TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS FRIDAY, DEC. 8, the 342nd day of 2017. There are 23 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1941, the United States entered World War II as Congress declared war against Imperial Japan, a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
In 1765,
Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, was born in Westborough, Mass.
In 1813,
Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92” was first performed in Vienna, with Beethoven himself conducting.
In 1854,
Pope Pius IX proclaimed the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was free of original sin from the moment of her own conception.
In 1863,
President Abraham Lincoln issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction for the South.
In 1940,
the Chicago Bears defeated the Washington Redskins, 73-0, in the NFL Championship Game, which was carried on network radio for the first time by the Mutual Broadcasting System (the announcer was Red Barber).
In 1962,
the first session of the Second Vatican Council was formally adjourned. Typographers went on a 114-day strike against four New York City newspapers.
In 1972,
a United Airlines Boeing 737 crashed while attempting to land at Chicago-Midway Airport, killing 43 of the 61 people on board, as well as two people on the ground; among the dead were Dorothy Hunt, wife of Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt, U.S. Rep. George W. Collins, D-Ill., and CBS News correspondent Michele Clark.
In 1980,
rock star John Lennon was shot to death outside his New York City apartment building by an apparently deranged fan.
In 1982,
a man demanding an end to nuclear weapons held the Washington Monument hostage, threatening to blow it up with explosives he claimed were inside a van. (After a 10-hour standoff, Norman D. Mayer was shot dead by police; it turned out there were no explosives.)
In 1987,
President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty at the White House calling for destruction of intermediaterange nuclear missiles.
In 1992,
Americans got to see live television coverage of U.S. troops landing on the beaches of Somalia as Operation Restore Hope began (because of the time difference, it was early Dec. 9 in Somalia).
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Flutist James Galway and singer Jerry Butler are 78. Pop musician Bobby Elliott (The Hollies) is 76. Actress Mary Woronov is 74. Actor John Rubinstein is 71. Actress Kim Basinger is 64. Rock musician Warren Cuccurullo is 61. Rock musician Phil Collen (Def Leppard) is 60. Country singer Marty Raybon and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim are 58. Political commentator Ann Coulter is 56. Rock musician Marty Friedman is 55. Actor Wendell Pierce is 54. Actress Teri Hatcher is 53. Actor David Harewood is 52. Rapper Bushwick Bill (The Geto Boys), singer Sinead O’Connor and actor Matthew Laborteaux are 51. Rock musician Ryan Newell (Sister Hazel) is 45. Actor Dominic Monaghan is 41. Actor Ian Somerhalder is 39. Rock singer Ingrid Michaelson is 38. R&B singer Chrisette Michele and actress Hannah Ware are 35. Actress Wallis Currie-Wood is 26. Actress Anna Sophia Robb is 24.