FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2012

Today is Friday, December 7, the 342nd day of 2012. 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

1842 ― New York Philharmonic's first concert

1877 ― Thomas A. Edison demonstrates the gramophone

1941 ― Japanese attack Pearl Harbor (a date that will live in infamy))

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 ― Mikhail Gorbachev cheered by Wall Street crowds upon arrival in NYC

1988 ― Yasser Arafat recognizes existence of Israel

1988 ― Earthquake in Armenia; 6.9 on the Richter scale (100,000 killed, 5,000,000 homeless)