Henry IV (11 November 1050 – 7 August 1106) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1084 to 1105. After his father's death in 1056, Henry was placed under his mother's guardianship. Archbishop Anno II of Cologne kidnapped him in 1062 and administered Germany until he came of age in 1065. Ignoring the ideas of the Gregorian Reform, Henry insisted on the royal prerogative to appoint bishops in his German and Italian realms. The Investiture Controversy culminated when Pope Gregory VII excommunicated Henry in response to Henry's attempt to dethrone him. Henry carried out his penitential Walk to Canossa in 1077 and Gregory absolved him. Henry's German opponents ignored this absolution and elected an anti-king. Most German and northern Italian bishops remained loyal to Henry and elected the antipope, Clement III, who crowned Henry emperor in Rome in 1084. His son, Henry V, forced him to abdicate on 31 December 1105. ( Full article...)

Direct flight: muscles attached to wings

• ... that unlike most other insects, dragonflies have direct flight, the muscles being attached directly to the wing bases (pictured)?
• ... that George Curtis played football for a Royal Air Force base during his time as a Coventry City player, but he "scarcely broke sweat"?
• ... that James Benning's 1995 experimental documentary film Deseret chronicles 140 years of the history of Utah by way of 93 New York Times excerpts?
• ... that the heavy metal musician Leah has sometimes been called "the metal Enya"?
• ... that Indian doctor Nasarvanji Hormusji Choksy, who worked to improve public health, contracted bubonic plague three times?
• ... that, in a 2018 survey of 38 news organizations, the Palmer Report was ranked the fourth-least trusted news organization by Americans?
• ... that the newly founded Family First Party has access to the former Family First Party's database of 6,000 supporters, according to The Australian?
• ... that war erupted in 2019 over a fried chicken sandwich?

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya

• Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya (pictured) travels to Poland on a humanitarian visa after attempts by the Belarus Olympic Committee to repatriate her against her will.
• In Olympic athletics, Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas breaks a 26-year-old world record in the women's triple jump, and world records are set in men's and women's 400 metres hurdles by Norwegian Karsten Warholm and American Sydney McLaughlin.
• Wildfires in southern Turkey kill at least eight people and injure more than 800 others.

August 7: Assyrian Martyrs Day ( 1933)

Le Griffon

• 1679 – Le Griffon (depicted), a barque built by René-Robert de La Salle, began its journey to be the first sailing ship to navigate the upper Great Lakes.
• 1794 – U.S. president George Washington invoked the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.
• 1946 – The Soviet Union informed Turkey that the way in which the latter was handling the Turkish Straits no longer represented the security interests of its fellow Black Sea nations, escalating the Turkish Straits crisis.
• 1985 – Five members of the Bamber family were found murdered at a farmhouse in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, England.