What Happened This Day In History

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Today in History

December 6

1492 Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Santo Domingo in search of gold.
1776 Phi Beta Kappa, the first scholastic fraternity, is founded at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg.
1812 The majority of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armeé staggers into Vilna, Lithuania, ending the failed Russian campaign.
1861 Union General George G. Meade leads a foraging expedition to Gunnell's farm near Dranesville, Virginia.
1862 President Abraham Lincoln orders the hanging of 39 of the 303 convicted Indians who participated in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. They are to be hanged on December 26.
1863 The monitor Weehawken sinks in Charleston Harbor.
1876 Jack McCall is convicted for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok and sentenced to hang.
1877 Thomas A. Edison makes the first sound recording when he recites "Mary had a Little Lamb" into his phonograph machine.
1906 Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge flies a powered, man-carrying kite that carries him 168 feet in the air for seven minutes at Baddeck, Nova Scotia.
1917 The Bolsheviks imprison Czar Nicholas II and his family in Tobolsk.
1921 Ireland's 26 southern counties become independent from Britain forming the Irish Free State.
1922 Benito Mussolini threatens Italian newspapers with censorship if they keep reporting "false" information.
1934 American Ambassador Davis says Japan is a grave security threat in the Pacific.
1938 France and Germany sign a treaty of friendship.
1939 Britain agrees to send arms to Finland, which is fighting off a Soviet invasion.
1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues a personal appeal to Emperor Hirohito to use his influence to avoid war.
1945 The United States extends a $3 billion loan to Great Britain to help compensate for the termination of the Lend-Lease agreement.
1947 Florida's Everglades National Park is established.
1948 The "Pumpkin Spy Papers" are found on the Maryland farm of Whittaker Chambers. They become evidence that State Department employee Alger Hiss is spying for the Soviet Union.
1957 Vanguard TV3 explodes on the launchpad, thwarting the first US attempt to launch a satellite into Earth's orbit.
1967 Adrian Kantrowitz performs first human heart transplant in the US.
1969 Hells Angels, hired to provide security at a Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway in California, beat to death concert-goer Meredith Hunter.
1971 Pakistan severs diplomatic relations with India after New Delhi recognizes the state of Bangladesh.
1973 US House of Representatives confirms Gerald Ford as Vice-President of the United States, 387–35.
1975 A Provisional IRA unit takes a couple hostage in Balcombe Street, London, and a 6-day siege begins.
1976 Democrat Tip O'Neill is elected speaker of the House of Representatives. He will serve the longest consecutive term as speaker.
1992 The Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India, is destroyed during a riot that started as a political protest.
2006 NASA reveals photographs from Mars Global Surveyor that suggest the presence of water on the red planet.

Born on December 6

1421 Henry VI, the youngest king of England to accede to the throne (only 269 days old).
1886 Joyce Kilmer, American poet, best known for "Trees."
1896 Ira Gershwin, American lyricist and musical collaborator with his brother George.
1898 Alfred Eisenstaedt, photojournalist.
1898 Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist and sociologist.
1901 Eliot Porter, nature photographer.
1920 Dave Brubeck, jazz pianist and composer.
1942 Peter Handke, playwright and poet.
1948 JoBeth Williams, actress, director (Poltergeist, The Big Chill); current (2013) president of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation.
1952 Charles Bronson (Michael Gordon Peterson), criminal often called "the most violent prisoner in Britain" by the British Press.
1952 Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.
1967 Judd Apatow, film producer, director, screenwriter (Bridesmaids).

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Today in History

December 7

43 BC Cicero, considered one of the greatest sons of Rome, is assassinated on the orders of Marcus Antonius.
983 Otto III takes the throne after his father's death in Italy. A power struggle between magnates ensues.
1787 Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.
1808 James Madison is elected president in succession of Thomas Jefferson.
1861 USS Santiago de Cuba, under Commander Daniel B. Ridgely, halts the British schooner Eugenia Smith and captures J.W. Zacharie, a New Orleans merchant and Confederate purchasing agent.
1862 Confederate forces surprise an equal number of Union troops at the Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas.
1863 Outlaw George Ives, an alleged member of an outlaw gang known as the "Innocents," robs and then kills Nick Thiebalt in the Ruby Valley of what would become Montana.
1917 The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary with only one dissenting vote in Congress.
1918 Spartacists call for a German revolution.
1931 A report indicates that Nazis would ensure "Nordic dominance" by sterilizing certain races.
1941 Japanese planes raid Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a surprise attack, bringing the US into WWII.
1942 The U.S. Navy launches USS New Jersey, the largest battleship ever built.
1946 The president of the United Mine Workers, John L. Lewis, orders all striking miners back to work.
1949 The A.F.L. and the C.I.O. organize a non-Communist international trade union.
1970 Poland and West Germany sign a pact renouncing the use of force to settle disputes, recognizing the Oder-Neisse River as Poland's western frontier, and acknowledging the transfer to Poland of 40,000 square miles of former German territory.
1972 The crew of Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the moon, lifts off at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1981 The Reagan Administration predicts a record deficit in 1982 of $109 billion.
1988 An earthquake in Armenia kills an estimated 100,000 people.
1988 Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat recognizes Israel's right to exist.
1995 Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter after a 6-year journey.
1999 The Recording Industry Association of America files a copyright infringement suit against the file-sharing website Napster.
2003 A tornado in Kensal Green, North West London, damages about 150 properties.
2006 An earthquake in Armenia kills an estimated 100,000 people.

