November 25th
 

1867 ~ Alfred Nobel patented dynamite.

1913 ~ Birthday of Lewis Thomas, Physician & Essayist.

1940 ~ Woody Woodpecker first appeared in the film "Knock Knock"

1952 ~ Birthday of Imran Khan, Pakistani test cricketer.

1968 ~ Death of Upton Sinclair, Journalist, Politician, Writer.

1974 ~ Death of U Thant, Burmese UN Secretary-General.

1986 ~ The Iran-Contra affair became public knowledge.

1998 ~ The Turkish government led by PM Mesut Yilmaz collapsed after losing a no-confidence motion over corruption allegations.

1999 ~ Six-year-old Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez was rescued by a pair of sport fishermen off the coast of Florida.

2009 ~ The 2009 Saudi Arabian Floods

Somehow, after yesterday's news about Kerry and they planned easing of sanctions on Iran, the Iran-Contra affair doesn't seem like much of a deal. :(

The agreement won't last because without onshore enrichment, Iran still doesn't have energy security. I give it five months.

November 26th
 

1939 ~ Birthday of Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock & Roll.

1942 ~ President Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning in December.

1950 ~ Birthday of Honey Wilder, Porn Actress.

1968 ~ Cream played their farewell concert.

1977 ~ A hijacker named 'Vrillon', claiming to be the representative of the 'Ashtar Galactic Command', commandeered Britain's Southern Television for six minutes.

1981 ~ Death of Max Euwe, World Chess Master.

1983 ~ £25m in gold was stolen from a warehouse near Heathrow airport.

1985 ~ Death of Vivien Thomas, an interesting Surgeon.

2003 ~ Last ever flight by Concorde.

2008 ~ Ten coordinated attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists killed 164 and injured more than 250 people in Mumbai (Bombay), India.

November 27th
 

8 BC ~ Death of Horace, poet. Remembered for, among other things, “Carpe Diem” (seize the day).

1095 ~ Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont.

1895 ~ Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he died.

1942 ~ Birthday of Jimi Hendrix, musician.

1946 ~ Indian P.M. Jawaharlal Nehru appealed to the U.S. and the USSR to start nuclear disarmament, stating that such an action would "save humanity from the ultimate disaster".

India would later develop its indigenous nuclear WMD.

1973 ~ The U.S. Senate confirmed President-to-be Gerald Ford as vice president, succeeding Spiro Agnew, who'd resigned.

1978 ~ Birthday of Shy Love, Porn actress.

1979 ~ Birthday of Danielle Foxxx, Porn actress.

1979 ~ Birthday of Hilary Hahn, American violinist.

1990 ~ John Major followed Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of the UK.

November 28th
 

1811 ~ Beethoven's Piano Concerto #5, the "Emperor Concerto," premiered at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.

1943 ~ President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin met in Tehran during World War II.

1954 ~ Death of Enrico Fermi, Physicist.

1969 ~ The Rolling Stones released the classic album "Let It Bleed".

1969 ~ Birthday of Lexington Steele, Porn Actor.

1994 ~ Death of Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killer.

1994 ~ Death of Jerry Rubin, social activist.

1994 ~ Norway voted to reject membership in the European Union for the second time.

2000 ~ The eighth tar drop fell in the University of Queensland pitch drop experiment.

2013 ~ Comet c/2012 S1, populrly known as ISON, reaches perihelion, 1.2 million kilometres from the surface of the Sun.

November 29th
 

1832 ~ Birthday of Louisa May Alcott, Writer.

1890 ~ At West Point, New York, the U.S. Naval Academy defeated the U.S. Military Academy 24-0 in the first Army–Navy football game.

1898 ~ Birthday of C. S. Lewis, Writer.

1944 ~ The first surgery (on a human) to correct blue baby syndrome is performed by Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.

1947 ~ The UN passed a resolution calling for Palestine to be partitioned between Arabs and Jews.

1975 ~ The name "Micro-soft" (for "microcomputer software") is first used in a letter from Bill Gates to Paul Allen.

1981 ~ Death of Natalie Wood, Actress.

