This Day…

On December 7, 1941 – Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl HarborExternal, Hawaii Territory, killing more than 2,300 Americans. The U.S.S. Arizona was completely destroyed and the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsized. A total of twelve ships sank or were beached in the attack and nine additional vessels were damaged. More than 160 aircraft were destroyed and more than 150 others damaged.

1922 – Lucille Atcherson, becomes first woman legation sect-US foreign service

1847 – Frederick Douglass publishes first issue of his newspaper “North Star”

1934 – The U.S. bank robber George “Baby Face” Nelson was killed by FBI agents near Barrington, IL.

1876 – Indian Wars: In retaliation for the American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Army troops sack Chief Dull Knife’s sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River.

1890 – Edison lab records the 1st surviving motion picture, “Monkeyshines No. 1”, shot by William am Kennedy Dickson and William Heise [date disputed between June 1889 and November 21–27, 1890]

1863 – Abraham Lincoln begins first draft of his Gettysburg Address

1935 – “A Night at the Opera”, comedy film directed by Sam Wood, starring the Marx Brothers, is released

1902 – “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad is first published in one volume (previously serialized) by William Blackwood in Edinburgh

1918 – WWI Armistice signed by the Allies and Germany comes into effect and World War I hostilities end at 11am, “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”