Today in History

1792
Ludwig van Beethoven, age 22 receives his 1st lesson in music compostion by fellow composer, Franz Joseph Haydn,age 60
1899
George F. Bryant patents wooden golf tee
1930
baseball rules committee revises the rule book, ball bouncing into the stands now is a double instead of a home run
1946
Proctor&Gamble's Tide laundry detergent debuts in U.S. test markets, goes nation wide in 1949.
It's the world's highest selling brand in the world,with 14.3% of the global market
1965
Chicago Bears, running back Gayle Sayers ties NFL record for most TD{touchdowns} in a game with 6
The Bears beat San Francisco 49'ers 61-20 in Chicago
1980
Apple makes its initial public offering{IPO} on U.S. stock market. 38 yrs later becomes the 1st U.S. company valued at $1 trillion
 

On This Day In History, December 13th


2003 Saddam Hussein captured
Saddam Hussein, the fifth president of Iraq, was found hiding in a camouflaged hole in the ground and was captured by American forces near Tikrit, Iraq. The military operation that led to his capture was called Operation Red Dawn. He was subsequently handed over to the interim Iraqi government. After a trial where he was found guilty of crimes against humanity, he was executed 3 years after his capture in December 2006.

2001 Attack on the Indian parliament
The Indian parliament, the Sansad, was attacked by terrorists. 15 people, including the terrorists, were killed during the attack.

1972 Last human landing on the Moon
Apollo 17 was the last mission of the United States' Apollo lunar landing program. It was also the sixth and the last time humans landed on the Moon.

1795 Meteorite crashes into Wold Newton in Yorkshire, England.
Major Edward Topham owned the land where the meteorite crashed. He exhibited it later, and today it is in the Natural History Museum in London.

1642 First European to Reach New Zealand
Abel Tasman, a Dutch explorer and merchant, reached the coast of South Island in New Zealand, and named it Staten Landt. Tasman was also the first European in recorded history to step foot on Tasmania, an island state in Australia. Tasman claimed the island for the Dutch crown. It is named after him as well.
 

Births On This Day, December 13th 🎂

1989 Taylor Swift
American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actress

1948 Ted Nugent
American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor

1936 Aga Khan IV
Swiss/French 49th Nizari Ismaili Imam

1902 Talcott Parsons
American sociologist

1818 Mary Todd Lincoln
American wife of Abraham Lincoln, 17th First Lady of the United States

Deaths On This Day, December 13th 🪦

2010 Richard Holbrooke
American journalist, banker, diplomat, 22nd United States Ambassador to the United Nations

2005 Stanley Williams
American gang leader co-founded the Crips

1944 Wassily Kandinsky
Russian/French painter

1784 Samuel Johnson
English author, lexicographer

1204 Maimonides
Spanish rabbi, philosopher
 

On This Day In History, December 14th

2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children and 6 adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

1961 Tanzania joins the United Nations
Tanzania was created as a merger of Tanganyika and the Zanzibar Archipelago, both of which were under British rule until independence.

1958 Soviets Reach the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility
A Pole of Inaccessibility is a location on Earth that is extremely difficult to access. In the North, it is the point in the Arctic Ocean that is farthest from land, while in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the point farthest from the Southern Ocean on Antarctica. In 1958, a Soviet team led by Yevgeny Tolstikov became the first people in history to reach the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility, which is 546 miles (878 kilometres) from the geographic South Pole. Temperatures at this location average around – 73 degrees F (–58 degrees C).

1939 USSR expelled from the League of Nations
The Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations for making aggressive demands of Finland.

1911 Roald Amundsen reaches the South Pole
Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team reached the South Pole, becoming the first man in recorded history to set foot on the most southern point on Earth.
 

Births On This Day, December 14th 🎂

1988 Vanessa Hudgens
American actress, singer

1966 Fabrizio Giovanardi
Italian race car driver

1947 Dilma Rousseff
Brazilian politician, economist, 36th President of Brazil

1546 Tycho Brahe
Danish astronomer, chemist

1503 Nostradamus
French astrologer

Deaths On This Day, December 14th 🪦

2013 Peter O'Toole
Irish actor

1989 Andrei Sakharov
Russian physicist

1947 Stanley Baldwin
English politician

1943 John Harvey Kellogg
American surgeon, co-created Corn flakes

1799 George Washington
American general, politician, 1st President of the United States
 
On This Day In History, December 15th

2009 Maiden flight of Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Considered to be one of Boeing's most fuel-efficient aeroplanes, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner has suffered from problems associated with its lithium-ion batteries.