1986 ~ Death of Cary Grant, British-born American actor.

1990 ~ The UN Security Council passed Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing military intervention in Iraq if that nation did not withdraw its forces from Kuwait and free all foreign hostages by January 15, 1991.

2001 ~ Death of George Harrison, musician.

November 30th
 

1667 ~ Birthday of Jonathan Swift, Writer & Satirist.

1835 ~ Birthday of Mark Twain, Writer (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court).

1872 ~ First international soccer match played at Hamilton Crescent, Scotland.

1874 ~ Birthday of Sir Winston Churchill, British political leader & Writer.

1900 ~ Death of Oscar Wilde, Writer.

1936 ~ In London, the Crystal Palace was destroyed in a fire. It had been built for the 1851 Great Exhibition.

1939 ~ Soviet forces crossed the Finnish border in several places and bombed Helsinki and several other Finnish cities, starting the Winter War.

1994 ~ The burning Achille Lauro abandoned off east Africa.

1995 ~ President Clinton became the first U.S. chief executive to visit Northern Ireland.

1999 ~ The anti-globalization movement caught police unprepared and forced the cancellation of opening ceremonies of a WTO meeting.

December 1st
 

1083 ~ Birthday of Anna Comnena, Byzantine historian.

1824 ~ U.S. presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the House of Representatives was given the task to decide the winner, as stipulated by the Twelfth Amendment.

1835 ~ Hans Christian Andersen published his first book of fairy tales.

1954 ~ Birthday of Annette Haven, Porn actress.

1955 ~ Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white man and was arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws.

1959 ~ The Antarctic Treaty signed, which set aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and banned military activity.

1964 ~ Death of J. B. S. Haldane, Scottish geneticist.

1985 ~ Birthday of Chanel Preston, Porn Actress.

1990 ~ English and French Channel Tunnel workers met beneath the English Channel.

1991 ~ Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.

December 2nd
 

1814 ~ Death of Marquis de Sade, Writer.

1942 ~ Manhattan Project: A team led by Enrico Fermi initiate the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

1954 ~ Senator McCarthy was censured for conduct unbecoming to a senator.

1961 ~ Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was going to adopt Communism.

1981 ~ Birthday of Britney Spears, singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress.

1981 ~ Birthday of Isabella Soprano, Porn Actress.

1983 ~ Birthday of Sarah Vandella, Porn Actress.

1990 ~ Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot and killed in Medellín.

1991 ~ Apple release the first version of QuickTime.

2001 ~ Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

December 3rd
 

1815 ~ Death of John Carroll - First Roman Catholic Archbishop in the U.S.

1857 ~ Birthday of Joseph Conrad, Writer.

1894 ~ Death of Robert Louis Stevenson, Writer.

1919 ~ Death of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Painter.

1947 ~ ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' by Tennessee Williams opened on Broadway.

1967 ~ At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, Lewis Washkansky became the first human to receive a heart transplant. The transplant team was headed by Christiaan Barnard.

1984 ~ Bhopal Disaster: A leak from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killed nearly 3,000 people in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

1989 ~ Formal end of the Cold War.

1999 ~ NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander just before it entered the Martian atmosphere.

1999 ~ Death of Madeline Kahn, Actress & Comedian.

December 4th
 

1110 ~ The Crusaders captured Sidon.

1642 ~ Death of Cardinal Richelieu, French statesman.

1674 ~ Father Jacques Marquette founded a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan which would later grow into the city of Chicago, Illinois.

1679 ~ Death of Thomas Hobbes, political philosopher.

1849 ~ Birthday of Crazy Horse, American Indian leader.

1872 ~ The Mary Celeste was found by the British brig Dei Gratia. The ship had been abandoned for 9 days but was only slightly damaged.

1945 ~ The U.S. Senate approved United States participation in the United Nations.

1976 ~ Death of Benjamin Britten, Composer.

1980 ~ Led Zeppelin announced its breakup.

1981 ~ Birthday of Courtney Cummz, Porn actress.

December 5th
 

1791 ~ Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer.

1847 ~ Jefferson Davis was elected to the U.S. Senate.