Born on December 7

1810 Theodor Schwann, German physiologist.
1873 Willa Cather, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist (O Pioneers!, My Antonia).
1888 Joyce Cary, Irish-born novelist (The Horse's Mouth).
1888 Ernst Toch, composer and pianist.
1895 Sir Milton Margay, the first prime minister of Sierra Leone.
1896 Stuart Davis, painter.
1928 Noam Chomsky, writer, linguist and political activist.
1932 Ellen Burstyn, actress; won Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974); won Tony for Same Time, Next Year (1975).
1947 Johnny Bench, pro baseball catcher; twice named National League Most Valuable Player, he was dubbed the greatest catcher in baseball history by ESPN.
1949 Tom Waits, singer, songwriter ("Jersey Girl," "Downtown Train"), musician, actor (Down by Law).
1956 Larry Bird, basketball player for the Boston Celtics.
1988 Emily Browning, actress, singer, model; won AFI International Award for Best Actress as Violet Baudelaire in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
2003 Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange, heiress apparent to the throne of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

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Today in History
December 9

536 Having captured Naples earlier in the year, Belisarius takes Rome.
1861 The U.S. Senate approves establishment of a committee that would become the Joint Committee on the Conduct of War.
1863 Major General John G. Foster replaces Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside as Commander of the Department of Ohio.
1867 The capital of Colorado Territory is moved from Golden to Denver.
1872 P.B.S. Pinchback becomes the first African-American governor of Louisiana.
1900 The Russian czar rejects Boer Paul Kruger's pleas for aid in South Africa against the British.
1908 A child labor bill passes in the German Reichstag, forbidding work for children under age 13.
1917 The new Finnish Republic demands the withdrawal of Russian troops.
1940 The British army seizes 1,000 Italians in a sudden thrust in Egypt.
1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt tells Americans to plan for a long war.
1948 The United States abandons a plan to de-concentrate industry in Japan.
1949 The United Nations takes trusteeship over Jerusalem.
1950 President Harry Truman bans U.S. exports to Communist China.
1950 Harry Gold gets 30 years imprisonment for passing atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union during World War II.
1955 Sugar Ray Robinson knocks out Carl Olson to regain the world middleweight boxing title.
1960 The Laos government flees to Cambodia as the capital city of Vientiane is engulfed in war.
1990 Lech Walesa is elected president of Poland.
1992 U.S. Marines land in Somalia to ensure food and medicine reaches the deprived areas of that country.
2008 Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is arrested on federal charges, including an attempt to sell the US Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

Born on December 9

1608 John Milton, British writer and poet (Paradise Lost).
1809 William Barret Travis, commander of the Texas troops at the battle of the Alamo.
1848 Joel Chandler Harris, writer, creator of the Uncle Remus tales.
1899 Jean de Brunhoff, illustrator and author, creator of the Babar series of books.
1906 Grace Hopper, mathematician and computer pioneer.
1912 Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, speaker of the House of Representatives.
1918 Kirk Douglas, American actor (Spartacus).
1919 William Lipscomb, chemist; awarded Nobel Prize in 1976.
1922 Redd Foxx (John Sanford), comedian, actor; best known for his starring role in the TV series Sanford and Son.
1926 Henry Kendall, particle physicist; shared Nobel Prize in 1990.
1928 Dick Van Patten, actor; best known for his role on the TV series Eight is Enough.
1929 John Cassavetes, actor (The Dirty Dozen), film director, screenwriter (Faces).
1932 Billy Edd Wheeler, singer, songwriter ("Jackson," "Coward of the County").
1934 Judi Dench (Dame Judith Dench), actress; known to James Bond fans for her role as M in Bond films beginning with Golden Eye (1997), her many awards include an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Chocolat, 2000).
1942 Dick Butkus, pro football player; inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame, 1979.
1953 John Malkovich, actor (Places in the Heart), producer (Juno), director, fashion designer.
1963 Masako, Crown Princes of Japan, wife of Crown Prince Naruhito, heir apparent to the Chrysanthemum Throne.

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Today in History
December 10

1817 Mississippi is admitted as the 20th state.
1861 Kentucky is admitted to the Confederate States of America.
1862 The U.S. House of Representatives passes a bill creating the state of West Virginia.
1869 Governor John Campbell signs the bill that grants women in Wyoming Territory the right to vote as well as hold public office.
1898 The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Paris, ceding Spanish possessions, including the Philippines, to the United States.
1917 The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the International Red Cross.
1918 U.S. troops are called to guard Berlin as a coup is feared.
1919 Captain Ross Smith becomes the first person to fly 11,500 miles from England to Australia.
1936 Edward VIII abdicates to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American-born divorcee.
1941 Japanese troops invade the Philippine island of Luzon.
1941 The siege of Tobruk in North Africa is raised.
1943 Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill that postpones a draft of pre-Pearl Harbor fathers.
1943 Allied forces bomb Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.
1949 150,000 French troops mass at the border in Vietnam to prevent a Chinese invasion.
1950 Dr. Ralph J. Bunche becomes the first African-American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1977 On UN Human Rights Day, the Soviet Union places 20 prominent dissidents under house arrest, cutting off telephones and threatening to break up a planned silent demonstration in Moscow's Pushkin Square. Soviet newspapers decry human rights violations elsewhere in the world.
1978 President of Egypt Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1983 Democracy restored to Argentina with the assumption of Raul Alfonsin.
1989 Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announces the establishment of Mongolia's democratic movement that changes the second oldest communist country into a democracy.
1993 The Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland, East England, closes, marking the end of the County Durham coalfield, which had been in operation since the Middle Ages.

