TODAY is Monday, December 7, the 341st day of 2009. There are 24 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

1941 – Japanese air forces attack the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii.

Other Notable Events

1787 – Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the US Constitution.

1858 – French and Spanish announce blockade of Cochin, China.

1895 – Ethiopians defeat Italians at Ambia Alagi, Abyssinia.

1921 – Austria and United States resume diplomatic relations.

1922 – Northern Ireland votes for nonalignment in Irish Free State.

1940 – The British attack larger Italian forces in Libya by surprise, capturing 40,000 prisoners in three days.

1944 – The United States formally announces all six Japanese aircraft carriers involved in the attack on Pearl Harbour were sunk.

1949 – Nationalist government of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, fleeing the Communist takeover of mainland China, establishes its seat of government in Taiwan.

1953 – David Ben-Gurion resigns as premier of Israel.

1965 – Pope Paul VI and ecumenical patriarch Athenagoras I of Istanbul abolish the mutual excommunication of 1054 that split Christianity into Catholic and Orthodox.

1971 – Unmanned Soviet space capsule sends back radio and television signals from Mars.

1975 – Indonesia invades East Timor and annexes the region as its 27th province.

1982 – Convicted murderer Charlie Brooks becomes the first US prisoner executed by injection, at a prison in Huntsville, Texas.

1988 – Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, at the United Nations, announces unilateral reduction of his country’s troops, tanks, combat aircraft and artillery; massive earthquake in Soviet Armenia claims at least 25,000 lives.

1989 – Republic of Lithuania abolishes constitutional guarantee of communist supremacy and legalises multiparty system.

1990 – GATT talks among 107 nations are suspended after failure to end impasse between United States and European Community over reductions in farm subsidies.

1992 – The Indian Government announces a ban on fundamentalist groups after more than 200 Muslims and Hindus are killed and a Muslim shrine in Ayodhya is demolished.

1993 – Ivory Coast President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Africa’s longest-serving ruler, dies.

1994 – PLO chairman Yasser Arafat pledges to protect Israelis from militant Islamic terrorists and insists that all Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza respect his authority as “the law.”

1996 – After nearly 18 days aloft, the Columbia space shuttle and its astronauts return to Earth, ending the longest space shuttle flight ever.

2001 – A consortium of philanthropic foundations announces an initiative to provide treatment for an estimated 2.5 million pregnant women infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.

2002 – Iraq turns over to United Nations weapons inspectors a document detailing its weapons of mass destruction programmes and industries with military applications, as required by a November UN Security Council resolution.

2006 – The Liberian government issues guns to a unit of its police force, making them the first officers to carry arms since the end of the West African country’s 14-year civil war.

2007 – Swarms of desert locusts invade Kenya’s arid northeast for the first time since 1962. The ravenous pests, which can devastate crops, contributed to a major food crisis in West Africa three years prior.

2008 – Pakistani troops raid a militant camp and arrest Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a suspected mastermind of the attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai on Nov 26-29 that killed more than 171 people.

Today’s Birthdays:

Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587); Pietro Mascagni, Italian composer (1863-1945); Seigo Takamori, Japanese Restoration hero (1827-1877); Willa Cather, US novelist (1873-1947); Mario Soares, first elected president of Portugal in 60 years (1924-); Noam Chomsky, American linguist and political activist (1928-); Ellen Burstyn, US actress (1932-).