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.

1991 ~ Pan American World Airways ceased operations.

November 5th
 

1791 ~ Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer.

1839 ~ Birthday of George Armstrong Custer, American general.

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.

1901 ~ Birthday of Walt Disney, film producer.

1926 ~ Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, debuted.

1933 ~ Prohibition ended: The Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is 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.

December 6th
 

1768 ~ First edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published.

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 kills more than 1,900 people and destroys 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.

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
 

43 BC ~ Death of Cicero, Roman politician and author.

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.

1965 ~ Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.

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.

December 8th
 

1542 ~ Birthday of Mary, Queen of Scots.

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 ~ U.S. participation in The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law by President Clinton.

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.

1937 ~ Battle of Nanjing began. The Rape of Nanjing followed.

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.

1996 ~ Death of Mary Leakey, Archeologist & Anthropologist.

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

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.

1965 ~ The Grateful Dead played their first concert, at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

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.

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, 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.

1915 ~ Birthday of Frank Sinatra, Singer & Actor.

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.

December 13th
 

1577 ~ Sir Francis Drake began his circumnavigation from Plymouth, England.

1642 ~ Abel Janszoon Tasman reached New Zealand.

1784 ~ Death of Samuel Johnson, Essayist.

1818 ~ Birthday of Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady.

1925 ~ Birthday of Dick Van Dyke, Actor & Comedian.

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.

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.

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 ~ 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 D. Sakharov, Russian physicist, awarded the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize.

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

December 15th
 

37 ~ Birthday of Nero, Roman emperor.

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

1852 ~ Birthday of Antoine Henri Becquerel, physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics.

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

1916 ~ France defeated Germany in Battle of Verdun.

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.

1994 ~ Netscape Navigator 1.0 first released.

December 16th
 

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.

1928 ~ Birthday of Philip K. Dick, 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.

December 17th
 

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

1830 ~ Death of Simón Bolívar, Latin American politician & Activist.

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.

1973 ~ The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.

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

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

1982 ~ ”Tootsie” opened in theaters.

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.

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.

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

1990 ~ Lech Wałęsa sworn in as President of Poland.

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.

34 years later, Cyclone Tracy is still burned into the psyche of Darwin.

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.

1918 ~ Birthday of Anwar Sadat, Egyptian president, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 1978.

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).

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.

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

1904 ~ James Barrie's play Peter Pan premiered 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.

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.

1836 ~ Spain recognized Mexico’s independence.

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.

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.

I hadn't realises that Peru had porn actresses in the mid 1800s.

Another gaping chasm in the Oldfart Archives.

She looks great for a lady almost 164 years old!


... oops!

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.[/QUOTE]

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
 

45 BC ~ Julian calendar went into effect.

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 comes into existence.

2002 ~ Euro banknotes and coins became legal tender.

January 2nd
 

1727 ~ Birthday of James Wolfe, British general in French and Indian War.

1808 ~ The U.S. Congress banned the importation of slaves.

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.

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 defeats General Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.

1861 ~ Delaware voted to not secede from the United States.

1892 ~ Birthday of J. R. R. Tolkien, South African-born Writer & Philologist.

1945 ~ Birthday of Stephen Stills, American Singer, Songwriter, & Guitarist.

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).

January 4th
 

1643 ~ Birthday of Isaac Newton, Scientist & Philosopher.

1785 ~ Birthday of Jakob Grimm, German philologist, elder half of the Grimm Brothers.

1948 ~ Burma gained its independence from the UK.

1958 ~ Sputnik 1 burned up on reentry into Earth's atmosphere (launched 4 October, 1957).

1960 ~ Death of Albert Camus, French Philosopher & Writer.

1961 ~ Death of Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian Physicist, awarderd the Nobel Prize in Physics 1933.

1965 ~ Death of T.S. Eliot, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 1948.

1965 ~ In his State of the Union address, President Johnson outlined his ''Great Society'' goals.

1967 ~ Donald Campbell died while trying to break the water speed record.

2004 ~ The first of two NASA Mars Rovers, Spirit, landed successfully on Mars.

It's so amazing that Spirit and Opportunity are still working.

So, Schrodinger is dead, but we're not sure about his cat.

January 5th
 

1781 ~ British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Virginia.

1914 ~ Ford Motor Company announced a $10,000,000 employee give away, and the eight-hour workday.

1929 ~ Birthday of Walter Mondale, American Politician

1933 ~ Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began in San Francisco Bay.

1952 ~ PM Churchill began his last visit to the U.S.

1968 ~ The "Prague Spring" began in Czechoslovakia when Alexander Dubček came to power.

1972 ~ President Nixon funded the Space Shuttle program development .

1997 ~ Withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya.

2003 ~ Death of Roy Jenkins, British Politician.

2005 ~ Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, was discovered using images taken in 2003.

January 6th
 

1412 ~ Birthday of Joan of Arc, Saint & French Patriot.

1822 ~ Birthday of Heinrich Schliemann, Archaeologist.

1838 ~ Samuel Morse first publicly demonstrated his telegraph, in Morristown, NJ.

1838 ~ Birthday of Max Bruch, German composer.

1884 ~ Death of Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics.

1918 ~ Death of Georg Cantor, German mathematician.

1942 ~ The Pan American Airways “Pacific Clipper” returned to New York after making the first round-the-world trip by a commercial airplane.

1946 ~ William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) hanged for treason.

1993 ~ Death of Rudolf Nureyev, Russian ballet dancer.

1994 ~ Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked at Cobo Arena in Detroit. Four men, including the ex-husband of Kerrigan's rival, Tonya Harding, were later sentenced to prison.


Feastdays & Holidays

Latin Christianity - Epiphany.

January 7th
 

1610 ~ The astronomer Galileo Galilei sighted the four moons of Jupiter which are now known as the “Galilean moons”.

1899 ~ Birthday of Francis Poulenc, French composer.

1916 ~ Birthday of Paul Keres, Estonian chess player.

1922 ~ Birthday of Jean-Pierre Rampal, French flutist.

1943 ~ Death of Nikola Tesla, Inventor & Electrical Engineer.

1953 ~ President Truman, in his State of the Union address, announced that the U.S. had developed a hydrogen bomb.

1979 ~ Vietnamese forces captured Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.

1980 ~ The Carter Administration authorized giving a $1.5 billion loan to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.

1990 ~ The Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to the public.

1999 ~ President Clinton's impeachment trial began in the Senate. (He was later acquitted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.)