| 309:
|
Martyrdom of Sts. Shmona and Garia, the "Confessors of Edessa"
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| 878:
|
Death of St. Fintan of Rhienau
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| 1136:
|
Death of St. Leopold, Prince of Austria
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| 1202:
|
Zara, a Christian city, falls to the 4th Crusade
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| 1280:
|
Death of St. Albertus Magnus
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| 1316:
|
John I, King of France born
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| 1397:
|
Pope Nicholas V, ended schism, founded Vatican Library born
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| 1492:
|
Columbus makes the first recorded observation of the use of tobacco
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| 1501:
|
Arthur, Prince of Wales, marries Catherine of Aragon
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| 1533:
|
Spaniards enter the Inca's holy city of Cuzco
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| 1539:
|
Thomas Whiting, Abbot of Glastonbury, and two other monks of the Abbey, "Arthur" and Roger James, hung drawn and quartered on Glastonbury Tor (beatified 13 May 1896)
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| 1591:
|
Execution of Barnabe Brisson, President of the Parliament of Paris
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| 1626:
|
The Plymouth Colony buys out its London investors
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| 1708:
|
British statesman William Pitt ("the elder") born
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| 1738:
|
British astronomer Sir William Herschel, discoverer of the planet Uranus born
|
| 1748:
|
Haydn was replaced by his younger brother Michael in a choral performance because his voice was changing, and the Kapellmeister of St. Stephen's Church in Vienna tried to talk him into becoming a castrato. Haydn's dad found out in time to rush to Vienna and save the family jewels
|
| 1777:
|
The Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation, a precursor to the Constitution of the United States
|
| 1806:
|
Explorer Zebulon Pike sighted the mountaintop now known as "Pikes Peak."
|
| 1864:
|
Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman began his Civil War march from Atlanta to the sea
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| 1874:
|
Nobel Prize-winning physiologist August Krogh of Denmark born
|
| 1881:
|
The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada was formed on this day in Pittsburgh, PA. Five years later the organization would become the American Federation of Labor (AFL)
|
| 1882:
|
Jurist Felix Frankfurter born
|
| 1884:
|
Samuel Sidney McClure, of New York City, started the first newspaper chain on this date
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| 1886:
|
Actor/actress George (Georgina) Spelvin (pseudonym for an actor or actress performing in more than one role; 1st performance: Karl the Peddler; over 10,000 Broadway appearances) born
|
| 1887:
|
Georgia O'Keefe (Cow's Skull with Calico Roses, A Cross by the Sea, Canada, Black Iris, Farmhouse Window and Door, Lake George) born
|
| 1889:
|
Brazil's monarchy was overthrown
|
| 1891:
|
W. Averell Harriman (U.S. diplomat, Governor of New York born
|
| 1904:
|
This was the day that one of Broadway's most famous phrases was uttered for the first time by Ethel Barrymore. Appearing in the play, "Sunday", Barrymore spoke the famous line, "That's all there is. There isn't any more," as the curtain fell
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| 1904:
|
King Camp Gillette patented the razor with disposable blades
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| 1919:
|
Judge Joseph Wapner born
|
| 1919:
|
Actress Carol Bruce (WKRP in Cincinnati) born
|
| 1920:
|
The first assembly of the League of Nations was called to order in Geneva, Switzerland
|
| 1925:
|
Former White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Junior born
|
| 1926:
|
The National Broadcasting Company debuted with a radio network of 24 stations. The program was a gala 4 1/2 hour broadcast from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Two remote pickups were also on the program as opera star, Mary Garden sang from Chicago and Will Rogers presented a humorous monologue from Independence, Kansas. Charles Lindbergh was among the luminaries who attended the NBC broadcast
|
| 1928:
|
Filler-up, Keep on Truckin' Cafe, Wolf Creek Pass, Classified, There Won't be No Country Music, Roses for Mama) born
