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🌟 Editor's Note
Good morning — it’s Sunday, December 7. Today we're covering Cicero's death, Pearl Harbor, the first Star Trek movie, and the first lethal injection execution, and much more—fast-paced, thrilling, and full of fascinating facts.
Plus, if you think Mona Lisa has always been famous, read our Strange Times story today.
Love Flashback? Please support us and help keep history fascinating every day.
Invite your friend to join you on this daily journey — good karma. 💌
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— Fatih Taskiran, Editor
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🚀 Time Machine
-43BC
Marcus Tullius Cicero was assassinated in Formiae by soldiers under Mark Antony.
-1787
Delaware ratified the US Constitution with 30 delegates, becoming the first state in the modern United States.
-1909
Inventor Leo Baekeland patents Bakelite, the first thermosetting plastic, kicking off the plastics industry.
-1941
The Imperial Japanese Navy, with 360 planes, attacked the US fleet at Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii, killing 2,403 people. The surprise attack brought the United States irrevocably into World War II.
-1956
Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I and Pope Paul VI lifted the mutual excommunications from the 1054 Great Schism.
-1975
In the morning, Indonesian forces invade the former Portuguese half of Timor, near Australia.
-1979
"Star Trek: The Motion Picture", the first movie in the series, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, premiered.
-1982
The first lethal injection execution takes place in Huntsville, Texas, when Charles Brooks Jr. is injected with sodium pentathol.
-1988
The PLO delegation led by Yasser Arafat proclaims the State of Palestine, recognizing Israel's existence for the first time.
-2017
Cristiano Ronaldo wins the Ballon d'Or for the fifth time, matching Lionel Messi's record.
📸 Snapshot
Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Whitney Museum, New York City, 1976
🗨️ Final Words
“Thy will be done.“
🤯 Strange Times
Stolen Smile - The theft that made Mona Lisa immortal.
Monday, August 21, 1911: The Louvre is closed, the guards are relaxed, and an Italian handyman named Vincenzo Peruggia slips Mona Lisa out of her frame, tucks it under a white worker's smock, and walks into Paris daylight. Until anyone notices the blank spot on the wall, the world's greatest face is hiding in a trunk across town—and the police are grilling Picasso and Apollinaire to look busy.
Two years later, Peruggia tries to “return” La Gioconda to Italy, pitching a Florence dealer and the Uffizi on a patriotic homecoming. They authenticate it; the cops collect him. After a brief sentence and a triumphant Italian tour, Mona Lisa goes back to Paris in early 1914—now a celebrity. Irony, framed: the theft did more for her fame than four centuries of quiet smiles.