1890 ~ Birthday of Fritz Lang, film director.

1901 ~ Birthday of Werner Heisenberg, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1932.

1926 ~ Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, debuted.

1933 ~ Prohibition ended: The Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. This overturned the 18th Amendment, which had outlawed the inter-state sale of alcohol.

1969 ~ Life Magazine reported the My Lai Massacre.

1995 ~ The Sri Lankan armed forces took Jaffna from the Tamil Tigers.

2006 ~ Death of David Bronstein, Ukrainian-born chess grandmaster.

2010 ~ Death of John Leslie, Porn Actor and filmmaker.

December 6th
 

1884 ~ The Thirteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, banning slavery, was ratified.

1889 ~ Death of Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America.

1917 ~ A munitions explosion killed more than 1,900 people and destroyed part of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

1920 ~ Birthday of Dave Brubeck, jazz musician.

1929 ~ Birthday of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Conductor.

1947 ~ Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Truman.

1957 ~ The first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite into Earth orbit, Vanguard TV3, was renamed 'Flopnik'.

1989 ~ Marc Lépine killed 14 women in Montreal, Quebec.

1992 ~ In Ayodhya, India, Hindus demolished the Babri Masjid, a 16th century mosque.

2002 ~ Death of Philip Berrigan, civil rights activist.

December 7th
 

1787 ~ Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1928 ~ Birthday of Noam Chomsky, Linguist.

1941 ~ The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into World War II.

1963 ~ Instant replay is used for the first time in a Army-Navy game.

1970 ~ Death of Rube Goldberg, best known for his cartoons depicting Rube Goldberg machines.

1971 ~ Birthday of Chasey Lain, Porn Actress.

1972 ~ Launch of Apollo 17, the last manned lunar landing mission.

1975 ~ Indonesia invaded East Timor.

1993 ~ Death of Wolfgang Paul, Physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1989.

2006 ~ A tornado struck Kensal Green, North West London.

December 8th
 

1864 ~ Death of George Boole, Mathematician.

1925 ~ Birthday of Sammy Davis Jr., Actor & Singer.

1939 ~ Birthday of James Galway, Irish flutist.

1941 ~ The U.S. entered World War II when Congress declared war against Japan.

1953 ~ President Eisenhower gave the "Atoms for Peace" speech.

1978 ~ Death of Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel.

1980 ~ Mark Chapman murdered former Beatle John Lennon.

1991 ~ Leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine signed an agreement ending the U.S.S.R. and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1993 ~ President Clinton signed U.S. participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

2010 ~ The Japanese solar-sail demonstration spacecraft IKAROS passed Venus at a distance of about 80,800 km.

December 9th
 

1608 ~ Birthday of John Milton, Poet & Writer.

1868 ~ Birthday of Fritz Haber, German chemist, Nobel prize winner in 1918.

1906 ~ Birthday of Grace Murray Hopper, American computer pioneer.

1961 ~ Tanganyika became independent from the UK.

1961 ~ Adolf Eichmann found guilty of war crimes in Israel.

1968 ~ First demonstration of the computer mouse.

1992 ~ Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation.

1993 ~ The Hubble Space Telescope was repaired by astronauts of STS-61.

2004 ~ Canada's Supreme Court ruled that homosexual marriage was constitutional.

2012 ~ Death of Riccardo Schicchi, Italian porn producer.

December 10th
 

1815 ~ Birthday of Ada Lovelace, first computer programmer.

1830 ~ Birthday of Emily Dickinson, Poet.

1896 ~ Death of Alfred Nobel, chemist, founder of the Nobel Prize.

1907 ~ President Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1941 ~ Japanese forces landed in the Philippines, captured Guam and sank the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse.

1948 ~ the U.N. General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

1953 ~ Dr. Albert Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1978 ~ Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

2002 ~ The High Court of Australia handed down its judgment in the internet defamation case of Gutnick v Dow Jones.

2005 ~ Death of Richard Pryor, comedian & actor.

December 11th
 

1725 ~ Birthday of George Mason, "Father of the Bill of Rights".