Born on December 10

1830 Emily Dickinson, American poet of more than 1,000 poems, seven published in her lifetime.
1851 Melvil Dewey, American librarian who created the Dewey Decimal System.
1881 Viscount Alexander of Tunis, British soldier who took his title from his part in the Allied victories in North Africa.
1891 Nelly Sachs, Nobel Prize-winning poet.
1903 Mary Norton, English children's author (Bedknobs and Broomsticks).
1907 Rumor Godden, English novelist (Black Narcissus).
1908 Oliver Messian, French composer (Quartet for the End of Time).
1911 Chester "Chet" Huntley, American broadcast journalist.
1914 Dorothy Lamour, actress, best remembered for co-starring with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in their "Road to" movie series.
1922 Agnes Nixon, writer, producer; creator of long-running TV soap operas (One Life to Live, All My Children).
1934 Howard Martin Temin, geneticist; shared 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
1941 Chad Stuart, singer, musician; half of the Chad & Jeremy folk rock duo.
1948 Abu Abbas (Muhammad Zaidan, Muhammad Abbas), a founder of the Palestine Liberation Front; led terrorist hijacking of cruise ship Achille Lauro.
1956 Rod Blagojevich, 40th Governor of Illinois; arrested on federal charges of trying to sell the US Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama.

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Make a note for next year Pres shakes hands with Cuba, Cuban Cigars are a coming

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Today in History
December 11

1688 James II abdicates the throne because of William of Orange landing in England.
1816 Indiana is admitted to the Union as the 19th state.
1861 A raging fire sweeps the business district of Charleston, South Carolina, adding to an already depressed economic state.
1862 Union General Ambrose Burnside occupies Fredericksburg and prepares to attack the Confederates under Robert E. Lee.
1863 Union gunboats Restless, Bloomer and Caroline enter St. Andrew's Bay, Fla., and begin bombardment of both Confederate quarters and saltworks.
1882 A production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe at Boston's Bijou Theatre becomes the first performance in a theatre lit by incandescent electric lights.
1927 Nearly 400 world leaders sign a letter to President Calvin Coolidge asking the United States to join the World Court.
1930 As the economic crisis grows, the Bank of the United States closes its doors.
1933 Reports say Paraguay has captured 11,000 Bolivians in the war over Chaco.
1936 Britain's King Edward VIII abdicates the throne to marry American Wallis Warfield Simpson.
1941 The United States declares war on Italy and Germany.
1943 U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull demands that Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria withdraw from the war.
1945 A Boeing B-29 Superfortress shatters all records by crossing the United States in five hours and 27 minutes.
1951 Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement from baseball.
1955 Israel raids Syrian positions on the Sea of Galilee.
1964 Frank Sinatra, Jr., is returned home to his parents after being kidnapped for the ransom amount of $240,000.
1967 The Concorde, a joint British-French venture and the world's first supersonic airliner, is unveiled in Toulouse, France.
1972 Challenger, the lunar lander for Apollo 17, touches down on the moon's surface, the last time that men visit the moon.
1978 Massive demonstrations take place in Tehran against the shah.
1981 Military forces in El Salvador kill over 800 civilians in what is known as the El Mozote massacre during the Salvadoran Civil War.
1997 The Kyoto Protocol international treaty intended to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses, opens for signature.
2001 People's Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization.
2005 Cronulla riots begin in Cronulla, a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
2006 President of Mexico Felipe Calderon launches a military-led offensive against drug cartel violence in the state of Michoacan.
2008 Bernard "Bernie" Madoff arrested and charged with securities fraud in what was called a $50-billion Ponzi scheme.

Born on December 11

1803 Hector Berlioz, French composer and conductor (Symphonie Fantastique, La Damnation de Faust).
1843 Robert Koch, physician and medical researcher.
1882 Fiorella H. La Guardia, mayor of New York City from 1933 to 1945.
1911 Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian novelist.
1918 Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer and winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. Famous for The Gulag Archipelago.
1922 Grace Paley, short story writer.
1926 Willie "Big Mama" Thorton, blues singer.
1937 Jim Harrison, novelist and poet (Legends of the Fall).
1939 Tom McGuane, novelist and screenwriter (The Sporting Club, Bushwacked Piano).
1939 Tom Hayden, social and political activist; author, politician.
1940 Donna Mills, actress (Knots Landing TV series, Play Misty for Me movie).
1943 John Kerry, politician; unsuccessful Democratic nominee for President of the United States (2004); secretary of state (2013– ).
1944 Teri Garr, actress, dancer (Tootsie, Mr. Mom).
1944 Brenda Lee, singer; her 37 US chart hits in the 1960s is surpassed only by Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Ray Charles and Connie Francis ("I'm Sorry," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree").
1950 Christina Onassis, businesswoman; inherited and operated the Onassis shipping businessh.
1981 Hamish Blake, Australian comedian, actor, author; won Gold Logie Award for "Most Popular Personality on Television"; half of award-winning comedy duo Hamish and Andy (Andy Lee).

