On this day in history

December 7

28 births · 14 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

Attack on Pearl Harbor

84 years ago

Born this day

1928

Noam Chomsky

Turns 97

Photo (modified): Augusto Starita / Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación · CC BY-SA 2.0

Oldest record

1504th

Columba

birth anniversary

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Famous births28

AD 521 · 1504 yrs

Columba

Columba or Colmcille (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary credited with spreading Christianity at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission in what became Scotland.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 75

View profile Photo (modified): MrsEllacott · CC BY-SA 3.0

AD 903 · 1122 yrs

Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī (full name: Abū’l-Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUmar ibn Sahl al-Ṣūfī al-Rāzī —Arabic: أَبُو الحُسَين عَبدُ اَلرَّحمَن بن عُمَر بن سَهل اَلصُّوفِي اَلرَّازِي; Persian: ابوالحسن عبدالرحمن صوفی رازی — 7 December 903 – 25 May 986) was a Persian astronomer.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 82

View profile Photo (modified): Albrecht Dürer · CC BY-SA 4.0

1598 · 427 yrs

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (UK:, US:; Italian:; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 1598 – 28 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor, architect, painter and city planner. Bernini's creative abilities and mastery in a range of artistic arenas define him as an uomo universale or Renaissance man.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtDied aged 81

View profile Photo (modified): Gian Lorenzo Bernini · Public domain

1626 · 399 yrs

Christina of Sweden

Christina (Swedish: Kristina; 18 December 1626 – 19 April 1689), a member of the House of Vasa, was Queen of Sweden from 1632 until her abdication in 1654. Her conversion to Catholicism and refusal to marry led her to relinquish her throne and move to Rome.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 62

View profile Photo (modified): Sébastien Bourdon · Public domain

1810 · 215 yrs

Theodor Schwann

Theodor Schwann (German pronunciation:; 7 December 1810 – 11 January 1882) was a German medical doctor and physiologist. His most significant contribution to biology is considered to be the extension of cell theory to animals.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 71

View profile Photo (modified): Rudolph Hoffmann · Public domain

1823 · 202 yrs

Leopold Kronecker

Leopold Kronecker (German:; 7 December 1823 – 29 December 1891) was a German mathematician who worked on number theory, abstract algebra and logic, and criticized Georg Cantor's work on set theory.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 68

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1863 · 162 yrs

Pietro Mascagni

Pietro Mascagni (7 December 1863 – 2 August 1945) was an Italian composer primarily known for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicDied aged 81

View profile Photo (modified): Gavo Studio; copyright expire · Public domain

1872 · 153 yrs

Johan Huizinga

Johan Huizinga (Dutch:; 7 December 1872 – 1 February 1945) was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScholarshipDied aged 72

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown photographer · Public domain

1873 · 152 yrs

Willa Cather

Willa Sibert Cather (born Wilella Sibert Cather; December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947) was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, a novel set during World War I.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 73

View profile Photo (modified): Photographer: Aime Dupont Studio, New York · Public domain

1878 · 147 yrs

Akiko Yosano

Yosano Shō (与謝野志やう; née Hō (鳳); 7 December 1878 – 29 May 1942), known by her pen name Yosano Akiko (Shinjitai: 与謝野晶子, Kyūjitai: 與謝野晶子, Japanese pronunciation:), was a Japanese author, poet, feminist, pacifist, and social reformer, active in the late Meiji era as well as the Taishō and early Shōwa eras of Japan.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 147

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1889 · 136 yrs

Gabriel Marcel

Gabriel Honoré Marcel (7 December 1889 – 8 October 1973) was a French philosopher, playwright, music critic and leading Christian existentialist. The author of over a dozen books and at least thirty plays, Marcel's work focused on the modern individual's struggle in a technologically dehumanizing society.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 136

View profile Photo (modified): Fotograaf Onbekend / Anefo · CC0

1905 · 120 yrs

Gerard Kuiper

Gerard Peter Kuiper ( KY-pər; born Gerrit Pieter Kuiper, Dutch:; 7 December 1905 – 23 December 1973) was a Dutch astronomer, planetary scientist, selenographer, author and professor. The Kuiper belt is named after him.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 120

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Showing 12 of 28

Famous deaths14

1815 · 210 yrs

Michel Ney

Michel Ney, 1st Prince de la Moskowa, 1st Duke of Elchingen (English: NAY, French:; 10 January 1769 – 7 December 1815), was a French military commander and Marshal of the Empire who fought in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryDied aged 46

