Today is Wednesday, December 12, the 346th day of 2007. There are 19 days left in the year.
627 _ Battle at Nineveh: Byzantine emperor Heraclius beats Perzen
1098 _ First Crusaders capture and plunder Mara Syria
1474 _ Isabella crowns herself queen of Castile and Aragon
1878 _ Joseph Pulitzer begins publishing ``St. Louis Dispatch"
1915 _ Russian troops overrun Hamadan, Persia
1932 _ The USSR and China resume diplomatic relations
1936 _ Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek declares war on Japan
1941 _ German occupying army do a house search in Paris looking for Jews
1979 _ Gold hits record $462.50 an ounce
1979 _ Rhodesia becomes the independent nation of Zimbabwe
1983 _ A truck bomb explodes at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait
1988 _ PLO leader Yasser Arafat accepts Israel's right to exist
1991 _ The Maastricht Treaty signed to create a European Community
1992 _ Japanese crown prince Naruhito announces engagement to Masaka Owada
1997 _ Japanese train builders (Maglev) claim world speed record at 332mph