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Today in History
December 12

1753 George Washington, the adjutant of Virginia, delivers an ultimatum to the French forces at Fort Le Boeuf, south of Lake Erie, reiterating Britain's claim to the entire Ohio River valley.
1770 The British soldiers responsible for the "Boston Massacre" are acquitted on murder charges.
1862 The Union loses its first ship to a torpedo, USS Cairo, in the Yazoo River.
1863 Orders are given in Richmond, Virginia, that no more supplies from the Union should be received by Federal prisoners.
1901 Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio transmission in St. John's Newfoundland.
1927 Communists forces seize Canton, China.
1930 The Spanish Civil War begins as rebels take a border town.
1930 The last Allied troops withdraw from the Saar region in Germany.
1931 Under pressure from the Communists in Canton, Chiang Kai-shek resigns as president of the Nanking Government but remains the head of the Nationalist government that holds nominal rule over most of China.
1943 The German Army launches Operation Winter Tempest, the relief of the Sixth Army trapped in Stalingrad.
1943 The exiled Czech government signs a treaty with the Soviet Union for postwar cooperation.
1956 The United Nations calls for immediate Soviet withdrawal from Hungary.
1964 Kenya becomes a republic.
1964 Three Buddhist leaders begin a hunger strike to protest the government in Saigon.
1967 The United States ends the airlift of 6,500 men in Vietnam.
1979 South Korean Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan, acting without authorization from President Choi Kyu-ha, orders the arrest of Army Chief of Staff General Jeong Seung-hwa, alleging that the chief of staff was involved in the assassination of ex-President Park Chung Hee.
1985 Arrow Air Flight 1285 crashes after takeoff at Gander, Newfoundland; among the 256 dead are 236 members of the US Army's 101st Airborne Division.
1991 The Russian Federation becomes independent from the USSR.
1995 Willie Brown beats incumbent mayor Frank Jordon to become the first African-American mayor of San Francisco.
2000 The US Supreme Court announces its decision in Bush v. Gore, effectively ending legal changes to the results of that year's Presidential election.

Born on December 12

1745 John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who negotiated treaties for the United States.
1805 William Lloyd Garrison, American abolitionist who published The Liberator.
1821 Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (Madame Bovary, A Simple Heart).
1863 Edvard Munch, Norwegian artist (The Scream).
1893 Edward G. Robinson, actor famous for gangster roles.
1897 Lillian Smith, Southern writer and civil rights activist.
1915 Frank Sinatra, American pop singer and actor.
1927 Robert Norton Noyce, co-inventor of the integrated circuit.
1928 Helen Frankenthaler, abstract painter.
1929 John Osbourne, playwright and film producer (Look Back in Anger).
1938 Connie Francis, singer.
1940 Dionne Warwick, singer, actress.
1943 Grover Washington Jr, singer, songwriter, musician, producer.
1952 Cathy Rigby, gymnast, actress.

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Today in History
December 13

1789 The National Guard is created in France.
1812 The last remnants of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armeé reach the safety of Kovno, Poland, after the failed Russian campaign. Napoleon's costly retreat from Moscow
1814 General Andrew Jackson announces martial law in New Orleans, Louisiana, as British troops disembark at Lake Borne, 40 miles east of the city. The Battle of New Orleans
1862 The Battle of Fredericksburg ends with the bloody slaughter of onrushing Union troops at Marye's Heights. Maine's Colonel Chamberlain at Marye's Heights.
1902 The Committee of Imperial Defense holds its first meeting in London.
1908 The Dutch take two Venezuelan Coast Guard ships.
1937 The Japanese army occupies Nanking, China. Boeing's Trailblazing P-26 Peashooters.
1940 Adolf Hitler issues preparations for Operation Martita, the German invasion of Greece.
1941 British forces launch an offensive in Libya.
1945 France and Britain agree to quit Syria and Lebanon.
1951 After meeting with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, President Harry S Truman vows to purge all disloyal government workers.
1968 President Lyndon B. Johnson and Mexico's President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz meet on a bridge at El Paso, Texas, to officiate at ceremonies returning the long-disputed El Chamizal area to the Mexican side of the border.
1972 Astronaut Gene Cernan climbs into his lunar lander on the moon and prepares to lift off. He is the last man to set foot on the moon.
1973 Great Britain cuts the work week to three days to save energy.
1981 Polish labor leader Lech Walesa is arrested and the government decrees martial law, restricting civil rights and suspending operation of the independent trade union Solidarity.
1985 France sues the United States over the discovery of an AIDS serum.
2001 Terrorists attach the Parliament of India Sansad; 15 people are killed, including the terrorists
2003 Deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein captured; he is found hiding in near his home town of Tikrit.

Born on December 13

1585 William Drummond, Scottish poet.
1797 Heinrich Heine, German poet, satirist and journalist.
1818 Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln.
1835 Phillips Brooks, Episcopal clergyman who wrote the lyrics for "O Little Town of Bethlehem."
1838 Alexis Millardet, botanist who developed the first successful fungicide.
1890 Marc Connelly, playwright, actor, director and journalist (The Green Pastures).
1911 Kenneth Patchen, American poet and author (Before the Brave, Hurrah for Anything).
1923 Sir Terence Beckett, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (1980–1987).
1923 Phillip Anderson, physicist.
1925 Dick Van Dyke, actor, singer, producer; (The Dick Van Dyke TV series, Mary Poppins).
1934 Richard D. Zanuck, film producer; won Academy Award for Best Picture in 1989 (Driving Miss Daisy).
1948 Jeff Baxter, musician with Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers bands.
1948 Ted Nugent, singer, songwriter, musician, actor.
1954 John Anderson, country singer, musician.
1967 Jamie Foxx, actor, singer.
1989 Taylor Swift, multiple award-winning crossover country singer, actress; youngest-ever Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year and youngest artist ever to win an Album of the Year Grammy.

