December 7
December 7 is the 341st day (342nd in leap years) of the year in the
Gregorian calendar. There are 24 days remaining.
*
1724 -
Thorn Blood tribunal (:de:Thorner Blutgericht), execution of protestant who attacked and demolished Jesuit Church by Poland in
Toruń(Thorn)
*
1732 - The
Royal Opera House opens at
Covent Garden,
London.
*
1776 -
Marquis de Lafayette attempts to enter 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 having been convicted of
treason for his support of
Napoleon Bonaparte.
*
1917 -
World War I: The
United States declares war on
Austria-Hungary.
*
1941 -
World War II:
Canada declared war on
Finland,
Hungary,
Romania, and
Japan.
* 1941 -
World War II:
Attack On Pearl Harbor - The
Imperial Japanese Navy attacks the
U.S. Pacific Fleet and its defending
Army Air Forces and Marine air forces at
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
*
1946 - A fire at the
Winecoff Hotel in
Atlanta, Georgia kills 119 people.
*
1949 -
Chinese Civil War : The government of
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.
*
1970 - The first ever general election on the basis of direct adult franchise are held in
Pakistan for 313 National Assembly seats.
*
1971 -
Pakistan President
Yahya Khan announces formation of a Coalition Government at Centre with Nurul Amin as Prime Minister and
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto as Vice-Prime Minister.
* 1971 - The
Montreux Casino in
Switzerland is set ablaze by someone wielding a
flare gun during a
Frank Zappa concert; the incident would be immortalized in the
Deep Purple song "
Smoke on the Water".
*
1972 -
Apollo 17, the last
Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew take the photograph known as "
The Blue Marble" as they leave the Earth.
*
1975 -
Indonesia invades
East Timor.
*
1982 - In
Texas,
Charles Brooks, Jr. becomes the first person to be
executed by
lethal injection in the
United States.
*
1980 - In
Atlanta,
Georgia Christopher Parker is born.
*
1983 - Two jetliners collide at
Madrid Barajas International Airport,
Madrid killing 93 people.
*
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 -
Spitak Earthquake: In
Armenia an
earthquake measuring 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, defeating
Roberto Duran.
*
1993 - In
South Africa, the
Transitional Executive Council is established.
* 1993 - The
Long Island Rail Road Massacre:
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.
*
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.
*
2005 -
Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on
American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, is shot and killed by a team of U.S. federal
air marshals at
Miami International Airport.
*
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, French-born museum proprietress and waxwork modeller (d.
1850)
*
1764 -
Claude Victor-Perrin, duc de Belluno, French marshal (d.
1841)
*
1784 -
Allan Cunningham, British poet (d.
1842)
*
1801 -
Johann Nestroy, Austrian dramatist and actor (d.
1862)
*
1810 -
Theodor Schwann, German physiologist (d.
1882)
* 1810 -
Josef Hyrtl, Austrian anatomist (d.
1894)
*
1823 -
Leopold Kronecker, German mathematician (d.
1891)
*
1847 -
George Grossmith, British actor and writer (d.
1912)
*
1860 -
Joseph Cook, 6th
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 American astronomer (d.
1973)
*
1910 -
Louis Prima, American musician (d.
1978)
*
1912 -
Daniel Jones, British composer (d.
1993)
*
1915 -
Eli Wallach, American actor
*
1920 -
Fiorenzo Magni, Italian cylist
*
1921 -
Pramukh Swami Maharaj, Indian Spiritual Leader
*
1922 -
Howard Zinn, American historian and activist
*
1924 -
Mário Soares,
President of Portugal*
1927 -
Helen Watts, British contralto
*
1928 -
Noam Chomsky, American linguist and political writer
*
1932 -
Ellen Burstyn, American actress
*
1942 -
Harry Chapin, American singer and songwriter (d.
1981)
* 1942 -
Peter Tomarken, American game show host (d.