1803 ~ Birthday of Hector Berlioz, Composer.

1882 ~ Birthday of Max Born, physicist and 1954 Nobel laureate.

1931 ~ The Statute of Westminster gave legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Newfoundland.

1941 ~ Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.

1969 ~ Birthday of Vishwanathan Anand, former World Chess Champion.

1981 ~ Birthday of Nikki Benz, Porn Actress.

1994 ~ Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troops into Chechnya.

1997 ~ The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was made available for signature.

2001 ~ The People's Republic of China joined the World Trade Organization.

December 12th
 

1531 ~ Apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City.

1911 ~ The capital of India moved from Calcutta to New Delhi.

1927 ~ Birthday of Robert Noyce, one of the men credited with the invention of the integrated circuit.

1963 ~ Kenya gained its independence from the UK. Uhuru!

1967 ~ Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones avoided a prison term for narcotics.

1979 ~ Rhodesia changed its name to Zimbabwe.

1999 ~ Death of Joseph Heller, Author.

2000 ~ The U.S.Supreme Court released its decision in Bush v. Gore.

2006 ~ Death of Peter Boyle, Actor.

2006 ~ Death of Al Shugart, Computer engineer and co-founder of Seagate Technology.

December 13th
 

1642 ~ Abel Janszoon Tasman reached New Zealand.

1784 ~ Death of Samuel Johnson, Essayist.

1818 ~ Birthday of Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady.

1939 ~ The Admiral Graf Spee engaged Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles in the Battle of the River Plate.

1945 ~ Execution of Irma Grese, Nazi war criminal.

1972 ~ Eugene Cernan & Harrison Schmitt begin the third and final EVA of Apollo 17. They are, to date, the last men to walk on the Moon.

1981 ~ Martial law imposed in Poland to try to control the Solidarity labor movement.

1996 ~ Kofi Annan elected as Secretary-General of the United Nations.

2002 ~ Death of Zal Yanovsky, Canadian musician (The Lovin' Spoonful).

2003 ~ Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured near Tikrit.

December 14th
 

1546 ~ Birthday of Tycho Brahe, Astronomer.

1900 ~ Max Planck published his study of the quantum theory.

1911 ~ First expedition reached the South Pole, led by Roald Amundsen.

1939 ~ The USSR was expelled from the League of Nations.

1946 ~ The United Nations General Assembly voted to establish the U.N. headquarters in New York City.

1962 ~ Birthday of Ginger Lynn Allen, Porn Actress.

1981 ~ Israel annexed the Golan Heights.

1985 ~ Death of Roger Maris, NYY Home Run King.

1989 ~ Death of Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist, awarded the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize.

1995 ~ The Dayton Agreement was signed in Paris to end the Yugoslav wars.

December 15th
 

1791 ~ The U.S. Bill of Rights ratified.

1890 ~ Death of Sitting Bull, leader of Lakota tribe.

1916 ~ France defeated Germany in Battle of Verdun.

1916 ~ Birthday of Maurice Wilkins, New Zealand-born physicist, co-recipient of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his contribution to the elucidation of the structure of DNA.

1958 ~ Death of Wolfgang Pauli, Physicist.

1961 ~ An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentenced Adolph Eichmann to death.

1966 ~ Death of Walt Disney, Animator & Cartoonist.

1982 ~ Spain reopened the border with Gibraltar.

1991 ~ Death of Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev, Soviet sniper.

1994 ~ Netscape Navigator 1.0 first released.

1689 ~ The English Bill of Rights adopted.

1770 ~ Birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer.

1775 ~ Birthday of Jane Austen, Writer.

1893 ~ World premiere of Antonin Dvorak's "New World Symphony".

1901 ~ Birthday of Margaret Mead, Anthropologist.

1917 ~ Birthday of Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Science Fiction Writer.

1944 ~ The Battle of the Bulge began.

1944 ~ A V-2 rocket hit the Rex Cinema in Antwerp killing 567 people.

1950 ~ President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight “Communist imperialism”.