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Today in History
December 14

1799 George Washington dies on his Mount Vernon estate.
1819 Alabama is admitted as the 22nd state, making 11 slave states and 11 free states.
1861 Prince Albert of England, one of the Union's strongest advocates, dies.
1863 Confederate General James Longstreet attacks Union troops at Bean's Station, Tenn.
1900 Max Planck presents the quantum theory at the Physics Society in Berlin.
1906 The first U1 submarine is brought into service in Germany. Italy's MAS torpedo boats.
1908 The first truly representative Turkish Parliament opens.
1909 The Labor Conference in Pittsburgh ends with a "declaration of war" on U.S. Steel.
1911 Roald Amundsen and four others discover the South Pole.
1920 The League of Nations creates a credit system to aid Europe.
1939 The League of Nations drops the Soviet Union from its membership. Joseph Avenol sold out the League of Nations.
1941 German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel orders the construction of defensive positions along the European coastline. Desperate Hours on Omaha Beach
1946 The United Nations adopt a disarmament resolution prohibiting the A-Bomb.
1949 Bulgarian ex-Premier Traicho Kostov is sentenced to die for treason in Sofia.
1960 A U.S. Boeing B-52 bomber sets a 10,000-mile non-stop record without refueling.
1980 NATO warns the Soviets to stay out of the internal affairs of Poland, saying that intervention would effectively destroy the détente between the East and West.
1981 Israel's Knesset passes the Golan Heights Law, extending Israeli law to the Golan Heights area.
1994 Construction begins on China's Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.
1995 The Dayton Agreement signed in Paris; establishes a general framework for ending the Bosnian War between Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1999 Tens of thousands die as a result of flash floods caused by torrential rains in Vargas, Venezuela.
2003 Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan, narrowly escapes and assassination attempt.
2004 The Millau Viaduct, the world's tallest bridge, official opens near Millau, France.
2008 Iraqi broadcast journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi throws his shoes at US President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad.
2012 At Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Conn., 20 children and six adults are shot to death by a 20-year-old gunman who then commits suicide.

Born on December 14

1503 Nostradamus [Michel de Nostredame], French astrologer and physician.
1546 Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer.
1585 Henry IV, the first Bourbon king of France.
1795 John Bloomfield Jarvis, civil engineer.
1822 John Christie, English patron of music.
1866 Roger Fry, English art critic.
1896 James H. Doolittle, American Air Force general who commanded the first bombing mission over Japan.
1916 Shirley Jackson, novelist and short story writer (Life Among Savages, The Lottery).
1917 June Taylor, choreographer, founder of the June Taylor Dancers featured on Jackie Gleason's TV programs.
1918 James Thomas Aubrey Jr., TV and film executive; president of CBS television (1959–1965).
1922 Don Hewitt, TV producer; creator of 60 Minutes.
1922 Junior J. Spurrier, received Medal of Honor for his actions in capturing Achain, France.
1925 Sam Jones ("Sad Sam" "Toothpick" Jones), pro baseball player; first African-American pitcher to throw a no-hitter in integrated baseball game.
1932 Charlie Rich, crossover country singer, musician ("Behind Closed Doors").
1935 Lee Remick, actress (Days of Wine and Roses, The Omen).
1939 Ernie Davis, first African American to win Heisman Trophy (Syracuse University); subject of The Express movie (2008).
1943 Emmett Tyrell, journalist, author, publisher; founded The American Spectator magazine.
1946 Patty Duke, actress, singer; won Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker; president of Screen Actors Guild (1985-88).
1955 Spider Stacy (Peter Stacy), singer, songwriter, musician with The Pogues band.
1966 Anthony Mason, pro basketball player.
1972 Miranda Hart, comedian, actress, writer (Miranda Hart's Joke Shop on BBC Radio 2 and its spinoff BBC sitcom TV series Miranda).

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Today in History
December 16

1431 Henry VI of England is crowned King of France.
1653 Oliver Cromwell takes on dictatorial powers with the title of "Lord Protector."
1773 To protest the tax on tea from England, a group of young Americans, disguised as Indians, throw chests of tea from British ships in Boston Harbor.
1835 A fire in New York City destroys property estimated to be worth $20,000,000. It lasts two days, ravages 17 blocks, and destroys 674 buildings including the Stock Exchange, Merchants' Exchange, Post Office, and the South Dutch Church.
1863 Confederate General Joseph Johnston takes command of the Army of Tennessee.
1864 Union forces under General George H. Thomas win the battle at Nashville, smashing an entire Confederate army.
1930 In Spain, a general strike is called in support of the revolution.
1939 The National Women's Party urges immediate congressional action on equal rights.
1940 British troops carry out an air raid on Italian Somalia.
1944 Germany mounts a major offensive in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. As the center of the Allied line falls back, it creates a bulge, leading to the name–the Battle of the Bulge.
1949 Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung is received at the Kremlin in Moscow.
1950 President Harry Truman declares a state of National Emergency as Chinese communists invade deeper into South Korea.
1976 President Jimmy Carter appoints Andrew Young as Ambassador to the United Nations.
1978 Cleveland becomes the first U.S. city to default since the depression.
1998 The United States launches a missile attack on Iraq for failing to comply with United Nations weapons inspectors.
2003 President George W. Bush signs the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, which establishes the United States' first national standards regarding email and gives the Federal Trade Commission authority to enforce the act.

