George Macaulay (1897–1940) played first-class cricket professionally for Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 1920 and 1935. He played in eight Test matches for England from 1923 to 1933, achieving the rare feat of taking a wicket with his first ball in Test cricket. One of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1924, he took 1,838 first-class wickets at an average of 17.64, including four hat-tricks. He was a leading member of his successful Yorkshire team and a volatile character who played aggressively. He left a job at a bank to become a professional cricketer, making his first-class debut aged 23 as a fast bowler, but he had more success after altering his style to include off spin. He played fewer Test matches after an unsuccessful match in the 1926 Ashes series. His form slumped following injuries in the late 1920s, but a recovery in the early 1930s led to a recall by England. His first-class career ended in 1935, although he continued playing club cricket until the Second World War. A pilot officer in the Royal Air Force, he died of illness on active service. ( Full article...)

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Estrella de Chile

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Roch Marc Christian Kaboré

• At least 29 workers die as a result of fire at the Azerbaijani Gunashli oilfield in the Caspian Sea.
• Flooding across southern India kills at least 300 people and displaces approximately 1.8 million others since November.
• Fourteen people are killed and twenty-one others injured in a shooting in San Bernardino, California.
• Roch Marc Christian Kaboré (pictured) is elected the first president of Burkina Faso since the 2014 Burkinabé uprising.
• Japan resumes whaling against the ruling of the International Court of Justice.

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December 7: Day of the Little Candles in Colombia; Armed Forces Flag Day in India; Pearl Harbor Day in the United States

Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

• 1815 – Michel Ney, Marshal of France, was executed by a firing squad near Paris' Jardin du Luxembourg for supporting Napoleon.
• 1869 – American outlaw Jesse James committed his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.
• 1941 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy made a surprise attack (pictured) on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, intending to neutralize the United States Pacific Fleet from influencing the war Japan was planning to wage in Southeast Asia.
• 1975 – The Indonesian military invaded East Timor under the pretext of anti-colonialism and began a 25-year occupation.
• 2005 – Spanish authorities captured Croatian Army general Ante Gotovina, who was wanted for war crimes committed during the Croatian War of Independence; he was eventually cleared of all charges.

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S. e. europaea

There are more than 20 subspecies of the Eurasian nuthatch, a small passerine bird found throughout temperate Asia and in Europe. The Eurasian nuthatch taxa can be divided into three main groups; the S. e. caesia group of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, the S. e. europaea group (pictured) of Scandinavia, Russia, Japan and northern China and the S. e. sinensis group of southern and eastern China and Taiwan. These may have been geographically isolated from each other until relatively recently. Birds of intermediate appearance occur where the group ranges overlap. The female is usually slightly duller than the male with a brown tint to the eyestripe and paler underparts, although the sexes are very similar in the S. e. sinensis group. The precise number of subspecies depends on how small differences between populations are evaluated. Given the similarities between geographical forms of the Eurasian nuthatch, subspecies boundaries are somewhat fluid, although less than half as many are recognised now as in 1967. ( Full list...)

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