1998 ~ President Clinton ordered a sustained series of air strikes against Iraq by American and British forces in response to Saddam Hussein's continued defiance of UN weapons inspectors.

2007 ~ Death of Dan Fogelberg, Singer & Songwriter.

December 17th
 

1778 ~ Birthday of Sir Humphry Davy, English chemist & physicist.

1830 ~ Death of Simón Bolívar, South American Liberator.

1843 ~ A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, was first published.

1903 ~ The first controlled, powered heavier-than-air flight occurred when the Wright brothers took to the air, both of them twice at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1961 ~ India seized Goa from Portugal.

1969 ~ The USAF, in closing Project Blue Book, announced that its UFO investigations found no evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft.

1976 ~ Birthday of Zsanett Égerházi, Hungarian-born Porn Actress.

1979 ~ Birthday of Jaimee Foxworth, mainstrean & Porn Actress.

1982 ~ ”Tootsie” opened in theaters.

1989 ~ The pilot episode of The Simpsons aired.

December 18th
 

1737 ~ Death of Antonio Stradivari, Italian violin maker.

1786 ~ Birthday of Carl Maria von Weber, Composer.

1912 ~ Official presentation of the discovery of Piltdown Man.

1936 ~ Death of Andrija Mohorovičić, Croatian seismologist.

1957 ~ The first U.S. civilian nuclear facility to generate electricity went online.

1989 ~ The British Labour Party under Neil Kinnock dropped its policy on trade union closed shops.

1996 ~ "Ebonics" was declared a language or dialect by the outgoing school board of Oakland, California, whose vote was overturned by the incoming board. The Clinton administration declared "black English" a form of slang that did not belong in the classroom.

2002 ~ California Governor Grey Davis announced that the state would face a budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier. The budget issue was used to support his 2003 recall from office.

2006 ~ Death of Joseph Barbera, of Hanna-Barbera, creators of The Flintstones, The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs, and Yogi Bear.

2010 ~ Governmental protests begin in Tunisia, which brought about the Arab Spring!

December 19th
 

1733 ~ Benjamin Franklin first published Poor Richard's Almanack.

1848 ~ Death of Emily Brontë, Author.

1888 ~ Birthday of Fritz Reiner, Conductor.

1906 ~ Birthday of Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet politician.

1971 ~ Birthday of Tiffany Towers, Porn Actress.

1979 ~ ”Kramer vs. Kramer”, starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, opened in theaters.

1984 ~ The UK and People's Republic of China signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which returned Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

1997 ~ "Titanic" the highest-grossing movie of all-time, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, opened in theaters.

1988 ~ The House of Representatives passed articles of impeachment against President Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.

2003 ~ Libya announced that it would begin to destroy its weapons of mass destruction.

December 20th
 

1833 ~ Birthday of Samuel Mudd, physician, convicted conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

1860 ~ South Carolina became the first state to secede from the US.

1951 ~ Birthday of Joey Silvera, Porn Actor and director.

1968 ~ Death of John Steinbeck, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1962.

1989 ~ American troops invaded Panama to remove dictator Manuel Noriega.

1991 ~ Paul Keating became the 24th Prime Minister of Australia.

1995 ~ IFOR (Implementation Force), a NATO-led multinational force, began peacekeeping in Bosnia. The task of IFOR was transfered to SFOR (Stabilisation Force) on 21-DEC-96, and transfered to EUFOR on 02-DEC-05.

1996 ~ Death of Carl Sagan, Astronomer & Writer.

1999 ~ Vermont's Supreme Court ruled that homosexual couples are entitled to the same benefits and protections as married heterosexual couples.

1999 ~ Macau was returned to the People's Republic of China by Portugal.

December 21st
 

1898 ~ Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium.

1913 ~ The first crossword puzzle was published, in the New York World.

1918 ~ Birthday of Kurt Waldheim, U.N. Secretary-General & Federal President of Austria.

1937 ~ Premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world's first full-length animated feature.

1940 ~ Death of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Writer.

1945 ~ Death of George S. Patton, U.S. General.

1958 ~ Charles de Gaulle became the first leader of the Fifth Republic.

