Here are some major events that occurred on October 7:
- 1940: During World War II, German forces invaded Romania to seize control of its strategic oil fields.
- 1959: American film actor Mario Lanza died at the age of 38. Among his films was "The Great Caruso."
- 1959: The far side of the moon was photographed for the first time by the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3.
- 1981: Hosni Mubarak assumed the presidency of Egypt in an interim capacity following the assassination of Anwar Sadat on October 6.
- 1985: Palestinian fighters seized the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and threatened to blow it up unless Israel released 50 Palestinian prisoners.
- 1999: German companies and the government offered six billion marks ($3.3 billion) to compensate hundreds of thousands of slaves and forced laborers from the Nazi era.
- 2001: U.S. airstrikes began against 31 military targets and training camps in Afghanistan, with British participation. The strikes resulted in the death of the 10-year-old son of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
- 2003: Austrian-born Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California in a recall election that saw voters oust Democratic Governor Gray Davis.
- 2004: Several truck bombings killed 34 people and injured 120 others at the Hilton Hotel in Taba resort on the Egyptian border and in two other explosions on nearby beaches.
- 2005: The International Atomic Energy Agency and its Egyptian-born head, Mohamed ElBaradei, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for combating the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
- 2006: Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead in her apartment building in central Moscow. She was 48 years old.
