DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Wednesday, Dec. 8, the 342nd day of 2021. There are 23 days left in the year.
On this date in:
1813: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92, was first performed in Vienna, with Beethoven himself conducting.
1886: The American Federation of Labor was founded in Columbus, Ohio.
1941: The United States entered World War II as Congress declared war against Imperial Japan, a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
1949: The Chinese Nationalist government moved from the Chinese mainland to Formosa as the Communists pressed their attacks.
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.
1980: Rock star and former Beatle John Lennon was shot to death outside his New York City apartment building by Mark David Chapman.
1987: President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty at the White House calling for destruction of intermediaterange nuclear missiles.
1991: AIDS patient Kimberly Bergalis, who had contracted the disease from her dentist, died in Fort Pierce, Florida, at age 23.
1998: Struggling to stave off impeachment, President Bill Clinton’s defenders forcefully pleaded his case before the House Judiciary Committee.
The Supreme Court ruled that police cannot search people and their cars after merely ticketing them for routine traffic violations.
2001: The U.S. Capitol was reopened to tourists after a two-month security shutdown.
2008: In a startling about-face, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal he would confess to masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks; four other men also abandoned their defenses.
2014: The U.S. and NATO ceremonially ended their combat mission in Afghanistan, 13 years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks sparked their invasion of the country to topple the Taliban-led government.
2017: Japanese pitching and hitting star Shohei Ohtani announced that he would sign with the Los Angeles Angels.
Actor Kim Basinger is 68. Guitarist Warren Cuccurullo (Duran Duran, Missing Persons) is 65. Guitarist Phil Collen of Def Leppard is 65. Country singer Marty Raybon (The Raybon Brothers, Shenandoah) is 62. Guitarist Marty Friedman (Megadeth) is 59. Actor Wendell Pierce (“The Wire,” “Treme”) is 58. Actor Teri Hatcher is 57. Actor David Harewood (“Supergirl,” “Homeland”) is 56. Singer Sinead O’connor is 55. Actor Matthew Laborteaux (“Little House on the Prairie”) is 55. Guitarist Ryan Newell of Sister Hazel is 49. Actor Dominic Monaghan (“Lost,” “Lord of the Rings”) is 45. Actor Ian Somerhalder (“The Vampire Diaries,” “Lost,”) is 43. Singer Ingrid Michaelson is 42.