TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS THURSDAY, DEC. 7, the 341st day of 2017. There are 24 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1941, during a series of raids in the Pacific, Imperial Japan’s navy launched a pre-emptive attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing 2,400 people, about half of them on the battleship USS Arizona. (The United States declared war against Japan the next day.)
In 43 B.C., Roman statesman and scholar Marcus Tullius Cicero was slain on the order of the Second Triumvirate. In 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. In 1842, the New York Philharmonic performed its first concert.
In 1909, chemist Leo H. Baekeland received a U.S. patent for Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic. In 1917, during World War I, the United States declared war on Austria-Hungary.
In 1946, fire broke out at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta; the blaze killed 119 people, including hotel founder W. Frank Winecoff.
In 1967, the Beatles opened the Apple Boutique in London; the venture proved disastrous, and the shop closed the following July.
In 1972, America’s last moon mission to date was launched as Apollo 17 blasted off from Cape Canaveral. Imelda Marcos, wife of Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, was stabbed and seriously wounded by an assailant who was shot dead by her bodyguards.
In 1987, 43 people were killed after a gunman aboard a Pacific Southwest Airlines jetliner in California apparently opened fire on a fellow passenger, the pilots and himself, causing the plane to crash. Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev set foot on American soil for the first time, arriving for a Washington summit with President Ronald Reagan.
In 1993, a gunman opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train, killing six people and wounding 19. (The shooter was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in prison.)
In 1995, a 746-pound probe from the Galileo spacecraft hurtled into Jupiter’s atmosphere, sending back data to the mother ship before it was presumably destroyed.
In 2004, Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected president.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Linguist and political philosopher Noam Chomsky is 89. Bluegrass singer Bobby Osborne is 86. Actress Ellen Burstyn is 85. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., is 80. Broadcast journalist Carole Simpson is 77. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bench and actor-director-producer James Keach are 70. Country singer Gary Morris is 69. Singer-songwriter Tom Waits is 68. Sen. Susan M. Collins, R-Maine, is 65. Basketball Hall-of-Famer Larry Bird is 61. Actress Priscilla Barnes is 60. Former “Tonight Show” announcer Edd Hall and rock musician Tim Butler (The Psychedelic Furs) are 59. Actor Patrick Fabian is 53. Actor Jeffrey Wright is 52. Actor C. Thomas Howell is 51. Actress Kimberly Hebert Gregory (TV: “Kevin (Probably) Saves the World”) and producer-director Jason Winer are 45. Former NFL player Terrell Owens is 44. Rapper-producer Kon Artis is 43. Pop singer Nicole Appleton (All Saints) is 42. Latin singer Frankie J and country singer Sunny Sweeney are 41. Actor Chris Chalk is 40. Actress Shiri Appleby is 39. Pop-rock singer/celebrity judge Sara Bareilles and actress Jennifer Carpenter are 38. Actor Jack Huston is 35. Singer Aaron Carter is 30.