TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Wednesday, Dec. 7, the 342nd day of 2016. There are 24 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On Dec. 7, 1941, Imperial Japan’s navy launched a pre-emptive attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, one of a series of raids in the Pacific. The United States declared war against Japan the next day.
On this date
43 B.C. — Roman statesman and scholar Marcus Tullius Cicero was slain at the order of the Second Triumvirate. 1787 — Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. 1842 — The New York Philharmonic performed its first concert. 1909 — Chemist Leo H. Baekeland received a U.S. patent for Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic. 1946 — Fire broke out at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta; the blaze killed 119 people, including hotel founder W. Frank Winecoff. 1965 — Pope Paul VI and Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously lifted the mutual excommunications that had led to the split of their churches in 1054. 1972 — America’s last moon mission to date was launched as Apollo 17 blasted off from Cape Canaveral. 1987 —Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev set foot on American soil for the first time, arriving for a Washington summit with President Ronald Reagan. 1993 — Gunman Colin Ferguson opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train, killing six people and wounding 19. (Ferguson was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in prison.) 1995 — A 746-pound probe from the Galileo spacecraft hurtled into Jupiter’s atmosphere, sending back data to the mothership before it was presumably destroyed. 2004 — Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected president.
Today’s Birthdays
Linguist and political philosopher Noam Chomsky is 88. Bluegrass singer Bobby Osborne is 85. Actress Ellen Burstyn is 84. Actordirector-producer James Keach is 69. Singer-songwriter Tom Waits is 67. Basketball Hall of Famer Larry Bird is 60. Actor C. Thomas Howell is 50. Rapper-producer Kon Artis is 42. Latin singer Frankie J is 40. Actor Chris Chalk is 39. Actress Shiri Appleby is 38. Actress Jennifer Carpenter is 37. Actor Jack Huston is 34. Singer Aaron Carter is 29. Garden Lakes Elementary School fourth-grader Sarah Blake, daughter of Shane and Ashley Blake of Rome, is 10. East Central Elementary School second-grader Brandon Montgomery, son of Erica Montgomery of Rome, is 8.
Thought for today ‘No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace or insure it victory in time of war.’ President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)