1979 ~ Apollo 8 was launched on a mission to orbit the moon.

1988 ~ A terrorist bomb exploded in Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland killing 270, including 11 on the ground.

1990 ~ Death of Clarence Johnson, Aeronautical engineer, led the design of the Lockheed U-2 and Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.

December 22nd
 

1858 ~ Birthday of Giacomo Puccini, Composer.

1864 ~ Savannah, Georgia fell to the Union army of General Sherman.

1942 ~ Adolf Hitler signed the order to develop the V-2 (Vergeltungswaffe 2)rocket as a weapon.

1944 ~ Battle of the Bulge – German troops under the command of General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz demand the surrender of U.S. troops at Bastogne, Belgium, prompting the famous one word reply by General Anthony McAuliffe: "Nuts!"

1949 ~ Birthday of Maurice & Robin Gibb, English musicianS (The Bee Gees) .

1989 ~ Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opened, ending the division of East and West Germany.

1989 ~ Death of Samuel Beckett, Irish author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate.

2001 ~ The Afghan Northern Alliance, handed over power in Afghanistan to the government headed by President Hamid Karzai.

2001 ~ Richard Reid tried to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes.

2001 ~ Cc the cat, the first cloned pet, was born.

December 23rd
 

1783 ~ George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.

1790 ~ Birthday of Jean François Champollion, Egyptologist. He deciphered the Rosetta Stone.

1823 ~ “A Visit From St. Nicholas”, by Clement Clarke Moore, was first published.

1834 ~ Death of Thomas Malthus, Demographer and Economist.

1947 ~ The transistor was first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.

1953 ~ Death of Lavrenty Beria, Soviet Communist leader.

1956 ~ British and French forces withdrawn from Suez, Egypt.

1975 ~ Birthday of Sky Lopez, Porn Actress.

1986 ~ Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, around-the-world flight without refueling.


Feastdays & Holidays

Fans of Seinfeld - Festivus (for the restofus) held.

December 24th
 

1818 ~ "Silent Night" composed by Franz Xaver Gruber.

1873 ~ Death of Johns Hopkins, Baltimore philanthropist and businessman.

1910 ~ Birthday of Fritz Leiber, Science Fiction writer.

1914 ~ World War I: The "Christmas truce" begins.

1914 ~ Death of John Muir, Naturalist.

1951 ~ Gian Carlo Menotti's "Amahl and the Night Visitors", the first opera written specifically for TV, was first broadcast

1957 ~ Birthday of Hamid Karzai, first democratically elected President of Afghanistan.

1968 ~ The Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve TV broadcast.

1974 ~ Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin, Australia.

1992 ~ President Bush pardoned 6 people involved in the Iran-Contra scandal.

December 25th
 

800 ~ Coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome.

1066 ~ Coronation of William the Conqueror as king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London.

1223 ~ Saint Francis of Assisi assembled the first Nativity scene.

1868 ~ President Johnson granted unconditional pardon to all Civil War Confederate soldiers.

1938 ~ Birthday of Karel Čapek, Czech author, inventor of the word robot.

1974 ~ Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin, Northern Territory Australia.

1977 ~ Death of Charlie Chaplin, Entertainer.

1977 ~ Birthday of Priya Rai, Porn Actress.

1989 ~ Death of Nicolae Ceauşescu, Romanian dictator (executed).

1991 ~ Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on TV to announce his resignation as the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day).


Feastdays & Holidays

The Nativity of Jesus.

December 26th
 

1610 ~ Elizabeth Bathory's crimes were uncovered.

1791 ~ Birthday of Charles Babbage, Mathematician and designer of computing machines.

1890 ~ Death of Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist.

1893 ~ Birthday of Mao Zedong, Chinese Politician.

1941 ~ Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

1948 ~ Cardinal Mindszenty arrested in Hungary.

1957 ~ Birthday of Mike South, Porn Actor and Director.

1966 ~ The first Kwanzaa was celebrated.

1991 ~ Supreme Soviet meets and formally dissolved the USSR.

2004 ~ A tsunami triggered by an earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean left more than 216,000 people dead or missing, mostly in southern Asia.

