WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2011

Today is Wednesday, December 7, the 341st day of 2011. There are 24 days left in the year.

36 B.C. - Earliest known Mayan inscription, Stela 2 at Chiapa de Corzo

43 B.C. - Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman writer, gets his head and right hand chopped off by Mark Antony's soldiers

1877 ― Thomas A. Edison demonstrates the gramophone

1939 ― Lou Gehrig, 36, is elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame

1941 ― Japanese attack Pearl Harbor (a date that will live in infamy for U.S.)

1945 ― Microwave oven patented

1949 ― Chiang Kai-shek flees to Taiwan

1968 ― Richard Dodd returns a library book his great grandfather borrowed in 1823 to the University of Cincinnati; the $22,646 fine went unpaid

1988 ― Gorbachev announces 10 percent unilateral Soviet troop reductions at U.N.

1988 ― Yasser Arafat recognizes existence of Israel