1978 US recognizes China
30 years after the creation of the People's Republic of China, President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would formally recognize the communist country starting January 1, 1979. The announcement also called for the severing of relations with Taiwan, a position that was quickly reversed under protests.

1939 Premier of the Gone with the Wind
The award-winning film was adapted from the Pulitzer winner Margaret Mitchell's book by the same name.

1933 Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution comes into effect
Ratified on December 5 of the same year, the amendment repealed the prohibition on alcohol in the United States which had come into force on January 17, 1920, when the 18th amendment took effect.

1791 U.S. Bill of Rights becomes law
The first 10 amendments to the Constitution of the United States are known as the Bill of Rights. They became law after Virginia ratified the amendments.
 
Births On This Day, December 15th 🎂

1986 Junsu
South Korean singer-songwriter, actor

1979 Eric Young
Canadian wrestler

1928 Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Austrian/New Zealand painter, and architect, designed the Kuchlbauer Tower, Waldspirale

1907 Oscar Niemeyer
Brazilian architect, designed the United Nations Headquarters, Cathedral of Brasília

37 Nero
Roman Emperor

Deaths On This Day, December 15th 🪦

2013 Harold Camping
American broadcaster, author

2011 Christopher Hitchens
English/American journalist, author

2010 Bob Feller
American baseball player

1966 Walt Disney
American animator, director, screenwriter, and producer, co-founded The Company

1950 Vallabhbhai Patel
Indian activist, politician, 1st Deputy Prime Minister of India
 
On This Day In History, December 16th

2010 Last episode of Larry King Live aired
After 25 years of being on TV, the last episode of Larry King Live, one of CNN's most watched TV program was aired. While the official end date for the talk show was December 16, an episode on cancer was aired two days later on December 18. It was replaced by Piers Morgan Tonight.

1991 Kazakhstan independence
The Central Asian country was the last Soviet republic to declare its independence.

1971 End of Indo-Pakistani War
The third major conflict between the two countries was fought because of India's support of Bangladesh's War of Liberation. The war ended only after 13 days and with the creation of the independent state of Bangladesh.

1773 Boston Tea Party
Considered as one of the key events in the American Revolution, the Tea Party occurred when protesters in Boston, a territory controlled by the British, dumped heavily taxed British tea into Boston Harbor.

1707 Last eruption of Mount Fuji
The highest volcano in Japan erupted for the last time in what is known as the Hōei Eruption. The eruption lasted for 17 days.
 
Births On This Day, December 16th 🎂

1917 Arthur C. Clarke
English author

1901 Margaret Mead
American anthropologist

1866 Wassily Kandinsky
Russian/French painter

1775 Jane Austen
English author

1485 Catherine of Aragon

Deaths On This Day, December 16th 🪦

1988 Sylvester
American singer-songwriter, pianist, producer

1980 Colonel Sanders
American businessman founded KFC

1965 W. Somerset Maugham
French/English author, playwright

1515 Afonso de Albuquerque
Portuguese Admiral

705 Wu Zetian
Chinese empress
 
16th December

1431 Henry VI was crowned King of France, the only English monarch to wear both crowns. The son of the charismatic Henry V and Catherine of Valois, he became King of England at just eight months old.

1653 Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector of the realm. Following the execution of Charles I, Oliver Cromwell failed to get the Parliament he wanted and became Lord Protector.

1914 The inhabitants of Scarborough in North Yorkshire awoke to find a heavy mist hanging over their seaside town – and three German warships sailing rapidly towards them.
The devastating attack that followed on Scarborough, together with Hartlepool and Whitby, was the first time civilians had been targeted on English soil during the First World War. It so shocked the nation that ‘Remember Scarborough’ became a rallying cry for a huge recruitment campaign.

1929 Barnes Wallis saw his R100 airship carry out its first test flight. After departing from Howden in Yorkshire, she flew slowly to York then set course for the Government Airship Establishment at Cardington, Bedfordshire, cruising at around 50 mph on four engines.

