Table of Contents
Today is Saturday, December 7, the 342nd day of 2024. There are 24 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Empire launched an air raid on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing more than 2,300 Americans. The United States declared war on Japan the next day.
Also on this date:
In 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
In 1972, America’s last manned lunar mission to date was launched when Apollo 17 took off from Cape Canaveral.
In 1982, convicted murderer Charlie Brooks Jr. the first American prisoner to be executed by lethal injection at a prison in Huntsville, Texas.
In 1988, a major earthquake in the Soviet Union devastated northern Armenia, killing at least 25,000 people.
In 1993, six people were killed and 19 injured in a mass shooting aboard a Long Island Rail Road train in New York.
In 2004, Hamid Karzai (HAH’-mihd KAHR’-zey) was sworn in as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected president.
In 2018, James Alex Fields Jr., who drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters during a white nationalist rally in Virginia in 2017, was convicted of first-degree murder.
Today’s Birthdays:
- Linguist and political philosopher Noam Chomsky is 96.
- Actor Ellen Burstyn is 92.
- Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Bench is 77.
- Singer-songwriter Tom Waits is 75.
- Sen. Susan M. Collins, R-Maine, is 72.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Larry Bird is 68.
- Actor Jeffrey Wright is 59.
- Actor C. Thomas Howell is 58.
- Football Hall of Famer Terrell Owens is 51.
- Football Hall of Famer Alan Faneca is 48.
- Actor Shiri Appleby is 46.
- Singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles (bah-REHL’-es) is 45.
- Actor Nicholas Hoult is 35.
- MLB All-Star Pete Alonso is 30.
- Olympic gold medalist Torri Huske is 22.