December 7

Today is Pearl Harbor Day. 1905: Gerard Kuiper, who discovered Miranda, a moon of Uranus, and Nereid, a moon of Neptune, and after whom the Kuiper Belt is named, was born. 1909: Leo Baekeland  was awarded a patent for Bakelite, which was the forerunner to today's synthetic plastics. 1934: Wiley Post was credited with discovering the jet stream when he flew into the stratosphere over Bartlesville, OK. On December 7th, 1941, Japanese forces attacked American and British territories and possessions in the Pacific, including the home base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, thus launching America into World War II. Today, America and Japan are the staunchest of allies. 1960: Walter Noddack, discoverer of the element rhenium (Re, 75), died. 1970: Rube Goldberg, famous for his drawings of Mouse Trap-like contraptions, died. 1972: The Apollo 17 crew blasted off on the last manned mission to the moon, and Eugene Cernan became the last human to step foot on the moon. 1977: Peter Goldmark, who developed the first color commercial television system as well as the 33-1/3 LP phonograph record, died. 2003: Japan abandoned its first Martian probe after a five year journey.