Milestones: December 7, 2023

December 7, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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‘DAY OF INFAMY’ — A JAPANESE DIVE BOMBER APPEARED SUDDENLY OVER THE U.S. MILITARY BASE AT PEARL HARBOR IN HAWAII, ON SUNDAY, DEC. 7, 1941. The bomber led a massive fleet of 360 warplanes in a surprise attack that dragged the United States into World War II. The attack, which happened at 7:55 a.m. local time, struck a critical blow against the U.S. Pacific fleet and killed 2,403 people, according to the National WWII Museum and Census Bureau. The Navy suffered the largest number of casualties with 2,008 servicemen killed. The Army and Marines also suffered casualties. Moreover, 68 civilians died in the attack. The following day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, addressing a joint session of Congress, declared, “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” Roosevelt urged Congress to approve the resolution declaring war against Japan, which passed unanimously in the Senate with 82 votes and by 388-1 in the House.

The lone dissenting vote was from Rep. Jeannette Rankin of Montana, a devout pacifist, who had also voted against the U.S. entry into World War I.

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SOMBER CHURCH MERGER — THE SAME DAY OF THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK, BUT ON THE U.S. EAST COAST IN BROOKLYN, two Roman Catholic parishes in South Brooklyn (now known as Carroll Gardens) were preparing to merge. Given the six-hour time zone difference between Hawaii and New York City, at the time Mass and a procession started between the two churches, the tragedy at Pearl Harbor had not yet unfolded. The pastor at Sacred Hearts, Father Arsenio Caprio, helped guide the Italian-American community through the integration of the parishes, Sacred Hearts Church and St. Stephen’s Church. A final Mass to close Sacred Hearts of Jesus & Mary Church was said on Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, as the building at Hicks St. and DeGraw St. was being demolished for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway construction. After Mass, parishioners of both churches walked in a grand but somber procession to their new spiritual home at Hicks and Summit Streets, carrying statues of the Italian patron saints.

That church, which sits on the northeast side of Hicks and Summit, alongside the BQE trough, survived the freeway’s construction. Father Arsenio Caprio was instrumental in making the physical upgrades to the new combined parish.

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FIRST TO RATIFY CONSTITUTION — DELAWARE BECAME THE FIRST OFFICIAL U.S. STATE AFTER RATIFYING THE CONSTITUTION ON DEC. 7, 1787. All 30 delegates at the Delaware Constitutional Convention voted to ratify the Constitution. Four months earlier, 37 of the original 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia had signed the document that would define the nation. The Constitution took effect when nine of the original 13 colonies ratified it. New Hampshire was that ninth state, on June 21, 1788. Federal democracy and the Constitution took effect on March 4, 1789.

Three months later, future U.S. President James Madison proposed a Bill of Rights, even though he had originally been opposed to amending the Constitution. Three years later, enough states had ratified the Bill of Rights that it also became enshrined law, guaranteeing citizens the rights of free speech, the press, religious worship, and protection of their homes against search and seizure, among others.

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EAST TIMOR’S FIGHT — INDONESIAN FORCES WAGED A MASSIVE EARLY-MORNING INVASION OF THE ISLAND OF TIMOR’S EASTERN SECTION, EAST TIMOR, ON DEC. 7, 1975, on the 34th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack in Hawaii. The island’s eastern half, called East Timor, had been Portuguese-run, but that nation departed four months earlier. A new, democratically-elected government, sensing and fearing a military takeover from Indonesia, declared their nation to be the Democratic Republic of East Timor. The Indonesian military responded with a naval bombardment on December 7, followed by a second invasion on December 10. Although the people of East Timor put up a resistance, more than 100,000 died in the conflict, mostly civilians. However, small East Timorese guerrilla fighters kept up the resistance for decades.

Finally, Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo worked to win true independence for East Timor in 1996 and were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Five years later, in August 2001, East Timor held its first democratic elections to establish an autonomous government.

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THE SPITAK COMPILATION — ARMENIA, A LAND-LOCKED FORMER SOVIET REPUBLIC, SUFFERED TWO EARTHQUAKES ON DEC. 7, 1988, which killed 60,000 people and destroyed nearly half a million buildings. The two strong tremors began only minutes apart, measuring 6.9 and 5.8 in magnitude, respectively and felt as far away as the country’s neighbors, Georgia to the north, Turkey to the west and Iran to the south. According to the US Geological Survey, in Armenia, the Arabian plate abuts against the Eurasian (Europe-Asia) plate. The first, more powerful, earthquake hit three miles from Spitak, a city of about 30,000, The epicenter was shallow, which accounts in part for the terrible destruction. Scientists and officials later found an eight-mile rupture of the earth Spitak, most of which buildings were poorly built, and suffered almost complete destruction. Armenia’s struggle to respond was worsened by the Soviet government’s delayed permission for rescue workers to enter the area, and they were actually expelled from the disaster zone.

In response to the 1988 disaster, The Spitak Earthquake compilation was developed as a cooperative effort between centers in Russia and the United States — is to provide seismologists around the world with a complete set of data on the Armenian earthquakes, information that includes text and visuals, making this the first database that contains a complete, integrated description of a catastrophic earthquake.

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MUSIC CAREER STARTED IN BROOKLYN — A LEGENDARY SINGER-SONGWRITER WHOSE START BEGAN AT GRACE CHURCH IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, WAS BORN ON DEC. 7, 1942, just a year after Pearl Harbor. Amid a family upheaval in his youth, Harry Chapin wound up at Grace Church; and he and his brothers Tom and Steve sang in the Men and Boys’ Choir under the director of longtime organist and choir mistress Anne Versteeg McKittrick. Harry later recounted in a memoir that “the summer of ’57 brought two gigantic discoveries, girls and guitars.” In 1958, the Chapin Brothers went public with their band, and were able to snag “$20 gigs at neighborhood parties, band breaks and society dances.” Harry Chapin was one of only five songwriters to receive the Special Congressional Gold Medal, for his devotion to the issue of alleviating hunger worldwide. His song, about a father and son, became a number one hit, “Cat’s in the Cradle.” He also wrote “Taxi,” about a chance reunion with a former sweetheart.

Chapin was killed in a car collision on the Long Island Expressway on July 16, 1981. According to some news reports, he already knew he had an emergency — whether medical or vehicular — when he activated the Volkswagen’s hazard lights, decelerated and then swerved violently before colliding with a tractor-trailer.

See previous milestones, here.