December 7th is

International Civil Aviation Day  *

National Cotton Candy Day

Special Kids Day *

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day *

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MORE! Marquis de Lafayette, Willa Cather and Rudolf Friml, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Armenia – Earthquake Victims Memorial Day *

Côte d’Ivoire  – Felix Houphouet-Boigny
Remembrance Day (first president)

East Timor – National Heroes Day

Guatemala – Guatemala City:
La Quema del Diablo (burning of the devil)

Italy – Milan: Feast of Saint Ambrose
(a Bishop of Milan and city’s patron saint)

Turkmenistan – Good Neighbourliness Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

1637 – Bernardo Pasquini born, Italian organist and composer

1732 – The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London, England

1776 – Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, becomes an American major general

1787 – Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United States Constitution

1796 – John Adams is elected second U.S. president

1842 – The New York Philharmonic gives its first concert

1863 – Pietro Mascagni, Italian opera composer, Cavalleria Rusticana

1873 – Willa Cather born, American author and poet

1879 – Rudolf Friml born, Czech-American pianist-composer

1910 – Louis Prima born, American singer-songwriter-trumpet player

1926 – A gas-operated refrigerator is patented by Electrolux Servel Corporation

1928 – Noam Chomsky born, American author, linguist and philosopher

1935 – Armando Manzanero born, Mexican musician-composer

1941 – The Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet and its Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

1942 – Harry Chapin, born, American singer-songwriter-guitarist

1944 – International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) founded, and the International Services Transit Agreement and the International Air Transport Agreement are signed. In 1994, ICAO starts International Civil Aviation Day * to mark its 50th anniversary

1949 – Tom Waits born, American singer-songwriter-guitarist

1960 – The first episode of Coronation Street airs on the U.K. Granada Television, one of the longest-running soap operas in the world

1971 – Libya announces nationalization of British Petroleum’s assets

1972 – The crew of Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, takes the photograph known as ‘Blue Marble’ as they leave the Earth

1979 – Rhodesia reaches an agreement with the U.K. to gain its independence

1988 – Armenian Earthquake Victims Memorial Day * – the Spitak earthquake in northern Armenia measures 6.8 on the ‘surface wave magnitude’ scale, killing over 25,000 people and injuring tens of thousands more, in addition to causing widespread destruction of housing, commercial buildings and hospitals

1990 – Special Kids Day * created to make more opportunities for children with special needs to participate in chidrens’ events, like visits to Santa Claus, without obstacles

1992 – The U.S. Supreme Court rejects a Mississippi abortion law which requires women to get counseling and wait 24 hours before terminating their pregnancies

1993 – Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary reveals that the U.S. government had secretly conducted more than 200 nuclear weapons tests at its Nevada test site

1993 – Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders suggests the U.S. government study the impact of drug legalization

1995 – A probe sent from the Galileo spacecraft enters Jupiter’s atmosphere, and sends back data to the mothership before it’s destroyed

1996 – NASA space shuttle Columbia returns from the longest-ever shuttle flight of 17 days, 15 hours and 54 minutes

1998 – U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno declines to seek an independent counsel investigation of President Clinton’s 1996 campaign financing

2003 – A painting of a river landscape and sailing vessel by Martin Johnson Heade sells at auction for $1 million, after being found in suburban Boston home’s attic where it had been stored for more than 60 years

2006 – Vatican archaeologists unearth a sarcophagus that might have the remains of the Apostle Paul in it, buried beneath Rome’s second largest basilica since at least 390 A.D.

2009 – The biggest climate meeting in history opens in Copenhagen, Denmark, with representatives from 192 countries in attendance. Over 1.000 protesters demanding more stringent actions be taken were arrested

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Visuals

• International Civil Aviation Day banner
• The USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor
• International flags
• Noam Chomsky quote
• Blue Marble – Apollo 17 photo attributed to Harrison Schmitt
• 1988 – Spitak Earthquake in Armenia
• Sarcophagus found under Saint Paul church altar in Rome

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