matthew Stafford, American football player
- 1989 – Louisa Lytton, English actress
- 1990 – Anna Abreu, Finnish singer
- 1991 – Zhou Yimiao, Chinese tennis player
- 1992 – Maimi Yajima, Japanese singer and actress
- 1993 – David Dorfman, American actor
- 1993 – Chris Mears, English diver
- 1996 – Mai Hagiwara, Japanese singer
- 1996 – Aaron Ekblad, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1999 – Bea Miller, American singer
Up to 1900
- 531 – Emperor Keitai of Japan (b. 450)
- 590 – Pope Pelagius II (b. 1520)
- 812 – Li Ning, Chinese prince (b. 793)
- 999 – Boleslaus II of Bohemia
- 1045 – Emperor Go-Suzaku of Japan (b. 1009)
- 1074 – Pandulf IV of Benevento
- 1317 – Robert, Count of Clermont, French founder of the Bourbon Royal Family (b. 1526)
- 1560 – Bartolomeo Bandinelli, Italian sculptor (b. 1493)
- 1603 – Hermann Wilken, German humanist and mathematician (b. 1522)
- 1609 – Ferdinando I de'Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1549)
- 1626 – William V, Duke of Bavaria (b. 1548)
- 1652 – Gregorio Allegri, Italian composer (b. 1852)
- 1693 – Paul Pellisson, French writer (b. 1624)
- 1736 – Stephen Gray, English astronomer (b. 1666)
- 1779 – William Boyce, English composer (b. 1711)
- 1799 – Qianlong, Emperor of China (b. 1711)
- 1801 – Daniel Chodowiecki, Polish painter (b. 1726)
- 1823 – Ann Radcliffe, British writer (b. 1764)
- 1837 – Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden (b. 1778)
- 1839 – Karl August Nicander, Swedish poet (b. 1799)
- 1862 – Francisco de Paula Martinez de la Rosa, Spanish statesman and dramatist (b. 1787)
- 1864 – Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, Serbian philologist and linguist (b. 1787)
- 1873 – Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish author (b. 1814)
- 1878 – Pope Pius IX (b. 1792)
- 1883 – Edmund J. Davis, American general and 15th Governor of Texas (b. 1827)
- 1897 – Galileo Ferraris, Italian physicist (b. 1847)
1901 – 2000
- 1920 – Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak, Russian military commander (b. 1876)
- 1931 – Tommaso Tittoni, Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1855)
- 1932 – Augusto B. Leguia, President of Peru (b. 1863)
- 1935 – Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Scottish writer (b. 1901)
- 1937 – Elihu Root, American politician (b. 1845)
- 1938 – Harvey Samuel Firestone, American businessman (b. 1868)
- 1939 – Boris Grigoriev, Russian painter (b. 1886)
- 1942 – Ivan Bilibin, Russian illustrator (b. 1876)
- 1944 – Lina Cavalieri, Italian soprano (b. 1874)
- 1959 – Nap Lajoie, American baseball player (b. 1874)
- 1959 – Guitar Slim, American guitarist (b. 1926)
- 1959 – Daniel Francois Malan, South African politician, father of Apartheid (b. 1874)
- 1960 – Igor Kurchatov, Russian physicist (b. 1903)
- 1964 – Sophoklis Venizelos, Greek Prime Minister (b. 1894)
- 1967 – William Preston Lane, Jr., Governor of Maryland (b. 1892)
- 1971 – Douglass Cadwallader, American golfer (b. 1884)
- 1972 – Walter Lang, American movie director (b. 1896)
- 1979 – Josef Mengele, Nazi doctor (b. 1911)
- 1980 – Secondo Campini, Italian jet aircraft pioneer (b. 1904)
- 1985 – Matt Monro, English singer (b. 1930)
- 1986 – Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegalese historian, anthropologist and physicist (b. 1923)
- 1987 – Claudio Villa, Italian singer (b. 1926)
- 1990 – Jimmy Van Heusen, American songwriter (b. 1913)
- 1993 – Nic Broca, Belgian comic artist (b. 1932)
- 1994 – Witold Lutoslawski, Polish composer (b. 1913)
- 1994 – Stephen Milligan, English journalist and politician (b. 1948)
- 1994 – Arnold Smith, Canadian diplomat (b. 1915)
- 1996 – Boris Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (b. 1925)
- 1999 – King Hussein of Jordan (b. 1935)
- 2000 – Big Pun, American rapper (b. 1971)
- 2000 – Doug Henning, Canadian magician (b. 1947)
From 2001
- 2001 – Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American writer and pilot (b. 1906)
- 2001 – Dale Evans, American actress and singer (b. 1912)
- 2005 – Atli Dam, 5th Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands (b. 1932)
- 2005 – Bob Turner, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1934)
- 2006 – Princess Duhru Shehvar of the Ottoman Empire (b. 1914)
- 2008 – Tamara Desni, German-born British actress (b. 1913)
- 2010 – Franco Ballerini, Italian road racing cyclist (b. 1964)
- 2010 – André Kolingba, Prime Minister of the Central African Republic (b. 1936)
- 2013 – Krsto Papic, Croatian director and screenwriter (b. 1933)
- 2014 – Doug Mohns, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1933)
- 2014 – Georgina Henry, British journalist (b. 1960)
- 2014 – Nico Nicolaiewsky, Brazilian actor, musician and comedian (b. 1957)
- 2014 – Mohamed Guessous, Moroccan sociologist and politician (b. 1937)
- 2015 – Dean Smith, American basketball coach (b. 1931)
- 2015 – Joe B. Mauldin, American musician (b. 1940)
- 2015 – John C. Whitehead, American financier and civil servant (b. 1922)
- 2015 – Billy Casper, American golfer (b. 1931)
- 2015 – René Lavand, Argentine magician and illusionist (b. 1928)
- 2015 – Donald H. Clausen, American politician (b. 1923)
- 2015 – Marshall Rosenberg, American psychologist (b. 1934)
- 2016 – Roger Willemsen, German author, essayist and television presenter (b. 1955)
- 2017 – Svend Asmussen, Danish jazz violinist (b. 1916)
- 2017 – Sotsha Dlamini, 5th Prime Minister of Swaziland (b. 1940)
- 2017 – Smail Hamdani, 11th Prime Minister of Algeria (b. 1930)
- 2017 – Richard Hatch, American actor, writer and producer (b. 1945)
- 2017 – Hans Rosling, Swedish physician, statistician and public speaker (b. 1948)
- 2017 – Tzvetan Todorov, Bulgarian-French philosopher (b. 1939)
- 2017 – Richard B. Wright, Canadian novelist (b. 1937)
- 2017 – Valeriu Bularca, Romanian wrestler (b. 1931)
- 2017 – Loukianos Kilaidonis, Greek singer-songwriter (b. 1943)
- 2017 – John Salt, British Anglican bishop (b. 1941)
- 2018 – Mickey Jones, American drummer and actor (b. 1941)
- 2018 – Pat Torpey, American drummer (b. 1953)
- Independence Day in Grenada
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