|
| 1929:
|
Actor Ed Asner (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rich Man, Poor Man, Roots-Part One, Lou Grant, Thunder Alley, Hearts Afire, Change of Habit, The Doomsday Flight, Fort Apache The Bronx, JFK, They Call Me Mr. Tibbs!) born
|
| 1932:
|
Singer Petula Clark (Downtown, I Know a Place, This is My Song, My Love) born
|
| 1933:
|
Comedian Jack Burns born
|
| 1933:
|
Singer Clyde McPhatter (Treasure of Love, Long Lonely Nights, A Lovers Question, Lover Please; groups: Dominoes: Do Something for Me, Sixty Minute Man, Have Mercy Baby; Drifters: Money Honey, Such a Night/Lucille, Honey Love) born
|
| 1934:
|
Actress Joanna Barnes (The Trials of O'Brien, 21 Beacon Street, Spartacus, Parent Trap, Goodbye Charlie) born
|
| 1937:
|
Singer Little Willie John (Sleep, Talk to Me Talk to Me, Fever) born
|
| 1937:
|
Congress enjoyed air conditioning in both the House and Senate chambers for the first time as the second session of the 75th U.S. Congress convened this day
|
| 1938:
|
Television's first on-the-scene program took place. A fire on Ward's Island, New York, was seen by the cameras of NBC's W2XBT. The cameras caught the unexpected fire as it broke out
|
| 1939:
|
President Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC
|
| 1939:
|
The Social Security Administration approved the first unemployment check
|
| 1940:
|
Actor Sam Waterston (The Killing Fields, Law & Order, Friendly Fire, I'll Fly Away, The Great Gatsby, Serial Mom) born
|
| 1940:
|
Golfer Fred Marti born
|
| 1940:
|
The first 75 peacetime conscription
|
| 1942:
|
Pianist Daniel Barenboim born
|
| 1945:
|
Pop singer Frida (Anni-Frid) Lyngstad (group-ABBA Dancing Queen, Take a Chance on Me, Waterloo) born
|
| 1946:
|
Singer Janet Lennon (The Lennon Sisters) born
|
| 1947:
|
Basketball player Bob Dandridge born
|
| 1949:
|
Actor Yaphet Kotto born
|
| 1950:
|
Denver Broncos running back Otis Armstrong born
|
| 1953:
|
Singer Alexander O'Neal born
|
| 1954:
|
Rock singer-producer Mitch Easter born
|
| 1954:
|
Actress Beverly D'Angelo (Coal Miner's Daughter, Paternity, Hair, Annie Hall, Every Which Way but Loose, National Lampoon's Vacation series, Captains and the Kings) born
|
| 1956:
|
"Love Me Tender" - the first Elvis Presley film - premiered on this day. It was termed a "rock and roll western"
|
| 1957:
|
"Tonight Show" bandleader Kevin Eubanks born
|
| 1959:
|
A famous classical quote was published. Metropolitan Opera boss Rudolph Bing, in an interview with the New York Times, dismissed a question about the Met's operating deficit by saying, "Opera has no business making money."
|
| 1965:
|
The fastest man on wheels, Craig Breedlove, set a world speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, with a speed of 600.601 mph
|
| 1966:
|
The flight of "Gemini 12" ended successfully as astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Junior splashed down safely in the Atlantic
|
| 1967:
|
Singer Mari Fernandez (group Came True) born
|
| 1967:
|
Rapper E-40 born
|
| 1969:
|
The first album featuring Karen and Richard Carpenter, "Offering", was released by A&M Records on this day. It would not be a big seller, but a single from the disc, a remake of The Beatles' "Ticket to Ride", would gain national attention. Their next album, however, would establish them as major international stars. Its title: "Close to You"
|
| 1969:
|
A quarter of a million protesters staged a peaceful demonstration in Washington against the Vietnam War
|
| 1969:
|
Janis Joplin was arrested for using ``vulgar and indecent'' language on stage in Tampa, Florida...and also for allegedly threatening to kick a police officer in the face
|
| 1970:
|
Country singer Jack Ingram born
|
| 1980:
|
After years of success on the music charts with the New Christy Minstrels and the First Edition, Kenny Rogers got his first #1 song this day. "Lady", written by Lionel Richie, stayed at the top for six weeks
|
| 1982:
|
Funeral services were held in Moscow's Red Square for the late Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev
|
| 1984:
|
Five-week-old Baby Fae died after her body rejected the baboon heart she had lived with for 20 days at California's Loma Linda University Medical Center
|
| 1985:
|
Britain and Ireland signed an accord giving Dublin an official consultative role in governing Northern Ireland
|
| 1986:
|
A government tribunal in Nicaragua convicted American Eugene Hasenfus of charges related to his role in delivering arms to Contra rebels, and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. (Hasenfus was pardoned a month later.)
