December 7 - All About All

December 7

December 7 is the 341st day (342nd on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 24 days remaining.

Events

• 1732 - The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London.
• 1776 - Marquis de Lafayette enters the American military as a major general.
• 1787 - Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.
• 1815 - Michel Ney, Marshal of France, is executed by firing squad, after been convicted of treason for his support of Napoleon Bonaparte.
• 1917 - World War I: United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.
• 1941 - The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor officially brings the United States into World War II.
• 1946 - A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia kills 119 people.
• 1949 - Chinese Civil War: The government of the Republic of China moves from Nanking to Taipei.
• 1962 - Prince Rainier III of Monaco revises the principality's constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils.
• 1965 - Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.
• 1966 - A fire at an army barracks in Erzurum, Turkey kills 68 people.
• 1972 - Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew take The Blue Marble image as they leave the Earth.
• 1975 - Indonesia invades East Timor.
• 1982 - First US execution by lethal injection is carried out in Texas.
• 1987 - PSA Flight 1771 crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-boss on the flight, then shoots both pilots and himself.
• 1988 - In Armenia an earthquake 6.9 on the Richter scale kills nearly 25,000, injures 15,000 and leaves 400,000 homeless.
• 1988 - Yasser Arafat recognizes the right of Israel to exist.
• 1989 - In their third and final fight, Sugar Ray Leonard retains the WBC Super Middleweight championship of the world over Roberto Duran.
• 1993 - South Africa transitional executive council established
• 1995 - The Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
• 2003 - The Conservative Party of Canada is officially recognized after the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
• 2004 - Hamid Karzai is inaugurated as president of Afghanistan.
• 2004 - John Kufuor is re-elected as president of Ghana.
• 2006 - Windows Vista is released.

Births

• 521 - Saint Columba, Irish Christian missionary to Scotland (d. 597)
• 1545 - Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, consort of Mary I of Scotland (d. 1567)
• 1561 - Kikkawa Hiroie, Japanese politician (d. 1625)
• 1598 - Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Italian artist (d. 1680)
• 1637 - Bernardo Pasquini, Italian composer (d. 1710)
• 1670 - John Aislabie, English director of the South Sea Company (d. 1742)
• 1761 - Marie Tussaud, museum proprietress and waxwork modeler (d. 1850)
• 1764 - Claude Victor-Perrin, duc de Belluno, French marshal (d. 1841)
• 1784 - Allan Cunningham, Scottish poet (d. 1842)
• 1801 - Johann Nestroy, Austrian dramatist and actor (d. 1862)
• 1823 - Leopold Kronecker, German mathematician (d. 1891)
• 1847 - George Grossmith, English actor and comic writer (d. 1912)
• 1860 - Sir Joseph Cook, sixth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1947)
• 1863 - Pietro Mascagni, Italian composer (d. 1945)
• 1863 - Richard Sears, American department store founder (d. 1914)
• 1873 - Willa Cather, American novelist (d. 1947)
• 1879 - Rudolf Friml, American composer (d. 1972)
• 1887 - Ernst Toch, Austrian composer (d. 1964)
• 1888 - Joyce Cary, Irish author (d. 1957)
• 1888 - Hamilton Fish, American politician (d. 1991)
• 1903 - Danilo Blanuša, Croatian mathematician (d. 1987)
• 1904 - Konstantin Sokolsky, Russian singer
• 1905 - Gerard Kuiper, Dutch-born astronomer (d. 1973)
• 1910 - Louis Prima, American musician (d. 1978)
• 1912 - Daniel Jones, Welsh composer
• 1915 - Eli Wallach, American actor
• 1924 - Mário Soares, President of Portugal
• 1927 - Helen Watts, Welsh contralto
• 1928 - Noam Chomsky, American linguist and political writer
• 1932 - Ellen Burstyn, American actress
• 1942 - Harry Chapin, American musician (d. 1981)
• 1942 - Peter Tomarken, American game show host
• 1943 - Bernard C. Parks, former Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.
• 1944 - Daniel Chorzempa, American organist
• 1945 - Marion Rung, Finnish singer
• 1947 - Johnny Bench, baseball player
• 1948 - Gary Morris, singer and actor
• 1948 - Mads Vinding, Danish bassist
• 1949 - Tom Waits, American singer, composer, and actor
• 1954 - Mark Hofmann, American forger and murderer
• 1956 - Larry Bird, American basketball player
• 1966 - C. Thomas Howell, American actor
• 1967 - Tino Martinez, baseball player
• 1972 - Hermann Maier, Austrian ski diver
• 1971 - Chasey Lain, American actress
• 1973 - Terrell Owens, American football star
• 1980 - John Terry, English footballer
• 1987 - Aaron Carter, American singer
• 1988 - Emily Browning, Australian actress

Deaths

• 43 BC - Cicero, Roman politician and author (b. 106 BC)
• 283 - Pope Eutychian
• 1254 - Pope Innocent IV
• 1279 - King Boleslaus V of Poland (b. 1226)
• 1295 - Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Hertford, English politician (b. 1243)
• 1498 - Alexander Hegius von Heek, German humanist
• 1562 - Adrian Willaert, Flemish composer
• 1632 - Emperor Sissinios of Ethiopia (b. 1607)
• 1649 - Charles Garnier, French Jesuit missionary (b. 1606)
• 1672 - Richard Bellingham, Massachusetts colonial magistrate (b. 1592)
• 1683 - John Oldham, English poet (smallpox) (b. 1653)
• 1683 - Algernon Sydney, English politician (b. 1623)
• 1723 - Jan Santini Aichel, Czech architect (b. 1677)
• 1725 - Florent Carton Dancourt, French dramatist and actor (b. 1661)
• 1793 - Joseph Bara, French Revolution child-hero (b. 1780)
• 1815 - Michel Ney, French marshall (executed) (b. 1769)
• 1817 - William Bligh, British naval officer (b. 1745)
• 1874 - Constantin von Tischendorf, German biblical scholar (b. 1815)
• 1902 - Thomas Nast, German cartoonist (b. 1840)
• 1906 - Élie Ducommun, Swiss journalist and activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1833)
• 1947 - Nicholas M. Butler, American president of Columbia University, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1862)
• 1956 - Huntley Gordon, Canadian actor (b. 1887)
• 1970 - Rube Goldberg, American cartoonist (b. 1883)
• 1975 - Thornton Wilder, American playwright (b. 1897)
• 1978 - Alexander Wetmore, American ornithologist (b. 1886)
• 1985 - Potter Stewart, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• 1985 - Robert Graves, English author (b. 1895)
• 1990 - Joan Bennett, American actress (b. 1910)
• 1993 - Félix Houphouët-Boigny, President of Côte d'Ivoire (b. 1905)
• 1993 - Wolfgang Paul, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1913)
• 2003 - Carl F. H. Henry American theologian and publisher (b. 1913)
• 2003 - Azie Taylor Morton, Treasurer of the United States (b. 1936)
• 2003 - Raúl Vale, Venezuelan entertainer (b. 1944)
• 2004 - Frederick Fennell, American conductor (b. 1914)
• 2004 - Jerry Scoggins, American singer (b. 1913)

Holidays and observances

• United States: Pearl Harbor Day (observance)

External links

• BBC: On This Day (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/7)

December 6 - December 8 - November 7 - January 7 -- listing of all days