Sometimes dates can be used for sending signals. For example, on 7 December 1902 Germany and Great Britain instituted their “peaceful blockade” of Venezuela. On 7 December 1917, the U.S. Navy merged with the British Navy to fight Germany. On 7 December 1941, the Japanese simultaneously attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor and the British in Hong Kong and Singapore. Does this date hold a special significance for Great Britain, the United States and Japan? Or was it just a simple coincidence three times?

The Venezuelan Crisis of 1902–1903 threatened to pit the United States and Great Britain against each other. Venezuela's European creditors were firm in their demands that President Castro pay off Venezuela's mounting foreign debts. Several European nations sent their fleets, and on 25 November 1902 Germany and Great Britain formally announced their intention to implement a “pacific” blockade of Venezuela. It was widely assumed that such an action might result in foreign domination of Venezuela.

President Theodore Roosevelt opposed this action as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine, and the U.S. Navy's “winter exercise” of 1902–1903 was timed to correspond exactly with this German-British threat. The blockade was declared on 7 December 1902, and for “eleven days, between 8 December and 18 December 1902, the future of U.S., British, German, and Venezuelan relations hung in the balance as Theodore Roosevelt discreetly pursued diplomatic negotiations between Venezuela and the two great European powers.”

The U.S. Navy was able to mobilize 53 ships to counter the 29 ships available to Britain and Germany in the Caribbean. War appeared more and more likely. On 16 December 1902, Parliament convened to debate the situation in Venezuela and the strains it was placing on Britain's relationship with America. Outnumbered and outgunned, on 17 December 1902, the two European nations conceded defeat, lifted the blockade and agreed to arbitrate the matter with Venezuela instead.

Great Britain's decision to back down had another, albeit unintended, result. The British Colonial Office drafted a secret memorandum raising questions about the defensibility of British possessions in the western Atlantic in the event of a conflict with the United States. The Admiralty response acknowledged that the United States would be in a position to “stop our supplies from Canada” and to secure all food imports from the United States itself, effectively cutting off two-thirds of Great Britain's food supply.