07 December History
- 43 BC - Cicero, considered one of the greatest sons of Rome, is assassinated on the orders of Marcus Antonius.
- 983 - Otto III takes the throne after his father's death in Italy. A power struggle between magnates ensues.
- 1787 - Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.
- 1808 - James Madison is elected president in succession of Thomas Jefferson.
- 1861 - USS Santiago de Cuba, under Commander Daniel B. Ridgely, halts the British schooner Eugenia Smith and captures J.W. Zacharie, a New Orleans merchant and Confederate purchasing agent.
- 1862 - Confederate forces surprise an equal number of Union troops at the Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas.
- 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.
- 1917 - The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary with only one dissenting vote in Congress.
- 1918 - Spartacists call for a German revolution.
- 1931 - A report indicates that Nazis would ensure "Nordic dominance" by sterilizing certain races.
- 1941 - Japanese planes raid Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack.
- 1942 - The U.S. Navy launches USS New Jersey, the largest battleship ever built.
- 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.
- 1970 - Poland and West Germany sign a pact renouncing the use of force to settle disputes, recognizing the Oder-Neisse River as Poland's western frontier, and acknowledging the transfer to Poland of 40,000 square miles of former German territory.
- 1972 - The crew of Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the moon, lifts off at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
- 1981 - The Reagan Administration predicts a record deficit in 1982 of $109 billion.
- 1988 - An earthquake in Armenia kills an estimated 100,000 people.
07 December Birthdays
- 1810 - Theodor Schwann, German physiologist.
- 1873 - Willa Cather, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist (O Pioneers!, My Antonia).
- 1888 - Joyce Cary, Irish-born novelist (The Horse's Mouth).
- 1888 - Ernst Toch, composer and pianist.
- 1895 - Sir Milton Margay, the first prime minister of Sierra Leone.
- 1896 - Stuart Davis, painter.
- 1928 - Noam Chomsky, writer, linguist and political activist.
- 1956 - Larry Bird, basketball player for the Boston Celtics.