2006)
* 1942 -
Alex Johnson, baseball player
*
1943 -
Bernard C. Parks, Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department
*
1944 -
Daniel Chorzempa, American organist
* 1944 -
Jamiel Chagra, American drug trafficker
*
1945 -
Marion Rung, Finnish singer
*
1947 -
Johnny Bench, American baseball player
* 1947 -
Garry Unger, Canadian ice hockey players
*
1948 -
Gary Morris, American singer and actor
* 1948 -
Mads Vinding, Danish bassist
*
1949 -
Tom Waits, American singer, composer, and actor
*
1954 -
Mark Hofmann, American forger and bomber
* 1954 -
Mike Nolan, Irish singer (
Bucks Fizz)
*
1956 -
Larry Bird, American basketball player
*
1958 -
Rick Rude, Professional wrestler
*
1966 -
C. Thomas Howell, American actor
*
1967 -
Tino Martinez, American baseball player
*
1968 -
Mark Geyer, Australian
rugby league player
*
1970 -
Carmen Campuzano, Mexican actress and fashion model
*
1971 -
Vladimir Akopian, Armenian chess player
* 1971 -
Chasey Lain, American pornographic actress
*
1972 -
Hermann Maier, Austrian skier
* 1972 -
Tammy Lynn Sytch, American professional wrestler
*
1973 -
Terrell Owens, American football player
*
1974 -
Nicole Appleton, Canadian-born singer
*
1975 -
Jamie Clapham, British footballer
*
1976 -
Alan Faneca, American football player
*
1977 -
Dominic Howard, British drummer (
Muse)
*
1978 -
Shiri Appleby, American Actress
*
1979 -
Ayako Fujitani, Japanese actress
*
1980 -
John Terry, English footballer
*
1982 -
Jackson Proskow, Canadian Journalist
*
1987 -
Aaron Carter, American singer
*
1988 -
Emily Browning, Australian actress
*
2003 -
Catharina-Amalia Beatrix Carmen Victoria, Princess of the Netherlands
*
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
*
1649 -
Charles Garnier, French Jesuit missionary (b.
1606)
*
1672 -
Richard Bellingham, English-born Massachusetts colonial magistrate (b.
1592)
*
1683 -
John Oldham, English poet (smallpox) (b.
1653)
* 1683 -
Algernon Sydney, English politician (b.
1623)
*
1723 -
Jan Santini Aichel, Bohemian architect (b.
1677)
*
1725 -
Florent Carton Dancourt, French dramatist and actor (b.
1661)
*
1775 -
Charles Saunders, British admiral
*
1793 -
Joseph Bara, French revolutionary (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, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize (b.
1833)
*
1941 -
Isaac C. Kidd, American rear admiral (b.
1884)
*
1947 -
Nicholas M. Butler, American university president, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize (b.
1862)
*
1956 -
Huntley Gordon, Canadian actor (b.
1887)
*
1960 -
Clara Haskil, Swiss pianist (b.
1895)
*
1969 -
Lefty O'Doul, baseball player (b.
1897)
*
1970 -
Rube Goldberg, American cartoonist (b.
1883)
*
1975 -
Thornton Wilder, American playwright (b.
1897)
*
1978 -
Alexander Wetmore, American ornithologist (b.
1886)
*
1980 -
Darby Crash, American punk-rock lengend (b.
1958)
*
1985 -
Robert Graves, British author (b.
1895)
* 1985 -
Potter Stewart, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (b.
1915)
*
1989 -
William Calhoun, Professional wrestler (b.
1934)
*
1990 -
Joan Bennett, American actress (b.
1910)
*
1993 -
Félix Houphouët-Boigny,
President of Côte d'Ivoire (b.
1905)
* 1993 -
Wolfgang Pauli, German physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1913)
*
1998 -
Martin Rodbell, American scientist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b.
1925)
*
2001 -
Charles McClendon,
LSU head football coach (b.
1923)
*
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)
*
2005 -
Bud Carson, American football player and coach (b.
1931)
*
R.C. Saints - Saint
Ambrose: Memorial
*
United States -
Pearl Harbor Day (observance)
*
International Civil Aviation Day*
BBC: On This DayDecember 6 -
December 8 -
November 7 -
January 7 --
listing of all days
