History of the Day for:
December 7
- 1784: David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patented the first screw.
- 1787: Delaware became the first colony to ratify the U.S. Constitution and was the first state admitted to the Union.
- 1842: The New York Philharmonic gave its first concert, performing works by Ludwig van Beethoven and Karl Maria von Weber.
- 1909: Leo Baekeland patented the process for making Bakelite, giving birth to the modern plastics industry.
- 1926: The household refrigerator, operating on gas, was patented by The Electrolux Servel Corporation.
- 1934: Wiley Post discovered the jet stream.
- 1941: Japanese warplanes attacked the home base of the U.S. Pacific fleet located at Pearl Harbor at 7:55 a.m. local time.
- 1955: Robert Sarnoff was elected president of NBC.
- 1963: James Carroll, a disc jockey at WWDC in Washington, D.C., became the first person to broadcast a Beatles record on American airwaves: "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."
- 1963: Instant replay was used for the first time during the Army-Navy game, broadcast on CBS-TV.
- 1969: "Frosty The Snowman" first aired on CBS.
- 1969: The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) TV Network was inaugurated.
- 1970: Harry Reasoner, who had left CBS News weeks before, joined Howard K. Smith for "The ABC Evening News."
- 1972: Apollo 17, the sixth and last U.S. moon mission, blasted off from Cape Canaveral. Flight Commander Eugene Cernan was the last man on the moon.
- 1987: Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev set foot on American soil for the first time, arriving for a Washington summit with President Reagan.
- 1995: U.S. space probe Galileo began orbiting Jupiter.
- 1999: The RIAA files a lawsuit against the Napster file-sharing client, on charges of copyright infringement.
- 2003: The Conservative Party of Canada is officially recognized after the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
- 2005: Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, is shot and killed by a team of U.S. federal air marshals at Miami International Airport.
- 2006: A tornado struck Kensal Green, North West London, seriously damaging around 150 properties.
- 2007: The Hebei Spirit oil spill began in South Korea after a crane barge being towed by tug collided with the Very Large Crude Carrier, Hebei Spirit.