{"id":8129,"date":"2021-12-07T08:06:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T07:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=193921"},"modified":"2021-12-07T08:20:09","modified_gmt":"2021-12-07T07:20:09","slug":"7-december-on-this-day-in-history","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/7-december-on-this-day-in-history\/","title":{"rendered":"7 December: On this day in history"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Dominic Sandbrook\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 07 December 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

7 December 43 BC: Cicero loses his head \u2013 and hands \u2013 to Rome<\/h3>\n

Mark Antony\u2019s biggest critic is finally silenced<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When Julius Caesar was murdered<\/a> in 44 BC, the lawyer Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the most powerful men in Rome. But as the champion of the senate\u2019s opposition to Caesar\u2019s heir, Octavian, and his own old friend Mark Antony, Cicero played his hand very badly. By December 43 BC, his arrest seemed only a matter of time.<\/p>\n

On 7 December, Cicero left his country house outside Rome for the coast, where he hoped to catch a ship to Macedonia. Only moments later, two officers, named Herennius and Popilius, arrived in pursuit. Although Cicero\u2019s slaves refused to tell them his destination, the officers wormed the information out of one of his brother\u2019s freedmen.<\/p>\n

When the killers caught up with Cicero, he offered no resistance. As the biographer Plutarch later wrote: \u201cHe looked steadfastly upon his murderers, his person covered with dust, his beard and hair untrimmed, and his face worn with his troubles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cicero reportedly said to Herennius: \u201cThere is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly,\u201d and leaned out of his litter to give them a clear stroke. With that, Herennius drew his sword and slashed off Cicero\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, Herennius cut off Cicero\u2019s hands \u2013 the hands that had written his famous speeches mocking Antony \u2013 and carried them, with the head, back to Rome. There, Antony triumphantly hung them in the Forum. But according to Plutarch, the Roman people \u201cbelieved they saw there not the face of Cicero, but the image of Antony\u2019s own soul\u201d.<\/p>\n

Julian Humphrys rounds up smaller anniversaries<\/h4>\n

7 December 909<\/h6>\n

After overthrowing the Sunni Aghlabid dynasty, Sa\u2019id ibn-Hussein was proclaimed Ubaydullah al-Mahdi (\u2018the divinely guided one\u2019) in Tunis. The founder of the Fatimid dynasty established an Ismailite (Shiite) caliphate.<\/p>\n

7 December 1598\u00a0<\/h6>\n

The birth in Naples of the Baroque sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. His masterpieces will include the Piazza of St Peter\u2019s in Rome and his marble sculpture of Apollo and Daphne, now in the Galleria Borghese.<\/p>\n

7 December 1732<\/h6>\n

The Royal Opera House opened at London\u2019s Covent Garden with a performance of Congreve\u2019s The Way of the World. Its history began in 1728 when John Rich, the actor\/manager at Lincoln\u2019s Inn Fields, commissioned The Beggar\u2019s Opera<\/em> from John Gay. The huge success of the venture provided the capital for the construction of the new theatre. The current Royal Opera House dates from 1858.<\/p>\n

7 December 1810<\/h6>\n

Physiologist Theodor Schwann was born in Neuss, Germany. Considered the father of modern histology, he identified the cell as the basic unit of animal structure and discovered the enzyme pepsin. He also coined the term metabolism.<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/div> <\/section>

7 December 1703: Fierce storms batter Britain<\/h3>\n

Thousands are killed as winds and floods devastate the nation<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

When Daniel Defoe got up on Friday, 7 December 1703, he noticed that it was extremely windy. He thought little of it until the evening, when he glanced at his barometer and spotted the \u201cMercury sunk lower than ever I had observ\u2019d it\u201d. At first Defoe thought that \u201cthe Tube had been handled and disturb\u2019d by the Children\u201d. He was wrong. That night, Britain was hit by one of the worst storms in its history. \u201cNo pen could describe it,\u201d he wrote, \u201cno tongue can express it, no thought conceive it unless some of those who were in the extremity of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

How many died will never be known, though some estimates suggest at least 8,000. In London, where the winds blew the lead roof off Westminster Abbey and destroyed perhaps 2,000 chimney stacks, Queen Anne<\/a> took refuge in the cellars of St James\u2019s Palace. In the Channel, more than a dozen Royal Navy ships were sunk with the loss of hundreds of lives. In the West Country, hundreds of windmills were destroyed and the region also saw hundreds drowned as the Somerset Levels flooded. Meanwhile, in Wells, the bishop and his wife were killed in their bed by a collapsing chimney.<\/p>\n

Defoe spent the night with his family, unable to sleep for the noise and terror. Alarmed that their own roof might come down, he opened the door to see if they might sneak to safety. But when he saw a blizzard of tiles outside, he decided it was better to risk death \u201cin the ruins of the house, rather than to meet most certain destruction in the open garden\u201d.<\/p>\n

He survived, of course, and turned his experience into his 1704 volume\u00a0The Storm<\/em>, which is often described as the first modern journalistic book. But like most people, he was deeply shaken. A few weeks later, the government declared a national day of fasting, since the storm was an obvious sign of \u201cdivine displeasure\u201d with England.<\/p>\n

7 December 1941: Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor<\/h3>\n

A surprise attack on its Pacific fleet brings the US into the Second World War<\/strong><\/p>\n

The clock had just ticked past five to eight in the morning when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor<\/a>. Tension between Tokyo and Washington had been building for weeks. Even so, none of the American airmen and sailors at Pearl Harbor that day had any expectation that Japan would strike with such devastating speed<\/p>\n

Some 353 Japanese planes descended in two thick black waves on the Hawaiian naval base. What followed was hell on earth. More than 2,400 Americans were killed, almost 200 aircraft were destroyed, four battleships were sunk and another four were badly damaged. Just two hours after they had screamed out of the sky, the Japanese were gone. They left a scene of total devastation, black smoke pouring from the wreckage of the ships<\/p>\n

In Washington, it was lunchtime. President Franklin D Roosevelt<\/a> was in the Oval Office, having lunch with his close adviser Harry Hopkins, when the phone rang. It was the Navy Department: Pearl Harbor was under attack, and this was no drill. While his aides scrambled to get confirmation, Roosevelt\u2019s wife Eleanor watched his face. It was clear, she said later that \u201cthe final blow had fallen and we had been attacked\u201d. Yet while others panicked, Roosevelt himself remained calm. After talking to his military advisers, he spoke on the phone to Winston Churchill, and said: \u201cWe are all in the same boat now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day, Roosevelt went to Congress to ask for a declaration of war. The American people, he assured them, would not rest until they had avenged the horror of 7 December 1941, \u201ca date which will live in infamy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Browse more On this day in history<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n