*Ø* Blogmanac August 7

We find some of these felons to be very civil men, and say, that if they could have had any reasonable subsistence by friends, or otherwise, they should never have taken such necessitous courses for support of their wives and families. they argue it with much confidence that property is the original cause of any sin between party and party after civil transactions. And that since the Tyrant is taken off, and their government altered in nomine, so it really to redound to the good of the people in specie.
The Leveller newspaper (England), The Moderate, on August 7, 1649, when some poor men were executed for stealing cattle, asserting that such crimes originate in private property
Source

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When my mother died, I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry "'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.
William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper; England outlawed child apprenticeships in this trade on August 7, 1840

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Doyo, or Dog Days, Japan, August 7-8
The Japanese call these the Dog Days, the most dangerous time of the year because of the heat which brings with it vermin and illness. The best way to stay healthy during this time is to eat lots of eels, whose slippery coolness is the proper antidote.

In Europe, too, ‘Dog Days’ is the name given to the hot summer period when, apparently, the heat can make people mad. The Romans began this practice and set the Dog Days from July 3 till August 11.

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I was not happy until, “I outgrew my early religious faith, and felt free to think and act from my own convictions”.
Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis

1813 Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis (died August 28, 1876) American feminist and social reformer, friend of the poet Walt Whitman; organized and led the first National Woman's Rights Convention, in Worcester, Massachusetts, October 1850

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I have written my life in small sketches, a little today, a little yesterday, as I thought of it, as I remembered all the things from childhood on through the years, good ones and unpleasant ones. That's how they come, and that is how we have to take them. I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I feel satisfied with it. I was happy and contented, I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered and life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.

1860 Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses), American naive painter who found fame when she was nearly a century old
Inspiration: More late starters

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1876 Mata Hari (Margaretha Gertruide MacLeod, née Zelle), Dutch-born exotic dancer who, by sleeping with top military and governmental personnel, spied for both sides in World War I, finally being executed in Paris by the Allies in 1917.

She told her judge that she had received money for sex, not for secrets. “Harlot, yes, but traitress, never!” she said. Rumor has it that during the execution, the squad members had to be blindfolded so as not to succumb to her charms. Another rumor claims she blew a kiss to her killers before the firing began. She told the firing squad to aim for her face, not her heart.