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On This Day | December 7

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2017
The Marina 101 was completed

Marina 101 is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, located in the Dubai Marina district. Standing 101 stories high and 425 m (1,394 ft) tall, it is the second tallest building in the United Arab Emirates, behind only the Burj Khalifa. As of 2022, Marina 101 is also the 32nd-tallest building in the world.

2017
The Federation Tower (East Tower) was completed

The Federation Tower is a complex of two skyscrapers built on the 13th lot of the Moscow International Business Center in Moscow, Russia. The two skyscrapers are named Tower East or Vostok and Tower West or Zapad. The supertall skyscraper Tower East (Vostok) is currently the second-tallest skyscraper in Europe and Russia after the Lakhta Center, the tallest building in Moscow, and the 55th-tallest building in the world, standing 374 meters (1,227 feet) high.

1988
1988 Armenian earthquake

The 1988 Armenian earthquake, also known as the Spitak earthquake had a surface wave magnitude of 6.8 and a maximum MSK intensity of X (Devastating). The shock occurred in the northern region of Armenia, which is vulnerable to large and destructive earthquakes and is part of a larger active seismic belt that stretches from the Alps to the Himalayas. Activity in the area is associated with tectonic plate boundary interaction and the source of the event was slip on a thrust fault just to the north of Spitak. The complex incident ruptured multiple faults, with a strike-slip event occurring shortly after the initiation of the mainshock. Between 25,000 and 50,000 were killed and up to 130,000 were injured.

1944
1944 Tonankai earthquake

The 1944 Tonankai earthquake had an estimated magnitude of 8.1 on the moment magnitude scale (making it the strongest known earthquake of 1944) and a maximum felt intensity of greater than 5 Shindo (about VIII (Severe) on the Mercalli intensity scale). It triggered a large tsunami that caused serious damage along the coast of Wakayama Prefecture and the Tokai region. Together, the earthquake and tsunami caused 3,358 casualties.

1894
Ferdinand de Lesseps died

Ferdinand Marie, Comte de Lesseps was a French diplomat and later developer of the Suez Canal, which in 1869 joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, substantially reducing sailing distances and times between Europe and East Asia. He attempted to repeat this success with an effort to build a Panama Canal at sea level during the 1880s, but the project was devastated by epidemics of malaria and yellow fever in the area, as well as beset by financial problems, and the planned Lesseps Panama Canal was never completed. Eventually, the project was bought out by the United States, which solved the medical problems and changed the design to a non-sea level canal with locks. It was completed in 1914.

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