1969 MPs voted by a big majority for the permanent abolition of the death penalty for murder. A great cheer went up in the Commons as the final result was announced shortly before midnight.

1984 Gorbachev visit to Britain a 'success'. Mikhail Gorbachev, the man widely tipped as the next leader of the Soviet Union, spent five hours in "very friendly" talks with the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, according to British Government officials.
 
On This Day In History, December 18th

1966 Richard Walker discovers Epimetheus
One of Saturn's 150 natural satellites or moons, Epimetheus shares its orbit with another moon, Janus. Saturn's largest moon is Titan, which is the only natural satellite in the Solar System with an atmosphere.

1958 World's first communication satellite launched
A product of a highly secretive project, SCORE (Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment) was launched aboard the Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Once in orbit, it relayed the first message sent to Earth from space - a short statement by American President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1912 Discovery of the Piltdown Man Announced
The announcement by British archaeologist Charles Dawson at a conference of the Geological Society of London was received with very little scepticism in the field of paleoanthropology. The discovery of fossilized remains of an unidentified human ancestor in Piltdown, East Sussex, England, was thought to have provided valuable clues about human evolution. It wasn't until 1953 that the Piltdown Man was discovered to be a hoax - with the skull consisting of the jawbones of an orangutan and the cranium of an adult human being.

1892 The Nutcracker makes its debut in St. Petersburg, Russia
The two-part ballet was inspired by German author Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann's novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Even though the ballet's score was composed by the famous Russian composer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, it did not get good reviews. It was only in the mid-20th century, that The Nutcracker gained popularity among theatergoers, especially during Christmas time in the United States.

1865 US abolishes slavery
The US Secretary of State proclaimed the adoption of the 13th Amendment, officially bringing it into force. The first of the 3 Reconstruction Amendments, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. The other two Reconstruction Amendments – the 14th and the 15th Amendments – extended citizenship rights, equal protection of the law, and the right to vote to all Americans irrespective of their "race, colour, or previous condition of servitude."
 
Births On This Day, December 18th 🎂

1980 Christina Aguilera
American singer-songwriter, producer, actress

1964 Stone Cold Steve Austin
American wrestler, actor, producer

1963 Brad Pitt
American actor, producer

1946 Steven Spielberg
American director

1878 Joseph Stalin
Soviet marshal, politician, 4th Premier of the Soviet Union

Deaths On This Day, December 18th 🪦

2011 Václav Havel
Czech politician, 1st President of the Czech Republic

2008 Mark Felt
American agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

2006 Joseph Barbera
American animator, director, producer, co-founded Hanna-Barbera

1980 Alexei Kosygin
Soviet politician

1892 Richard Owen
English biologist
 
18th December

1974 The Government said that it would pay £42,000 compensation to relatives of the 13 men killed in the Bloody Sunday riots in Londonderry (30th January 1972). Thirteen men were killed when British troops opened fire on a group of demonstrators in the Bogside district of Londonderry on 30 January 1972.

1997 A bill giving Scotland its own parliament for the first time in three centuries was unveiled in Glasgow. Work commenced in June 1999 on the Scottish Parliament Building.

2012 The Queen attended a historic cabinet meeting at Downing Street, the first monarch to do so since 1781. Later, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that the southern part of the British Antarctic Territory, an unnamed area almost twice the size of the UK would be called Queen Elizabeth Land.

2013 The Bank of England announced its plans to press ahead with switching to plastic banknotes, starting with the new Sir Winston Churchill £5 note in 2016. The decision will mark the beginning of the end of 320 years of paper notes from the Bank.
 
Dec 19th:
1732
Benjamin Franklin using an alias' Richard Saunders' begins publication of 'Poor Richard's Alamanck,he would publish the annual issue for next 25 yrs
1884
Allen Weston from Conn patents sewing machine to sew curving seams
1932
British Broadcasting Corp {BBC} begins transmitting overseas
1942
convicted murderer, Robert Stroud is transferred to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary where he's known as' Birdman from Alcatraz'
2023
A judge in Oakland, Calif exonerates Glyn Simmons age 70 after he spent 48 yrs in prison for a murder he didn't commit.Its the longest known wrongful sentence in U.S.
 
On This Day In History, December 21st

1995 Palestinians take control of Bethlehem
Israeli troops withdrew from the city under the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip signed in September 1995. The city was under a British mandate from 1920 to 1948, and then it was captured by Jordan during the Arab-Israeli War in 1948. Most recently, it was taken over by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967.

