Today in history, Dec 7th!

Some of the great historical events that happened today in history, on December 7th!

Today in history facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, HistoryOrb.com, and On This Day blogs from my blogroll.

http://hankeringforhistory.com/2012/12/07/today-in-history-dec-7th/

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 became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1796	Electors chose John Adams to be the second president of the United States.
1808	James Madison is elected president in succession of Thomas Jefferson.
1836	Martin Van Buren was elected the eighth president of the United States.
1842	The New York Philharmonic gave its first concert.
1861	USS Santiago de Cuba, under Commander Daniel B. Ridgely, halts the British schoonerEugenia 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.
1963	Videotaped instant replay was used for the first time in a live sports telecast during the Army-Navy football game on CBS.
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.
1982	A U.S. prisoner was executed by injection for the first time, in Huntsville, Texas.
1985	Retired Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart died at age 70.
1988	An earthquake in Armenia kills an estimated 100,000 people.
1993	A gunman opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train, killing six people and wounding 17. (Colin Ferguson was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in prison.)
1995	A 746-pound probe from the Galileo spacecraft hurtled into Jupiter’s atmosphere, sending back data to the mothership before it was destroyed.
2001	Taliban forces abandoned their last bastion in Afghanistan, fleeing the southern city of Kandahar.
2002	Iraq denied it had weapons of mass destruction in a declaration to the United Nations.
2004	Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected president.
2007	Baseball home run king Barry Bonds pleaded not guilty in San Francisco to charges he’d lied to federal investigators about using performance-enhancing drugs.