April 7 in history — What Happened Today in History

First release of Git distributed version control system.

Iraq War: U.S. troops capture Baghdad; Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime falls two days later.

Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide demands reparations of $21 billion from France for the Haitian independence debt.

NASA launches the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter.

Turkish Airlines Flight 5904 crashes near Ceyhan in southern Turkey, killing six people.

First Chechen War: Russian paramilitary troops begin a massacre of civilians in Samashki, Chechnya.

Rwandan genocide: Massacres of Tutsis begin in Kigali, Rwanda, and soldiers kill the civilian Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana.

Auburn Calloway attempts to destroy Federal Express Flight 705 in order to allow his family to benefit from his life insurance policy.

A fire breaks out on the passenger ferry Scandinavian Star, killing 159 people.

John Poindexter is convicted for his role in the Iran–Contra affair. In 1991 the convictions are reversed on appeal.

Soviet submarine Komsomolets sinks in the Barents Sea off the coast of Norway, killing 42 sailors.

Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov orders the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.

During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first Space Shuttle spacewalk.

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh is arrested.

During the Iran hostage crisis, the United States severs relations with Iran.

Development of the neutron bomb is canceled by President Jimmy Carter.

German Federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback and his driver are shot by two Red Army Faction members while waiting at a red light.

Member of Parliament and suspected spy John Stonehouse resigns from the Labour Party after being arrested for faking his own death.

Vietnam War: Communist forces overrun the South Vietnamese town of Loc Ninh.

Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces his decision to quicken the pace of Vietnamization.

The Internet's symbolic birth date: Publication of RFC 1.

Two-time Formula One British World Champion Jim Clark dies in an accident during a Formula Two race in Hockenheim.

Representatives of the National Congress of American Indians testify before members of the US Senate in Washington, D.C., against the termination of the Colville tribe.

IBM announces the System/360.

Francoist Spain agrees to surrender its protectorate in Morocco.

United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech during a news conference.

The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.

The Soviet Union annexes East Prussia as the Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

Sorana Cîrstea, Romanian tennis player

Trent Cotchin, Australian footballer

Franco Di Santo, Argentinian footballer

Mitchell Pearce, Australian rugby league player

Teddy Riner, French judoka

Antonio Piccolo, Italian footballer

Ed Speleers, English actor and producer

Martín Cáceres, Uruguayan footballer

Eelco Sintnicolaas, Dutch decathlete

Jamar Smith, American football player

Brooke Brodack, American comedian

Jack Duarte, Mexican actor, singer, and guitarist

Andi Fraggs, English singer-songwriter and producer

Tim Babcock, American soldier and politician, 16th Governor of Montana (born 1919)

José Capellán, Dominican-American baseball player (born 1981)

Stan Freberg, American puppeteer, voice actor, and singer (born 1926)

Richard Henyekane, South African footballer (born 1983)

Geoffrey Lewis, American actor (born 1935)

George Dureau, American painter and photographer (born 1930)

James Alexander Green, American-English mathematician and academic (born 1926)

V. K. Murthy, Indian cinematographer (born 1923)

Zeituni Onyango, Kenyan-American computer programmer (born 1952)

John Shirley-Quirk, English opera singer (born 1931)

George Shuffler, American guitarist (born 1925)

Josep Maria Subirachs, Spanish sculptor and painter (born 1927)

Royce Waltman, American basketball player and coach (born 1942)