Born on December 16

1485 Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII, who bore him six children; only one, Mary I, survived to adulthood.
1770 Ludwig Van Beethoven, German composer best known for his 9th Symphony.
1775 Jane Austen, novelist (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice).
1917 Arthur C. Clarke, English science fiction writer (2001: A Space Odyssey)
1932 Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, illustrator and children's writer; received the Hans Christian Andersen Award (2002) and was Britain's first Children's Laureate (1999–2001).
1936 Morris Dees, activist; co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
1938 Liv Ullmann, Norwegian actress and director; won Golden Globe for Best Actress–Motion Picture Drama for The Emigrants (1971).
1943 Steven Bochco, TV producer and writer (Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law).
1949 Billy Gibbons, sinner, songwriter, musician with ZZ Top and Moving Sidewalks bands.
1955 Prince Lorenz of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este.
1962 William Perry, pro football defensive lineman nicknamed The Refrigerator because of his size.
1963 Benjamin Bratt, actor best known for his role of Rey Curtis on the Law & Order TV series.
1969 Adam Riess, astrophysicist; shared 2006 Shaw Prize in Astronomy and 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for providing evidence the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

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Today in History
December 17

1399 Tamerlane's Mongols destroy the army of Mahmud Tughluk, Sultan of Delhi, at Panipat.
1861 The Stonewall Brigade begins to dismantle Dam No. 5 of the C&O Canal.
1886 At a Christmas party, Sam Belle shoots his old enemy Frank West, but is fatally wounded himself.
1903 Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft.
1927 U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg suggests a worldwide pact renouncing war.
1938 Italy declares the 1935 pact with France invalid because ratifications had not been exchanged. France denies the argument.
1939 In the Battle of River Plate near Montevideo, Uruguay, the British trap the German pocket battleship Graf Spee. German Captain Langsdorf sinks his ship believing that resistance is hopeless.
1943 U.S. forces invade Japanese-held New Britain Island in New Guinea.
1944 The German Army renews the attack on the Belgian town of Losheimergraben against the defending Americans during the Battle of the Bulge.
1944 U.S. approves end to internment of Japanese Americans. U.S. Major General Henry C. Pratt issues Public Proclamation No. 21, declaring that Japanese American "evacuees" from the West Coast could return to their homes effective January 2, 1945.
1948 The Smithsonian Institution accepts the Kitty Hawk – the Wright brothers' plane.
1950 The French government appoints Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny to command their troops in Vietnam.
1952 Yugoslavia breaks relations with the Vatican.
1965 Ending an election campaign marked by bitterness and violence, Ferdinand Marcos is declared president of the Philippines.
1981 Red Brigade terrorists kidnap Brigadier General James Dozier, the highest-ranking U.S. NATO officer in Italy.
1989 The Simpsons, television's longest-running animated series, makes its US debut.
1989 Fernando Color de Mello becomes Brazil's first democratically elected president in nearly 30 years.
1990 Jean-Bertrand Aristide wins Haiti's first free election.
2002 Congolese parties of the inter Congolese Dialogue sign a peace accord in the Second Congo War, proviidn for transitional government and elections within two years.
2010 Mohamed Bouazizi immolates himself, the catalyst for the Tunisian revolution and the subsequent Arab Spring.

Born on December 17

1778 Humphrey Davy, English chemist who discovered the anesthetic effect of laughing gas.
1807 John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet, abolitionist, reformer and founder of the Liberal Party.
1908 Willard Frank Libby, American chemist who won a Nobel Prize for his part in creating the carbon-14 method in dating ancient findings.
1929 William Safire, journalist and author.
1930 Bob Guccione, publisher; founder of Penthouse magazine.
1935 George Lindsey, comic actor best known for his role as Goober on The Andy Griffith Show.
1936 Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina), named to the Papacy March 13, 2013.
1937 Art Neville, singer, musician; member of The Neville Brothers and The Meters.
1937 Kerry Packer, Australian businessman who founded World Series Cricket.
1937 US Lt. Gen. Calvin Waller, deputy commander-in-chief for military operations with US Central Command (Forward) during the First Gulf War.
1945 Chris Matthews, news anchor, political commentator; host of Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC.
1962 Richard Jewell, police officer who discovered pipe bombs on the grounds of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, and helped evacuate the area before the bombs exploded.
2007 James, Viscount Severn, son of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex; youngest grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

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Today in History
December 18

