Today in History, 12/7

Hi Gang - Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of this blog. I'd like to thank everyone for reading it and giving me so much support. I've learned a lot just by writing it every day. I'm going to take a few weeks off (till Jan 1) and then come back with some new stuff. I'm going to retire the "Today in History" thing because I've gone through the year and there's not much else to say. (Fun fact: I called it "Today in History" rather than "This Day in History" because The History Channel already has a feature called that and I was concerned that Roger Mudd and Edward "Ed" Herrmann were going to show up at my door and kick the snot out of me.) In January, I'm going to start a "Spotlight on This Day in History" (hopefully I can think of a better name) where I do a little essay on a certain event from that day. Maybe some other stuff too.
Have a happy holiday and thanks for reading!

1545: Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, consort of Mary I of Scotland, is born.1696: Connecticut Route 108, one of the oldest highways in the U.S. is completed to Trumbull.
1776: Marquis de Lafayette attempts to enter the American military as a major general.
1787: Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the US Constitution.
1863: Richard Sears, American department store founder, is born.1915: Eli Wallach is born. He played Tuco in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but he's been in a ton of other stuff.

1917: The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.
1923: Ted Knight is born.

1928: Noam Chomsky is born.1930: W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts broadcasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The broadcast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.
1941: The Imperial Japanese Navy attacks the US Pacific Fleet and its defending Army Air Forces and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
1942: Harry Chapin is born.

1947: Johnny Bench is born.1949: Tom Waits is born.

1963: Videotaped instant replay is used for the first time in a live sports telecast as CBS re-showed a touchdown run during the Army-Navy football game.
1972: Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as "The Blue Marble" as they leave the Earth.

Click for larger image.

1982: In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr. becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.
1988: Yasser Arafat recognizes the right of Israel to exist.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.