|
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. 1901 ~ Birthday of Robert Van de Graaff, Physicist & Inventor. 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
1804 ~ Birthday of Benjamin Disraeli, Politician & Writer.
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. 1940 ~ Death of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Writer. 1942 ~ Birthday of Hu Jintao, Chinese president. 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. |
December 22nd
1858 ~ Birthday of Giacomo Puccini, Composer.
1864 ~ Savannah, Georgia fell to the Union army of General Sherman. 1880 ~ Death of George Eliot, Writer. 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!" 1989 ~ Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opened, ending the division of East and West Germany. 1975 ~ Birthday of Crissy Moran, former Porn Actress. 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
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. 1888 ~ Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear. 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. 1972 ~ Death of Andrei Tupolev, Soviet aircraft designer. 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. 1821 ~ Birthday of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross. 1868 ~ President Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War Confederate soldiers. 1938 ~ Birthday of Karel Čapek, Czech author, inventor of the word robot. 1977 ~ Deathof Charlie Chaplin, Entertainer. 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). 2000 ~ Death of Willard Van Orman Quine, American philosopher. 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. 1792 ~ Final trial of Louis XVI of France began. 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. 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. 1904 ~ James Barrie's play Peter Pan premiered in London. 1932 ~ Radio City Music Hall opened in New York City. 1945 ~ The World Bank and International Monetary Fund were created with an agreement signed by 28 nations. 1945 ~ Queen Juliana of the Netherlands granted Indonesia sovereignty. 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. 2007 ~ Riots erupted in Mombasa, Kenya, after Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential election. |
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 ~ Popular protests begin in Algeria against the government. The Arab Spring had begun. |
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. 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. 1986 ~ Death of Harold Macmillan, UK PM. 1989 ~ Vaclav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia. |
December 30th
1853 ~ The U.S. bought some 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
404 ~ The last gladiatorial contest took place in Rome.
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. 1943 ~ Birthday of John Denver, Singer & Songwriter. 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. |
January 1st
1752 ~ Birthday of Betsy Ross, American seamstress.
1801 ~ Discovery of 1 Ceres, first known asteroid. 1879 ~ Birthday of E. M. Forster, English novelist. 1895 ~ Birthday of J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director. 1901 ~ Establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia (Federation). 1983 ~ The ARPANET officially changed to use the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet. 1985 ~ The Internet's Domain Name System created. 1995 ~ The World Trade Organization came into existence. 1997 ~ Kofi Annan was appointed Secretary General of the United Nations. 2002 ~ Euro banknotes and coins became legal tender. |
January 2nd
1727 ~ Birthday of James Wolfe, British general in French and Indian War.
1872 ~ Brigham Young was arrested for bigamy (25 wives). 1882 ~ John D. Rockefeller united his oil holdings into the Standard Oil trust. 1904 ~ Death of James Longstreet, Confederate general. 1905 ~ The Russian fleet surrender at Port Arthur, China brought the Russo-Japanese War to a close. 1920 ~ Birthday of Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American science fiction author. 1929 ~ Canada and the United States agreed on a plan to preserve Niagara Falls. 1974 ~ President Nixon signed a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH. 1994 ~ Death of Dixy Lee Ray, governor of Washington State & chaired the Atomic Energy Commission. 1996 ~ U.S. peacekeepers arrive in Bosnia. |
January 3rd
106 BC ~ Birthday of Cicero, Roman Statesman & Philosopher.
1521 ~ Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther. 1777 ~ General George Washington defeated General Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton. 1795 ~ Birthday of Josiah Wedgwood, British potter. 1861 ~ Delaware voted to not secede from the United States. 1892 ~ Birthday of J. R. R. Tolkien, South African-born Writer & Philologist. 1956 ~ Birthday of Mel Gibson, Australian Actor & Director. 1979 ~ Death of Conrad Hilton, American hotelier. 1959 ~ Alaska was admitted as the 49th U.S. state. 1993 ~ Presidents George Bush and Boris Yeltsin signed the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow. (START). |
| All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:53 AM. |
Powered by: vBulletin Version 3.0.10
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.