Today in History.....July 7

On this day in …

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

* 1865, four people were hanged in Washington, D.C., for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Lincoln

* 1898, the United States annexed Hawaii

* 1930, construction began on Boulder Dam (later Hoover Dam)

* 1958, President Eisenhower signed the Alaska statehood bill

* 1969, Canada's House of Commons gave final approval to a measure making the French language equal to English throughout the national government

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

* 1983, 11-year-old Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, left for a visit to the Soviet Union at the personal invitation of Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov

* 2005, suicide terrorist bombings in three Underground stations and a double-decker bus killed 52 victims and four bombers in the worst attack on London since World War II. (The United States put its subways, buses and commuter trains on high alert amid concern about a possible copycat attack.)