TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS TUESDAY, DEC. 12, the 346th day of 2017. There are 19 days left in the year. Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, begins at sunset.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY:

On this date in 1917, during World War I, a train carrying some 1,000 French troops from the Italian front derailed while descending a hill in Modane; at least half of the soldiers were killed in France’s greatest rail disaster. Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha, Neb.

In 1787, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. In 1897, “The Katzenjammer Kids,” the pioneering comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks, made its debut. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt nominated Oscar Straus as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the first Jewish Cabinet member.

In 1937, Japanese aircraft sank the U.S. gunboat Panay on China’s Yangtze River. (Japan apologized and paid $2.2 million in reparations.) In 1977, the dance movie “Saturday Night Fever” premiered in New York.

In 1997, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the terrorist known as “Carlos the Jackal,” went on trial in Paris on charges of killing two French investigators and a Lebanese national. (Ramirez is serving a life prison sentence.)

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:

Former TV host Bob Barker is 94. Basketball Hall-of-Famer Bob Pettit is 85. Singer Connie Francis is 80. Singer Dionne Warwick is 77. Rock singer-musician Dickey Betts is 74. Hall of Fame race car driver Emerson Fittipaldi is 71. Actor Wings Hauser is 70. Actor Bill Nighy is 68. Country singer LaCosta is 67. Gymnast-turned-actress Cathy Rigby is 65. Author Lorna Landvik is 63. Singer-musician Sheila E. is 60. Actress Sheree J. Wilson is 59. Pop singer Daniel O’Donnell is 56. International Tennis Hall-of-Famer Tracy Austin is 55. Actresses Jennifer Connelly, Madchen Amick and Regina Hall are 47. Country singer Hank Williams III is 45. Actress Mayim Bialik is 42. Model Bridget Hall is 40. Actress Sky Katz (TV: “Raven’s Home”) is 13.