TODAY IN HISTORY - JULY 7TH

1456 – A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.

1863 – The United States begins its first military draft; exemptions cost $300.

1880 – Otto Frederick Rohwedder, American engineer, invented sliced bread (d. 1960) is born.

1898 – U.S. President William McKinley signs the Newlands Resolution annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States.

1907 – Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. staged his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.

1911 – The United States, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia sign the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911 banning open-water seal hunting, the first international treaty to address wildlife preservation issues.

1927 – Doc Severinsen, American trumpet player and conductor (The Tonight Show Band) is born.

1928 – Sliced bread is sold for the first time (on the inventor's 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri.

1930 – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, dies.

1940 – Ringo Starr, born Richard Starkey, English singer-songwriter, drummer, and actor (The Beatles, Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, and Plastic Ono Band) is born.

1946 – Mother Francesca S. Cabrini becomes the first American to be canonized.

1946 – Howard Hughes nearly dies when his XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood.

1947 – The Roswell incident, the (supposed) crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell in New Mexico.

1954 – Elvis Presley makes his radio debut when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, "That's All Right."

1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into law.

1980 – Michelle Kwan, American figure skater is born.

1981 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan appoints Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States.

1985 – Boris Becker becomes the youngest player ever to win Wimbledon at age 17

2007 – The first Live Earth benefit concert was held in 11 locations around the world.