1118 Afonso the Battler, the Christian King of Aragon captures Saragossa, Spain, causing a major blow to Muslim Spain.
1812 Napoleon Bonaparte arrives in Paris after his disastrous campaign in Russia.
1862 Nathan Bedford Forrest engages and defeats a Federal cavalry force near Lexington in his continued effort to disrupt supply lines.
1862 Union General Ulysses S. Grant announces the organization of his army in the West. Sherman, Hurlbut, McPherson, and McClernand are to be corps commanders.
1865 Slavery is abolished in the United States. The 13th Amendment is formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution, ensuring that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude… shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
1915 In a single night, about 20,000 Australian and New Zealand troops withdraw from Gallipoli, Turkey, undetected by the Turks defending the peninsula.
1916 The Battle of Verdun ends with the French and Germans each having suffered more than 330,000 killed and wounded in 10 months. It was the longest engagement of World War I.
1925 Soviet leaders Lev Kamenev and Grigori Zinoviev break with Joseph Stalin.
1940 Adolf Hitler issues his secret plans for the invasion of the Soviet Union–Operation Barbarossa.
1941 Defended by 610 fighting men, the American-held island of Guam falls to more than 5,000 Japanese invaders in a three-hour battle.
1941 Japan invades Hong Kong.
1942 Adolf Hitler meets with Benito Mussolini and Pierre Laval.
1944 Japanese forces are repelled from northern Burma by British troops.
1951 North Koreans give the United Nations a list of 3,100 POWs.
1956 Japan is admitted to the United Nations.
1960 A rightist government is installed under Prince Boun Oum in Laos as the United States resumes arms shipments.
1965 U.S. Marines attack VC units in the Que Son Valley during Operation Harvest Moon.
1970 An atomic leak in Nevada forces hundreds of citizens to flee the test site.
1972 President Richard M. Nixon declares that the bombing of North Vietnam will continue until an accord can be reached (Operation Linebacker II).
1989 The European Economic Community and the Soviet Union sign an agreement on trade and economic communication.
2002 California Gov. Gray Davis announces the state faces a record budget deficit; the looming $35 billion shortfall is almost double the amount reported a month earlier during the state's gubernatorial campaign.
2005 Civil war begins in Chad with an rebel assault on in Adre; the rebels are believed to be backed by Chad's neighbor, The Sudan.
2008 United Arab Emirates holds it first-ever elections.
2010 In an opening act of Arab Spring, anti-government protests erupt in Tunisia.

Born on December 18

1879 Paul Klee, Swiss abstract painter.
1886 Ty (Tyrus Raymond) Cobb, American baseball player, first man to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1913 Willy Brandt, German political leader. Mayor of Berlin and Chancellor of West Germany.
1946 Steven Spielberg, film director (E.T., Jurassic Park, and Schindler's List).
1963 Brad Pitt, actor (12 Monkeys, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button).
1978 Katie Holmes, actress (Dawson's Creek TV series, Batman Begins).

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Today in History
December 19

1154 Henry II is crowned king of England.
1562 The French Wars of Religion between the Huguenots and the Catholics begins with the Battle of Dreux.
1793 French troops recapture Toulon from the British.
1862 Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest begins tearing up the railroads in Union generals Grant and Rosecrans rear, causing considerable delays in the movement of Union supplies.
1900 The French Parliament votes amnesty for everyone involved in the Dreyfus Affair.
1909 American socialist women denounce suffrage as a movement of the middle class.
1941 Japanese land on Hong Kong and clash with British troops.
1941 Adolf Hitler assumes the position of commander in chief of the German army.
1942 The British advance 40 miles into Burma in a drive to oust the Japanese from the colony.
1944 During the Battle of the Bulge, American troops begin pulling back from the twin Belgian cities of Krinkelt and Rocherath in front of the advancing German Army.
1945 Congress confirms Eleanor Roosevelt as U.S. delegate to the United Nations.
1950 The North Atlantic Council names General Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander of Western European defense forces.
1959 Reputed to be the last civil war veteran, Walter Williams, dies at 117 in Houston.
1974 Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as vice president of the United states after a House of Representatives vote.
1982 Four bombs explode at South Africa's only nuclear power station in Johannesburg.
1984 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang sign an agreement that committed Britain to return Hong Kong to China in 1997 in return for terms guaranteeing a 50-year extension of its capitalist system. Hong Kong was leased by China to Great Britain in 1898 for 99 years.
1998 President Bill Clinton is impeached. The House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against President Clinton, charging him with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton was the second president in American history to be impeached.
2001 The highest barometric pressure ever recorded (1085.6 hPa, 32.06 inHg) occurs at Tosontsengel, Khovsgol, Mongolia.
2001 Rioting begins in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the country's economic crisis.
2012 Park Geun-hye elected President of South Korea, the nation's first female chief executive.

Born on December 19

1683 Philip V, the first Bourbon King of Spain.
1820 Mary Ashton Livermore, a temperance worker, women's rights activist, lecturer, and writer. Founded her own suffrage paper, the Agitator, in 1869.
1906 Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet General Secretary of the Communist party and President of the Supreme Soviet from 1964 until 1982.
1915 Edith Piaf, internationally famous French cabaret singer, best remembered for her songs "La Vie en rose" and "Non, je ne regrette rein."
1933 Cicely Tyson, actress, best remembered for her role in The Autobiography of Ms. Jane Pittman.
1940 Phil Ochs, singer, songwriter, producer; best known for his protest songs of the 1960s.
1941 Maurice White, singer, songwriter, musician, producer; founder of the band Earth, Wind & Fire; member of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Songwriters Hall of Fame and Vocal Group Hall of Fame.
1943 US Marine Corps four-star general James L. Jones Jr.; Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (2003–2006); Commandant of the Marine Corps (1999–2003); National Security Advisor (2009–2010).

