December 7

Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. 

– Proverbs 8:34

December is:

Church Library Month

Born on this Day

• 0521: St. Columba (Colum Cille) 1598: Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini
  

• 1761: Waxworks museum founder Marie Tussaud
  

• 1873: American author Willa Cather
  

• 1876: Novelist Willa Cather
  

• 1879: Composer Rudolph Friml ("Indian Love Call")
  

• 1882: Composer Joaquin Turina
  

• 1915: Actor Eli Wallach
  

• 1931: Bluegrass singer Bobby Osborne
  

• 1932: Actress Ellen Burstyn
  

• 1937: Senator Thad Cochran (Republican, Mississippi)
  

• 1940: ABC News anchorwoman Carole Simpson
  

• 1947: Baseball Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bench
  

• 1958: Country singer Gary Morris
  

• 1959: Singer-songwriter Tom Waits
  

• 1955: Actress Priscilla Barnes
  

• 1956: Basketball player-turned-coach Larry Bird
  

• 1968: "Tonight Show" announcer Edd Hall
  

• 1968: Rock musician Tim Butler (The Psychedelic Furs)
  

• 1966: Actor C. Thomas Howell
  

• 1975: Pop singer Nicole Appleton (All Saints)

Events in History on this day
  

• 0043 BC: Assassination of Cicero 0983: Death of Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor
  

• 1254: Death of Pope Innocent IV
  

• 1515: Meeting and alliance between Pope Leo X and Francois I in Bologna
  

• 1550: Coronation of Barbara as Queen of Poland
  

• 1787: Delaware became the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.
  

• 1796: electors chose John Adams to be the second president of the United States.
  

• 1836: Martin Van Buren was elected the eighth president of the United States.
  

• 1836: Mikhail Glinka became the first internationally acclaimed composer after "A Life for the Czar" premiered in St. Petersburg.
  

• 1842: The New York Philharmonic gave its first concert.
  

• 1863: Outlaw George Ives, an alleged member of an outlaw gang known as the "Innocents," robs and then kills Nick Thiebalt in the Ruby Valley of what would become Montana.
  

• 1909: Leo Baekeland patented the process for making Bakelite, giving birth to the modern plastics industry.
  

• 1917: U.S. declares war on Austria-Hungary with only one dissenting vote in Congress.
  

• 1931: President Hoover refused to see a group of "hunger marchers" at the White House.
  

• 1941: Japanese warplanes attacked the home base of the US Pacific fleet located at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, an act that resulted in America's entry into World War Two.
  

• 1942: The U.S. Navy launches the USS New Jersey, the largest battleship ever built.
  

• 1946: America's worst hotel fire broke out at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta; the blaze killed 119 people, including hotel founder W. Frank Winecoff.
  

• 1946: The president of the United Mine Workers, John L. Lewis, orders all striking miners back to work.
  

• 1949: The A.F.L. and the C.I.O. organize a non-Communist international trade union.
  

• 1959: The FCC opens hearings on TV crime and standards.
  

• 1970: Poland and West Germany sign a pact renouncing use of force to settle disputes, recognizing the Oder-Neisse River as Poland's western frontier, and acknowledging transfer to Poland of 40,000 square miles of former German territory.
  

• 1972: America's last moon mission to date was launched as "Apollo 17" blasted off from Cape Canaveral.
  

• 1972: Imelda Marcos, wife of Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, was stabbed and seriously wounded by an assailant who was then shot dead by her bodyguards.
  

• 1981: The Reagan Administration predicts a record deficit in 1982 of $109 billion.
  

• 1985: Retired Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart died in Hanover, New Hampshire, at age 70.
  

• 1987: Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev set foot on American soil for the first time, arriving for a Washington summit with President Reagan.
  

• 1987: Forty-three people were killed in the crash of a Pacific Southwest Airlines jetliner in California after a gunman apparently opened fire on a fellow passenger and the two pilots.
  

• 1988: A major earthquake in the Soviet Union devastated northern Armenia; an estimated 25,000 to 100,000 people died. Today's History Focus
  

• 1988: Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced he would reduce the number of Soviet military troops by half a million.
  

• 1989: East Germany's Communist Party agreed to cooperate with the opposition in paving the way for free elections and a revised constitution.
  

• 1989: Czechoslovak President Gustav Husak accepted the resignation of Communist Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec.
  

• 1990: As President Bush arrived in Venezuela on the last stop of his South American tour, his chief spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, warned Iraq that there was "no lessening in the threat of war," despite Iraq's promise to release its hostages.
  

• 1991: 50 years after Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a visibly moved President Bush led the nation in services commemorating the day that brought the United States into World War II.
  

• 1992: The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to a Mississippi abortion law which required women to get counseling and then wait 24 hours before terminating their pregnancies.
  

• 1992: Nearly 180 people were killed and hundreds injured when riots erupted across India after Hindu militants demolished an ancient mosque.
  

• 1993: A gunman opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train, killing six people and wounding 17.
  

• 1993: Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary revealed that the government had conducted more than 200 nuclear weapons tests in secret.
  

• 1993: Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders suggested that the government study the impact of drug legalization.
  

• 1993: The fiery young pianist Evgeny Kissin got to strut his stuff in the Prokofiev Third Piano Concert with the New York Philharmonic. Kurt Masur also threatened to conduct some sort of world premiere work, and will try to make up for it with Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique."
  

• 1994: PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher in Gaza City, pledged to protect Israelis from militant extremists.
  

• 1995: Under Republican pressure, President Clinton reluctantly presented a seven-year balanced-budget plan that was quickly criticized by GOP lawmakers
  

• 1995: A 746-pound probe from the "Galileo" spacecraft hurtled into Jupiter's atmosphere, sending back data to the mothership before it was presumably destroyed.
  

• 1996: The space shuttle "Columbia" landed at the Kennedy Space Center, ending a nearly 18-day mission marred by a jammed hatch that prevented two planned spacewalks.
  

• 1997: Republicans threatened Attorney General Janet Reno with contempt of Congress over her decision to forgo an independent counsel's investigation of White House campaign fund raising.
  

• 1997: Singer Bob Dylan, actor Charlton Heston, actress Lauren Bacall, opera singer Jessye Norman and ballet master Edward Villella shared the 20th annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington D-C.
  

• 1998: On the eve of historic hearings, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde said there was a "compelling case" for impeaching President Clinton.
  

• 1998: Attorney General Janet Reno declined to seek an independent counsel investigation of President Clinton over 1996 campaign financing. 

• 1999: NASA scientists all but gave up hope of contacting the Mars Polar Lander, last heard from four days earlier as it began its descent toward the Red Planet. 
  

Today's History Focus

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