1988 Lockerbie Bombing
A bomb exploded on Pan Am Flight number 103 on its way from Frankfurt, Germany, to Detroit, United States, over the Scottish city of Lockerbie. The terrorist attack killed all the passengers and crew on board and 11 people on the ground.

1965 The adoption of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)
The human rights convention was adopted by the United Nations' member states and was put into force on January 4, 1969. It attempts to eliminate racial discrimination in the world.

1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs released
The movie made by Walt Disney Productions was the world's first full-length animated feature film and it was based on a German fairy tale of the same name by the Brothers Grimm.

1872 Phileas Fogg wins his wager
The fictional character created by French writer Jules Verne for his book, Around the World in Eighty Days, finished circumnavigating the world and reached London to win the wager he had set with his friends. The date also coincides with the publication of the last of the series that ended up becoming the now popular science fiction novel.
 

Births On This Day, December 21st 🎂

1982 Philip Humber
American baseball player

1966 Kiefer Sutherland
English/Canadian actor, director, producer

1940 Frank Zappa
American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer

1804 Benjamin Disraeli
English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

1118 Thomas Becket
English archbishop

Deaths On This Day, December 21st 🪦

1963 Jack Hobbs
English cricketer

1945 George S. Patton
American general

1940 F. Scott Fitzgerald
American author

1935 Kurt Tucholsky
German journalist

72 Thomas the Apostle
 
21st December

1846 Robert Liston, Scottish surgeon, used anaesthetic (ether) for the first time in a British operation, at University College Hospital, London.

1880 An act passed by the House of Keys on the Isle of Man granted women the vote, provided they were widows or spinsters with a property rated annually at £4 or over. The first opportunity to vote was in April, the following year.

1958 General Charles de Gaulle elected President of France with an overwhelming majority.

1962 President Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan announced the formation of a multilateral Nato nuclear force after talks in Nassau, in the Bahamas. The agreement means the United States will sell Polaris missiles to the UK.

2020 The death (aged 103) of RAF 'Spitfire woman' Eleanor Wadsworth. She was one of the last surviving women to have taken on the task of transporting aircraft to the frontlines during World War II. The women operated out of White Waltham in Berkshire and flew without instruments, flying instructions or radios.
 
22 December 2010
The British government declared the Beatles' famous Abbey Road zebra-crossing a national heritage site.
Stating; "This London zebra crossing is no castle or cathedral, but thanks to the Beatles and a 10-minute photo shoot one August morning in 1969, it has just as strong a claim as any to be seen as part of our heritage."
 
1882
The 1st string of Xmas lights were created by Thomas Edison
1937
Lincoln Tunnel which is under the Hudson River in NYC opens to traffic. It connects Weehawken,NJ- midtown Manhattan
1958
The Christmas novelty song' The Chipmunk Song{Christmas Don't Be Late} by David Seville& the Chipmunks hits #1 on music charts, stays there for 4 weeks. It's the only holiday chart topper until Mariah Carey's 2019 single' All I Want For Christmas Is You'
1984
Bernard Goetz shoots 4 black teenagers on NYC subway train who attempted to rob him,all survived.He
was charged with attempted murder, assault,reckless endangerment,several firearm offenses. He was found guilty of carrying unlicensed firearm, sentence to 1 yr in jail,was released after 8 months
2001
terrorist, Richard Reid boarded an American Airlines plane in Paris bound for Miami..He had explosives hidden in his shoes, passengers subdued him. The plane was diverted to Boston's Logan Airport He plead guilty to 8 counts of terrorism. He's serving 3 life sentences at U.S. Penitentary prison in Colorado
 
Dec 24th:
1818
Christmas carol' Silent Night' composed by Franz Xaver Gruber is 1st sung at St. Nicholas Parish Church in Oberndorf, Austria
1889
Daniel Stover and William Hance patent a bicycle with a back pedal brake
1951
The 1st opera commissioned for TV 'Amhal&The Night Visitors' by Gian Carlo Menotte debuts on NBC
1980
Americans remember 52 hostages being held in Iran by shining lights for 417 seconds
Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran,the hostages were released on Jan 20,1981 after 444 days when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as U.S. President
 

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