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Today in History
December 20

69 Vespians's supporters enter Rome and discover Vitellius in hiding. He is dragged through the streets before being brutally murdered.
1355 Stephen Urosh IV of Serbia dies while marching to attack Constantinople.
1802 The United States buys the Louisiana territory from France.
1860 South Carolina secedes from the Union.
1861 English transports loaded with 8,000 troops set sail for Canada so that troops are available if the "Trent Affair" is not settled without war.
1924 Adolf Hitler is released from prison after serving less than one year of a five year sentence for treason.
1930 Thousands of Spaniards sign a revolutionary manifesto.
1933 The German government announces 400,000 citizens are to be sterilized because of hereditary defects.
1938 First electronic television system is patented.
1941 The Flying Tigers, American pilots in China, enter combat against the Japanese over Kunming.
1943 Soviet forces halt a German army trying to relieve the besieged city of Stalingrad.
1946 Viet Minh and French forces fight fiercely in Annamite section of Hanoi.
1948 U.S. Supreme Court announces that it has no jurisdiction to hear the appeals of Japanese war criminals sentenced by the International Military Tribunal.
1960 National Liberation Front is formed by guerrillas fighting the Diem regime in South Vietnam.
1962 In its first free election in 38 years, the Dominican Republic chooses leftist Juan Bosch Gavino as president.
1963 Four thousand cross the Berlin Wall to visit relatives under a 17-day Christmas accord.
1989 U.S. troops invade Panama to oust General Manuel Noriega and replace him with Guillermo Endara.
1995 NATO begins peacekeeping operation in Bosnia.
1996 NeXT merges with Apple Computer, leading to the development of groundbreaking Mac OS X.
2007 Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest monarch in the history of the UK; previously, that honor belonged to Queen Victoria.

Born on December 20

1868 Harvey Firestone, industrialist and tire maker.
1881 Branch Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1901 Robert J. Van de Graff, physicist, invented the Van de Graaff generator.
1904 Virgil "Spud" Davis, pro baseball catcher, coach, scout and manager.
1914 Harry F. Byrd Jr., first independent ever elected to US Senate by a majority of the popular vote (Virginia).
1921 George Roy Hill, film director (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting).
1946 Dick Wolf, television producer (Miami Vice, Law & Order).
1948 Alan Parsons, musician (The Alan Parsons Project); producer who was involved with The Beatles' Abbey Road and Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.
1963 Infanta Elena, Duchess of Lugo, elder daughter of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain; fourth in line of succession to the Spanish throne.
1976 Adam Powell, Welsh game designer; co-founder of Neopets and Meteor Games companies.

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Today in History
December 23

1861 Lord Lyons, The British minister to America presents a formal complaint to secretary of state, William Seward, regarding the Trent affair.
1900 The Federal Party, which recognizes American sovereignty, is formed in the Philippines.
1919 Great Britain institutes a new constitution for India.
1921 President Warren G. Harding frees Socialist Eugene Debs and 23 other political prisoners.
1933 Pope Pius XI condemns the Nazi sterilization program.
1937 London warns Rome to stop anti-British propaganda in Palestine.
1939 The first Canadian troops arrive in Britain.
1940 Chiang Kai-shek dissolves all Communist associations in China.
1941 Despite throwing back an earlier Japanese amphibious assault, the U.S. Marines and Navy defenders on Wake Island capitulate to a second Japanese invasion.
1944 General Dwight D. Eisenhower confirms the death sentence of Private Eddie Slovik, the only American shot for desertion since the Civil War.
1947 President Harry S Truman grants a pardon to 1,523 who had evaded the World War II draft.
1948 Japan's Prime Minister, Hideki Tojo and six other collaborators are hanged for war crimes.
1950 General Walton H. Walker, the commander of the Eighth Army in Korea, is killed in a jeep accident. Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgeway is named his successor.
1967 U.S. Navy SEALs are ambushed during an operation southeast of Saigon.
1974 The B-1 bomber makes its first successful test flight.
1986 The Voyager completes the first nonstop flight around the globe on one load of fuel. The experimental aircraft, piloted Americans Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California after nine days and four minutes in the sky.

1990 In a referendum on Sovlenia's independence from Yugoslovia, 88.5% vote in favor of independence.

2002 An Iraqi MiG-25 shoots down a US MQ-1 Predator drone.

Born on December 23

1777 Alexander I, czar of Russia.
1790 Jean François Champollion, French founder of Egyptology who deciphered the Rosetta Stone.
1805 Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church.
1867 Madame C. J. Walker, first female African American millionaire.
1933 Emperor Akihito, Emperor of Japan. Broke with tradition by marrying Michiko Shoda, the first non-aristocrat to join the royal family.
1935 Paul Hornung, pro football player; member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
1938 Bob Kahn, computer scientist and engineer; co-developed the Transmission Control Protocol that web browsers use to connect to servers on the World Wide Web.
1943 Queen Silvia of Sweden (born Silvia Renate Sommerlath); suppose of King Carl XVI Gustaf.
1944 US Army General Wesley Clark; while serving as Supreme Allied Commander Europe in NATO (1997–2000) he commanded Operation Allied Force in the Kosovo War.
1952 William Kristol, American politician, journalist; founded The Weekly Standard, an influential neoconservative opinion publication.
1953 Maria Vladimirovna, Grand Duchess of Russia.