View profile Photo (modified): François Gérard · Public domain

1894 · 131 yrs

Ferdinand de Lesseps

Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps (French:; 19 November 1805 – 7 December 1894) was a French Orientalist diplomat and later developer of the Suez Canal, which in 1869, joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, substantially reducing sailing distances and times between Europe and East Asia.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 89

View profile Photo (modified): Nadar · Public domain

1906 · 119 yrs

Élie Ducommun

Élie Ducommun (19 February 1833, Geneva – 7 December 1906, Bern) was a Swiss peace activist. He was a Nobel laureate, awarded the 1902 Nobel Peace Prize, which he shared with Charles Albert Gobat.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismDied aged 73

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1941 · 84 yrs

Dmitry Merezhkovsky

Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky (Russian: Дми́трий Серге́евич Мережко́вский, IPA:; 14 August 1865 – 9 December 1941) was a Russian novelist, poet, religious thinker, and literary critic.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 76

View profile Photo (modified): Maxim Petrovich Dmitriev · Public domain

1947 · 78 yrs

Nicholas Murray Butler

Nicholas Murray Butler (April 2, 1862 – December 7, 1947) was an American philosopher, diplomat, and educator. Butler was president of Columbia University, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the late James S.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 85

View profile Photo (modified): Auguste Léon · Public domain

1975 · 50 yrs

Thornton Wilder

Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel The Eighth Day.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 129

View profile Photo (modified): Roger Sherman Studio · Public domain

1979 · 46 yrs

Cecilia Helena Payne Gaposchkin

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; (1900-05-10)May 10, 1900 – (1979-12-07)December 7, 1979) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist. Her work on the cosmic makeup of the universe and the nature of variable stars was foundational to modern astrophysics.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 126

View profile Photo (modified): Smithsonian Institution/Science Service, restored by Adam Cuerden · Public domain

1985 · 40 yrs

Robert Graves

Robert Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985), whose second name is sometimes given as von Ranke, was an English poet, novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celticists and students of Irish mythology.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 131

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1990 · 35 yrs

Joan Bennett

Joan Geraldine Bennett (February 27, 1910 – December 7, 1990) was an American stage, film, and television actress, one of three acting sisters from a show-business family. Beginning her career on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 films from the era of silent films, well into the sound era.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 116

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1993 · 32 yrs

Wolfgang Paul

Wolfgang Paul (German pronunciation:; 10 August 1913 – 7 December 1993) was a German physicist, who co-developed the non-magnetic quadrupole mass filter which laid the foundation for what is now called an ion trap.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 113

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1993 · 32 yrs

Félix Houphouët-Boigny

Félix Houphouët-Boigny (French:; 18 October 1905 – 7 December 1993), affectionately called Papa Houphouët or Le Vieux ("the old one"), was an Ivorian politician and physician who served as the first president of Ivory Coast, from 1960 until his death in 1993.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 121

View profile Photo (modified): GPO · Public domain

1995 · 30 yrs

Masashi Watanabe

Masashi Watanabe (渡辺正, Watanabe Masashi; January 11, 1936 – December 7, 1995) was a Japanese football player and manager. He played for Japan national team.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

SportsWould be 90

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Showing 12 of 14

Events5

1941 · 84 yrs

Attack on Pearl Harbor

The Empire of Japan launched a surprise military attack on the US Pacific Fleet at its naval base at Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. At the time, the US was a neutral country in World War II.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1941 · 84 yrs

Pacific War

The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or the Pacific Theater, was the theater of World War II fought between Japan and the Allies in East and Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and Oceania.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1941 · 84 yrs

Philippines Campaign

The Philippines campaign, also known as the Battle of the Philippines (Filipino: Labanan sa Pilipinas) or the Fall of the Philippines, was the invasion of the Philippines by the Empire of Japan during the Pacific War and World War II. The operation to capture the islands, which was defended by the U.S.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1988 · 37 yrs

1988 Spitak earthquake

An earthquake occurred in northern Armenia (then Armenian SSR, as part of the Soviet Union) on 7 December, 1988, at 11:41 local time with a surface-wave magnitude of 6.8 and a maximum MSK intensity of X (Devastating).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Disaster

2009 · 16 yrs

2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference

The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit, was held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 and 18 December.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

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