October 7

1571 The Battle of Lepanto was a naval engagement that took place on October 7, 1571 between a fleet of the Holy League (a coalition of Spain, Venice, and the Papal States arranged by Pope Pius V) and the fleet of the Ottoman Empire. The superior force of the Ottoman fleet was decisively defeated by The Holy League. The victory prevented the Ottoman Empire from expanding further along the European side of the Mediterranean.

The Battle of Lepanto, unknown artist, late 16th century

1573 English archbishop and academic William Laud was born at Reading, Berkshire on October 7, 1573, the only son of William Laud, a clothier, and Lucy, née Webbe. When the Personal Rule of King Charles I began in 1629, Laud quickly became a key part of it as his High Church views fitted in well with the monarch's beliefs.

1708 Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh guru, died on October 7, 1708. As well as founding the Khalsa, his other notable contributions to Sikhism also include introducing the Five Ks, the five articles of faith that Khalsa Sikhs wear at all times. Guru Gobind Singh also continued the formalization of the religion, wrote important Sikh texts and enshrined the scripture the Guru Granth Sahib as Sikhism's eternal Guru.

1849 American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849 in Washington College Hospital, Baltimore. There are several theories as to the cause of his death, including congestion of the brain, drunkenness, alcohol withdrawal, tuberculosis, and rabies. Poe was buried in the grounds of Baltimore's Westminster Church and Burying Ground after a small funeral with only a few people attending.

1857 Moses Fleetwood ″Fleet″ Walker the first African American to play major league baseball was born on October 7, 1857. He made his major league debut aged 26 for the Toledo Blue Stockings, a club in the American Association. Walker played one season as the catcher of the Toledo Blue Stockings. He then played in the minor leagues until 1889, when professional baseball erected a color barrier that stood for nearly 60 years.

Moses Fleetwood Walker

1916 On October 7, 1916, the most lopsided college football game in American history took place when the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) defeated Cumberland University with a staggering score of 222-0. This game remains an iconic and infamous moment in the history of college football.

1926 German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin died on October 7, 1926. A pioneer in the psychological study of serious mental diseases, he divided them into two groups, "dementia praecox" (schizophrenia) and "manic-depressive insanity". Kraepelin first identified the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease in his 1910 book Clinical Psychiatry.

1950 On October 7, 1950 Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity. She and her fellow sisters, inspired by her faith that God would provide, lived literally from hand to mouth as they shared with the destitute all they could cadge from well-wishers. Over the next decades Mother Teresa's organization established schools and open centers to treat the blind, aged, lepers, disabled and dying throughout the world.

1950 American engineer Willis Carrier died on October 7, 1950. He invented the first electric air conditioning unit after he was commissioned to come up with the design by a printing company whose work was being wrecked by humidity in the factory. He was awarded a patent for his appliance in January 1902.

1952 Russian president Vladimir Putin was born in a middle class family on October 7, 1952, in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. Putin had dreamed of becoming an intelligence officer ever since he was a child and in 1975, he joined the KGB, training at the 401st KGB school in Okhta, Leningrad.

1956 The founder of the modern frozen food industry Clarence Birdseye died on October 7, 1956.
After years of experimenting with an investment of $7 for an electric fan, buckets of brine, and cakes of ice, Clarence Birdseye invented and perfecting a system of packing fresh food into waxed cardboard boxes and flash-freezing under high pressure.

2002 Cristiano Ronaldo made his professional football debut in the Portuguese Primeira Liga for Sporting Lisbon, against Moreirense on October 7, 2002. He scored two goals in their 3-0 win. Ronaldo was the first player to play for Sporting Lisbon's under-16, under-17 and under-18 teams, the B team, and the first team, all within one season.

2008 On October 7, 2008 TC3 , an 80-metric-ton, 4.1-meter (13 ft) diameter asteroid exploded above the Nubian Desert in Sudan. It was the first time that an asteroid impact had been predicted prior to its entry into the atmosphere as a meteor.

2011 The world’s largest chocolate bar was made by Thorntons plc (UK) in Alfreton, Derbyshire, England on October 7, 2011. It measured 4.0 m (13 ft 1.48 in) by 4.0 m (13 ft 1.48 in) by 0.35 m (1 ft 1.78 in) and weighed 5,792 kilograms (nearly six tons). The ingredients were sugar, dried whole milk powder, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, butter oil, emulsifier.

2012 Goalkeeper Brad Friedel is the current holder of the Premier League record for most consecutive appearances with 310, a feat he achieved during spells at Blackburn Rovers, Aston Villa, and Tottenham Hotspur. Until the footballer was left out of the Tottenham team on October 7, 2012, the previous Premier League game Friedel missed was Blackburn's last fixtures of the 2003–04 season against Birmingham City, on May 15, 2004.

2013 During an interview on October 7, 2013, on The Late Show with David Letterman, the actor Tom Hanks announced that he is living with Type 2 diabetes. Hanks shared this personal health information and discussed how he had been dealing with the condition. He has since been an advocate for diabetes awareness and has openly discussed his experiences with the disease.