|
| 1987:
|
Twenty-eight of 82 people aboard a Continental Airlines DC-9, including the pilot and co-pilot, were killed when the jetliner crashed seconds after taking off from Denver's Stapleton International Airport
|
| 1988:
|
The Palestine National Council, the legislative body of the PLO, proclaimed the establishment of an independent Palestinian state at the close of a four-day conference in Algiers
|
| 1988:
|
The Soviet Union launched its first space shuttle, "Buran," on an unmanned, three-and-a-half-hour flight
|
| 1988:
|
The Dalai Lama said he would settle for less than full independence for Tibet in order to prevent full assimilation by China
|
| 1989:
|
Solidarity leader Lech Walesa was cheered by American lawmakers as he told a joint meeting of Congress that U.S. aid to Poland "will not be wasted, and will never be forgotten."
|
| 1990:
|
Milli Vanilli's German producer revealed that the Grammy- winning pop duo did not sing a note on their 1989 debut album...and also lip-synched their way through live and video performances
|
| 1990:
|
The ``Keating Five'' -- Sens. Alan Cranston, D- Calif.; Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz.; John Glenn, D-Ohio; John McCain, R- Ariz.; and Donald Riegle, D-Mich. -- maintained their innocence at the opening of Senate hearings into charges of influence peddling on behalf of S&L kingpin Charles Keating
|
| 1990:
|
The space shuttle Atlantis was launched on a secret military mission
|
| 1990:
|
The first major United States-Saudi Arabia military exercise, "Imminent Thunder" began
|
| 1991:
|
A federal appeals panel threw out former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter's felony convictions in the Iran-Contra affair, saying his immunized testimony to Congress was improperly used against him
|
| 1991:
|
The Justice Department revealed criminal indictments of BCCI and three businessmen associated with it
|
| 1992:
|
President-elect Clinton and his wife, Hillary, hosted a dinner in Little Rock, Arkansas, for Democratic congressional leaders in the first such meeting since the presidential election
|
| 1993:
|
An unauthorized biography of Barbra Streisand claimed she kept her mother in a rundown condo and sent her one-thousand dollars a month
|
| 1993:
|
A judge in Mineola, New York, sentenced Joey Buttafuoco to six months in jail for the statutory rape of Amy Fisher, who is serving a prison sentence for shooting and wounding Buttafuoco's wife, Mary Jo
|
| 1993:
|
The State Department announced that Secretary Warren M. Christopher would travel to the Mideast to try to mediate differences between Israel and the PLO
|
| 1994:
|
Stevie Wonder announced plans for his first national concert tour since 1989...with the benefits going to those organizations working to end world hunger
|
| 1994:
|
The Federal Reserve increased key interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, the largest hike in 13 years
|
| 1994:
|
The 18-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group concluded a two-day summit in Indonesia by adopting a sweeping resolution to remove trade and investment barriers in the region by 2020
|
| 1995:
|
A partial government shutdown stretched into the second day
|
| 1995:
|
The space shuttle Atlantis docked with the orbiting Russian space station Mir
|
| 1996:
|
Texaco agreed to pay $176.1 million to settle a two-year-old race discrimination suit
|
| 1996:
|
Former State Department official Alger Hiss, who fell from grace in a Communist spy scandal, died in New York just four days after his 92nd birthday
|
| 1996:
|
Singer Michael Jackson married the woman carrying his baby - his plastic surgeon's nurse, Debbie Rowe - in a ceremony in Sydney, Australia
|
| 1997:
|
A day after moving to halt the import of modified assault weapons, President Clinton defended the action in his weekly radio address, saying such weapons did nothing but "inspire fear and wreck deadly havoc on our streets."