Feastdays & Holidays

Boxing Day.

December 27th
 

1571 ~ Birthday of Johannes Kepler, astronomer.

1822 ~ Birthday of Louis Pasteur, Scientist.

1831 ~ Charles Darwin embarked on his journey aboard the HMS Beagle.

1871 ~ The world's first cat show was held at the Crystal Palace in London.

1932 ~ Radio City Music Hall opened in New York City.

1945 ~ The World Bank was created with an agreement signed by 28 nations.

1945 ~ Queen Juliana of the Netherlands granted Indonesia sovereignty.

1979 ~ The Soviet Union invaded the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

1985 ~ Naturalist Dian Fossey was found murdered in Rwanda.

2001 ~ The U.S. announced plans to hold Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

December 28th
 

1065 ~ Westminster Abbey consecrated.

1869 ~ William F. Semple patented chewing gum.

1895 ~ The Lumiere Brothers gave birth to Cinema at the Grand Cafe in Paris.

1937 ~ Death of Maurice Ravel, French composer.

1951 ~ The Peak District became the UK’s first National Park.

1969 ~ Birthday of Linus Torvalds, Benevolent Dictator for Life of Linux.

1970 ~ Birthday of Francesca Le, Porn Actress.

1973 ~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn published Gulag Archipelago.

1989 ~ Death of Hermann Oberth, German physicist.

2010 ~ The Arab Spring began with popular protests begin in Algeria against the government.

December 29th
 

1170 ~ Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered by knights acting under the orders of Henry II.

1851 ~ The first Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in the U.S. opened in Boston.

1890 ~ Defeat at the Battle of Wounded Knee effectively ended American Indian resistance to European settlement of the U.S.

1916 ~ Death of Grigori Rasputin, Russian monk.

1937 ~ The Constitution of Ireland, changing the Irish Free State into Eire, went into effect.

1940 ~ The Luftwaffe began dropping incendiary bombs on London.

1951 ~ Birthday of Stanley Tookie Williams, Gang Leader, Author, & Racist Murderer.

1975 ~ The UK's Sex Discrimination Act went into effect.

1845 ~ Birthday of Alexis Amore, Peruvian Porn Actress.

1989 ~ Vaclav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia.

December 30th
 

1853 ~ The U.S. bought 45,000 sq miles of land from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase.

1879 ~ The Pirates of Penzance was first performed.

1911 ~ Sun Yat-sen was elected the first president of the Republic of China.

1922 ~ The Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formed by the confederation of Russia, Byelorussia, Ukraine, and Transcaucasian Federation.

1924 ~ Edwin Hubble announced the existence of other galaxies.

1937 ~ Birthday of Gordon Banks, the best Goalkeeper ever.

1973 ~ Birthday of Nacho Vidal, Spanish Porn Actor.

1981 ~ Birthday of Haley Paige, Porn Actress.

1993 ~ Israel and the Vatican established diplomatic relations.

2006 ~ Saddam Hussein hanged for crimes committed during his brutal reign.

December 31st
 

1879 ~ Thomas Edison gave the first public demonstration of an electric incandescent lamp.

1880 ~ Birthday of George Marshall, U.S. Secretary of State, recipient of 1953 Nobel Peace Prize.

1937 ~ Birthday of Sir Anthony Hopkins, Actor.

1943 ~ Birthday of Sir Ben Kingsley, Actor.

1960 ~ The farthing coin ceased to be legal tender.

1964 ~ One of my boyhood heroes, Donald Campbell set the world water speed record, the only man to set both the world land and water speed records in the same year.

1980 ~ Death of Marshall McLuhan, Canadian writer.

1995 ~ The last new Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip was published.

1999 ~ Control of the Panama Canal and the Panama Canal Zone passed to Panama from the U.S.A.

1999 ~ Russian President Boris Yeltsin resigned. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was designated acting president.

I have one of these coins. They were legal tender in Oz, but the numbers in circulation were so low that we used the Brit coin. It was not cost-effective to mint our own. I can't remember how mine came into my possession.