How many days and weeks until December 7th?

On December 7th 1941 Japanese aircraft attacked the American Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor, sinking or damaging most of it and killing more than two thousand four hundred servicemen. Because of the time difference the news reached Britain that evening. Churchill heard it on a portable wireless at Chequers, telephoned Roosevelt to confirm it, and put the declaration of war on Japan in hand at once. He wrote afterwards that he went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.

Apollo 17 lifted off from Florida on December 7th 1972, the only night launch of a Saturn V; the light was reported as far away as North Carolina. Hours later, on the way out, one of the crew took the photograph of the whole illuminated Earth that became known as the Blue Marble.

The Theatre Royal opened in Covent Garden on December 7th 1732 with Congreve’s The Way of the World, its manager John Rich carried in over the heads of his own actors. That building burned down in 1808, and its replacement in 1856. The third is the Royal Opera House.

By his own account Tom Waits, the singer-songwriter known for his gravelly voice and beat-inflected lyrics, arrived in the back of a taxi outside the hospital rather than inside it, on December 7th 1949 in Pomona, California. Noam Chomsky, the linguist who transformed the study of grammar, was born in Philadelphia on the same day in 1928.

Born on December 7th: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

Tom Waits and Noam Chomsky — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a December 7th birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — turquoise or lapis lazuli for the stone, Sagittarius for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

December birthstone necklace

A simple pendant in the actual December birthstone colour, from a long-running UK jewellery brand.

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Sagittarius constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Sagittarius for a December 7th birthday.

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Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the December birthstone and the narcissus or holly — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

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Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on December 7th, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

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