December 7
Today is
National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in the United States, commemorating the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Dec 7, 1941,
a date which will live in infamy.
Today is also
International Civil Aviation Day, as proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly.
There are
24 days remaining in 2016.
There are
17 days until Christmas.
Events
43 BC –
Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated.
1703 – The
Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, makes landfall. Winds gust up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people die.
1732 – The
Royal Opera House opens at
Covent Garden, London, England.
1776 –
Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, arranges to enter the American military as a major general.
1869 – American outlaw
Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.
1917 – World War I: The
United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.
1930 –
W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts telecasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The telecast also includes the first
television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.
1941 – World War II:
Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
1946 – A
fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, kills 119 people, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history.
1963 –
Instant replay makes its debut during the
Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1967 -
Otis Redding went into the studio to record '
(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay'. The song went on to be his biggest hit. Redding didn't see its release; he was killed three days later in a plane crash. Redding's familiar whistling, heard before the song's fade was the singer fooling around, he had intended to return to the studio at a later date to add words in place of the whistling.
1972 –
Apollo 17, the last
Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes
the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.
1974 -
Carl Douglas started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with '
Kung Fu Fighting'.
The song was recorded in 10 minutes, had started out as a B-side and went on to sell over 10 million copies.
1977 - Inventor Dr
Peter Carl Goldmark was killed in a car crash aged 71. Goldmark invented the
long-playing microgroove record in 1945.
1982 – In Texas,
Charles Brooks, Jr., becomes the first person to be executed by
lethal injection in the United States.
1987 –
Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771, a
British Aerospace 146-200A, crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shoots both pilots and himself.
1988 –
Spitak earthquake: In Armenia an earthquake measuring 6.8 (
surface wave magnitude) kills more than 25,000 people, injures 30,000 and leaves 500,000 homeless out of a population of 3,500,000. This day is commemorated in Armenia as Spitak Remembrance Day.
1993 –
Long Island Rail Road shooting: Passenger Colin Ferguson murders six people and injures 19 others on the
LIRR in Nassau County, New York.
1995 – The
Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during
Mission STS-34.
1999 –
A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: The
Recording Industry Association of America sues the peer-to-peer file-sharing service
Napster, alleging copyright infringement.
2014 -
Pink Floyd's classic album,
The Dark Side Of The Moon made a surprise return to the Billboard chart when it landed at No.13, thanks to ultra-cheap pricing in the Google Play store where the album was discounted to 99-cents.
Births
521 – Columba; 1863 – Richard Warren Sears (co-founded Sears); 1873 – Willa Cather; 1888 – Hamilton Fish III; 1904 – Clarence Nash (voice of
Donald Duck for 50 years); 1910 – Louis Prima♪ ♫; 1915 – Eli Wallach; 1923 – Ted Knight; 1928 – Noam Chomsky; 1928 – Mickey Thompson

; 1932 – Ellen Burstyn; 1939 – Blackie Dammett (actor, father of Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis); 1942 – Harry Chapin♪ ♫; 1943 – John Bennett Ramsey (father of JonBenét Ramsey); 1947 – Johnny Bench; 1947 – James Keach (actor/producer/director, brother to Stacey Keach); 1949 – Tom Waits♪ ♫; 1956 – Larry Bird; 1958 – Tim Butler

(The Psychedelic Furs); 1958 – Rick Rude; 1965 – Jeffrey Wright ('Felix Leiter' in
Casino Royale and
Quantum of Solace); 1966 – C. Thomas Howell; 1979 – Sara Bareilles♪ ♫
Deaths
43 BC – Cicero; 1817 – William Bligh; 1894 – Ferdinand de Lesseps (co-developed the Suez Canal); 1902 – Thomas Nast; 1970 – Rube Goldberg; 1975 – Thornton Wilder; 1985 – Robert Graves; 1989 – Haystacks Calhoun; 1990 – Joan Bennett; 2004 – Jerry Scoggins (sang the theme to
Beverly Hillbillies, "
The Ballad Of Jed Clampett"); 2004 – Jay Van Andel (co-founded Amway, damn his eyes); 2006 – Jeane Kirkpatrick; 2011 – Harry Morgan ('Col. Potter' on
M*A*S*H (tv series); 2013 – Chick Willis