THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― DECEMBER 7

December 7 is the 341st day of the year (342nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 24 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday (58 in 400 years each) than on Saturday or Sunday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Tuesday or Thursday (56).

NATIONAL PEARL HARBOR REMEMBRANCE DAY 

FEATURED — 1941 

At 7:55 A.M. Hawaii time, a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings appears out of the clouds above the island of Oahu. A swarm of 360 Japanese warplanes followed, descending on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in a ferocious assault. The surprise attack struck a critical blow against the U.S. Pacific fleet and drew the United States irrevocably into World War II.

1724 – Tumult of Thorn: Religious unrest was followed by the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities.

1787 – Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the Constitution.

1805 – Having spied the Pacific Ocean for the first time a few weeks earlier, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark cross to the south shore of the Columbia River (near modern-day Portland) and begin building the small fort that would be their winter home.

1877 – Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph (gramophone) to the editors of "Scientific American".

1891 – The 52nd U.S. Congress (the first to appropriate $1 billion) holds its first session.

1900 – Max Planck, in his house at Grunewald on the outskirts of Berlin, discovers the law of black body radiation.

1907 – The first Egyptian Nationalist Congress meets under the leadership of Mustafa Kamil Pasha.

1917 – The United States becomes the 13th country to declare war on Germany during World War I.

1965 – Pope Paul VI & Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that led to split of 2 churches in 1054.

1965 – In a memorandum to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara states that U.S. troop strength must be substantially augmented.

1972 – Apollo 17, the final manned lunar landing mission, is launched.

1982 – In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr. becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.

1987 – Despite protests in Washington concerning Soviet human rights abuses, most Americans get swept up in "Gorbymania" as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrives for his summit with President Ronald Reagan. 

1988 – A 6.9 earthquake strikes in Spitak, Armenia (25,000 killed, 5,000,000 homeless).

1995 – The U.S. space probe Galileo begins orbiting Jupiter.

TODAY'S BIRTHS

1598 – Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Italian sculptor and painter (d. 1680)

1863 – Richard Warren Sears, American businessman, co-founded Sears (d. 1914)

1873 – Willa Cather, American novelist, short story writer, and poet (d. 1947)

1910 – Louis Prima, American singer-songwriter, trumpet player, and actor (d. 1978)

From Wikipedia and Google, ex as noted.