December 7th is

International Civil Aviation Day *

National Cotton Candy Day

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day *

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MORE! Rudolf Friml, Willa Cather and Janet Reno, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Armenia –
Spitak Earthquake Remembrance Day *

East Timor – Memorial 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)

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On This Day in HISTORY

43 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated on the orders of Mark Anthony, after Cicero attacks him in a series of speeches, saying that Anthony was taking liberties in interpreting Julius Caesar’s wishes, and he urges the Roman Senate to declare Anthony an enemy of the state

903 – Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi born, Persian astronomer and author of Book of Fixed Stars, published in 964

1598 – Gian Lorenzo Bernini born, Italian sculptor

Apollo and Daphne, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

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

1784 – Allan Cunningham born, Scottish poet

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

1796 – John Adams is chosen by electors as the second U.S. president

1842 – The New York Philharmonic gives its first concert

1863 – Pietro Mascagni, Italian opera composer, Cavalleria Rusticana

1863 – R.W. Sears born, American merchant; founder of Sears, Roebuck

1873 – Willa Cather born, American author and poet

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

1888 – Hamilton Fish born, American statesman; U.S. Senator (R-NY 1857-1857); U.S. Secretary of State (1869-1877)

1888 – A. Joyce Cary born, Irish novelist; noted for Mr. Johnson and The Horse’s Mouth, the third book in his trilogy with Herself Surprised and To Be a Pilgrim

1888 – Heywood Broun born, American journalist, columnist and sportswriter; founder of the American Newspaper Guild

1902 – Hilda Taba born in Estonia, American educator; after getting her Master’s degree at Bryn Mawr College, and attending Teachers College at Columbia University, she applied for a position at Tartu University, but was turned down because she was a woman, so she became curriculum director at the Dalton school in New York City; author of the influential Curriculum Development: Theory and Practice (1962

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

1915 – Leigh Brackett born, American author, primarily of science fiction, The Sword of Rhiannon and The Hounds of Skaith; screenwriter on The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye and The Empire Strikes Back

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

1941 – Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day * WWII: 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

1941 – Melba Pattillo Beals born, civil rights activist, and journalism teacher; member of the Little Rock Nine, the first black students to integrate Central High School in Little Rock AR in 1957; author of Warriors Don’t Cry, the story of that school year; the Little Rock Nine were each awarded a Congressional Gold Medal

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

1943 – Susan Isaacs born, American novelist, essayist and screenwriter; Compromising Positions; Brave Dames and Wimpettes: What Women are Really Doing on Page and Screen

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

1947 – Anne Fine born, British children’s author; winner of Carnegie Medals for Goggle-Eyes and Flour Babies, which also won a Whitbread Award, and a Smarties Prize for Bill’s New Frock; British Children’s Laureate (2001-2003)

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

1960 – The first episode of Coronation Street airs on the U.K. Granada Television

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 ‘The Blue Marble’ as they leave the Earth

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

1988 – Armenian Spitak Earthquake Remembrance 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

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 is 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

2001 –Taliban forces abandon their Kandahar stronghold in Afghanistan

2002 – Iran denies in a declaration to the UN that it has weapons of mass destruction

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 are arrested

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