|
| 1998:
|
Kwame Ture, the civil rights activist formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, died in Guinea at age 57
|
| 1999:
|
The Clinton administration claimed victory in a seven-year struggle to persuade Congress to pay nearly $1 billion in back dues to the United Nations
|
| 1999:
|
Chinese and U.S. negotiators reached a breakthrough agreement to remove trade barriers, clearing the biggest hurdle to China's entry into the World Trade Organization
|
| 2005:
|
Thousands of Australian workers set to rally against IR reform
|
| 2005:
|
Hundreds of thousands rally in Australia against IR legislation
|
| 2005:
|
Globalization and trade deficit are connected says Greenspan
|
| 2005:
|
Thailand forces registration of prepaid phones to thwart insurgency
|
| 2005:
|
AOL to launch online TV service
|
| 2005:
|
Author Vine Deloria dies at 72
|
| 2006:
|
Charles Upham's medals to stay in New Zealand
|
| 2006:
|
Murat Kurnaz describes systematic torture in Guantanamo
|
| 2006:
|
Meena among 60 Asian Heroes of Time Magazine
|
| 2006:
|
Japan and Russia on tsunami alert
|
| 2006:
|
CNN accused of covering up transcript of Bill Maher outing Ken Mehlman
|
| 2006:
|
South Africa to legalize same-sex marriage
|
| 2006:
|
R&B singer Gerald Levert dies
|
| 2006:
|
Ed Joyce to replace Trescothick for Ashes
|
| 2006:
|
The Yes Men troll Wharton Business School with slavery proposal
|
| 2006:
|
Tsunami wave alert for British Columbia dropped
|
| 2006:
|
Tsunami alert lifted for Japan and Russia
|
| 2006:
|
U.S. Airways makes bid on Delta
|
| 2006:
|
Canadian law proposes to ban spitting, swearing and urinating in public
|
| 2006:
|
47th Thessaloniki International Film Festival to open Friday
|
| 2006:
|
Abramoff begins prison sentence
|
| 2006:
|
Bill Clinton jokingly named professor at Columbia University
|
| 2006:
|
Murdoch asks Australians to stick with the US
|
| 2006:
|
Israeli Woman killed by Qassam rocket
|
| 2007:
|
Internally distributed DHS memo: al-Qaeda and Hezbollah may attack U.S. within three years
|
| 2007:
|
Baseball World Cup: Quarter Finalists appeared last 2 days with some disputes
|
| 2007:
|
Magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes Antofagasta, Chile
|
| 2007:
|
Ruling coalition keeps majority after parliamentary election in Denmark
|
| 2007:
|
Cyclone Sidr smashes Bangladesh's coastline, millions evacuated
|
| 2007:
|
Baseball star Barry Bonds indicted on perjury charges
|
| 2007:
|
Video of man tasered at Vancouver airport released
|
| 2007:
|
Pakistan gets caretaker government to oversee January elections
|
| 2008:
|
Scotland's First Minister does comedy sketch for charity
|
| 2008:
|
Sun Microsystems cuts 6,000 jobs
|
| 2008:
|
Turbulence likely cause of Mexico jet crash that killed ministers
|
| 2008:
|
Scotland denies bail to terminally ill man convicted of Lockerbie bombing
|
| 2008:
|
India's flag lands on Moon
|
| 2009:
|
Kosovo: voters go to the polls for the first time since independence declared from Serbia
|
| 2009:
|
New promotional events set for Disney's "Phineas and Ferb's Christmas Vacation"
|
| 2009:
|
European Union emerges from recession
|
| 2009:
|
Peace talks: Syria's President calls upon France to intervene whilst rejecting direct talks with Israel
|
| 2009:
|
Austrian students' protests expanding through Europe
|
| 2009:
|
Mo Ibrahim: Some African countries too small to continue to exist independently
|
| 2009:
|
Kenyan cattle rustlers kill eleven
|
| 2010:
|
Somali piracy: Kenyan navy kills three, Chinese ship hijacked, British couple freed
|
History
Icons
Eminent American abstractionist artist 
Emmy Award winning actor, Edward Asner born in Kansas City, Missouri
Singer Petula Clark born in Surrey, England
30th Governor of New Mexico, 21st US Ambassador to the UN and diplomatic trouble-shooter, Bill Richardson born in Pasadena, California
Actress and singer, Beverly D'Angelo born in Columbus, Ohio