December 15......

December 15 is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 16 days remaining in the year on this date.

EVENTS

● 533 - Byzantine general Belisarius defeats the Vandals, commanded by King Gelimer, at the Battle of Ticameron.

● 687 - St Sergius I begins his reign as Catholic Pope succeeding Conon

● 1124 - Chancellor Haimeric selects pope (Lamberto becomes Honorius II)

● 1167 - Sicilian chancellor Stephen du Perche moves the royal court to Messina to prevent a rebellion.

● 1256 - Hulagu Khan captures and destroys the Hashshashin stronghold at Alamut in present-day Iran as part of the Mongol offensive on Islamic southwest Asia.

● 1488 - Bartholomeus Diaz returns to Portugal after sailing round Cape of Good Hope

● 1558 - Dutch Anabaptist reformer Menno Simons wrote in a letter: 'Wherever there is a pulverized and penitent heart, there grace also is, and wherever there is a voluntary confession not gained by pressure, there love covereth a multitude of sins.'

● 1569 - Westmoreland flees to Scotland

● 1582 - Leidse University names Rembert Dodoens professor of botany/medicine

● 1582 - Spanish Netherlands/Denmark/Norway adopt Gregorian calendar

● 1586 - Laevinus Torrentius, becomes bishop of Antwerp

● 1593 - State of Holland grants patent on windmill with crankshaft

● 1612 - Simon Marius, is 1st to observe Andromeda galaxy through a telescope

● 1629 - In England, proto-Baptist minister and founder of Rhode Island, 26-year-old Roger Williams married Mary Barnard, daughter of a Puritan clergyman. Two years later, he and his wife sailed from Bristol to Massachusetts.

● 1640 - Duke of Bragança crowned King Johan IV of Portugal

● 1654 - A meteorological office established in Tuscany began recording daily temperature readings.

● 1660 - Philippines: Andres Malongs rebels plunders Bagnotan

● 1664 - English colonizing Connecticut

● 1667 - Brandenburg declares himself neutral in Devolutie War

● 1680 - Tax revolt on Terschelling due to tax on cereal

● 1688 - Lord Delamere sides with King James II

● 1739 - English revivalist George Whitefield wrote in a letter: 'My brother, entreat the Lord that I may grow in grace, and pick up the fragments of my time, that not a moment of it may be lost.'

● 1745 - Battle at Kesseldorf: Prussia beats Saksen & Austria

● 1791 - In the U.S., the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, went into effect following ratification by the state of Virginia. Numerous modern polls have shown that, with questions couched in law and order terms, most Americans oppose the Bill of Rights.

● 1791 - 1st US law school established at University of Pennsylvania

● 1792 - 1st life insurance policy issued in US (Philadelphia)

● 1794 - Revolutionary Tribunal abolished in France

● 1810 - 1st Irish magazine in US, The Shamrock, is published

● 1815 - Convention of New England states recommends protection of citizens from possible draft. Hartford, Connecticut.

● 1815 - Jane Austen's "Emma" was published.

● 1818 - Irwin County, Georgia is created.

● 1820 - 1st general pharmacopoeia in US published, Boston

● 1836 - Patent Office burns in Washington DC

● 1840 - Napoleon Bonapart's remains were interred in Les Invalides in Paris, having been brought from St. Helena, where he died in exile.

● 1854 - 1st street-cleaning machine in US 1st used in Philadelphia

● 1859 - GR Kirchoff describes chemical composition of Sun

● 1863 - Skirmish at Bean's Station TN (Knoxville Campaign)

● 1864 - Battle of Nashville TN

● 1864 - Raid on Stoneman: Abingdon & Glade Springs VA

● 1869 - Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, left San Francisco to seek his yearly tribute from the legislature and lobbyists in Sacramento. He inspected the new capitol during the gala ball celebrating the buildings' inauguration.

● 1874 - 1st reigning king to visit US (of Hawaii) received by President Grant

● 1877 - Thomas Edison patents phonograph

● 1890 - Sioux Chief Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) murdered, Standing Rock, South Dakota, as he stepped from his cabin to submit to arrest as the alleged "power" behind the outlawed Ghost Dance Movement -- a Messianic religion which preached that all Indians would soon be free.

● 1891 - James Naismith introduces the first version of basketball, with thirteen rules, a peach basket nailed to either end of his school's gymnasium, and two teams of nine players.

● 1899 - J. Paul Getty, the American businessman and oil tycoon who controlled the Getty Oil Company, was born.

● 1899 - 3rd defeat of "Black Week" - Battle at Colenso South Africa (Boers-British army)

● 1909 - Thomas J Lynch becomes president of baseball's National League

● 1913 - Nicaragua becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

● 1914 - American Radio Relay League (organization for hams) founded by Hiram Percy Maxim

● 1914 - Battle of Lódz ends; Russians retreat toward Moscow

● 1914 - British fleet forfeits chance to destroy German fleet in North Sea

● 1914 - Swedish troops over run Belgrade in Austria-Hungary

● 1916 - French defeat Germans in WWI Battle of Verdun

● 1917 - Moldavian Republic declares independence from Russia

● 1918 - American Jewish Congress holds it's 1st meeting

● 1919 - Fiume (Rijeka) declares it's Independence

● 1922 - IVVV (association) peace congress on war forms in Hague

● 1923 - President Calvin Coolidge releases 31 World War I conscientious objectors still imprisoned five years after the end of the war.

● 1925 - The third Madison Square Gardens opened.

● 1925 - 1st road with a depressed trough (Texas) opens to traffic

● 1926 - Facist national symbol elevated in Italy

● 1927 - Ed Hickman kidnaps child he later beheads

● 1929 - Walter Mittelholzer flies as 1st about the Kilimanjaro

● 1930 - Albert Einstein urges militant pacifism and an international war resistance fund.

● 1934 - Fokker F18 Snip flies to Netherlands West Indies

● 1938 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt presided over the ground-breaking ceremonies for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC.

● 1939 - 1st commercial manufacture of nylon yarn, Seaford DE

● 1939 - "Gone With the Wind," produced by David O. Selznick based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell, premiered at Loew's Grand Theater in Atlanta. The movie starred Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.

● 1939 - Snip departs for 1st flight to Paramaribo, Curaçao

● 1941 - Annihilation of Jews in Kharkiv, Ukraine: in the proximity of the Rogan works, 8 km away from Kharkiv, in "Drobitsky Ravine" (Drobitsky Yar), over 15,000 Jews were shot, at -15 degrees C below zero.

● 1941 - USS Swordfish becomes 1st US sub to sink a Japanese ship

● 1941 - Gas/electrical use restricted in Holland

● 1941 - German submarine U-127 sinks

● 1941 - Nazi's transfers 100 Czechoslovakian citizens/Heinrich Himmler falls faint

● 1941 - North Africa: allied assault up Italians Gazala-posing

● 1941 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt singed into practice Bill of Rights Day.

● 1942 - Massachusetts issues 1st US vehicular license plate tabs

● 1944 - A single-engine plane carrying U.S. Army Major Glenn Miller disappeared in thick fog over the English Channel while en route to Paris.

● 1944 - Dr. R. Townley Paton and a small group of doctors laid the groundwork for the Eye-Bank for Sight Restoration.

● 1944 - Hizbu'allah (Arm forces for Allah) forms

● 1944 - US Congress gives General Eisenhower his 5th star

● 1944 - American forces invaded Mindoro Island in the Philippines.

● 1945 - Occupation of Japan: General Douglas MacArthur orders that Shinto be abolished as state religion of Japan.

● 1945 - John J "Cardinal" O'Connor, ordained as a priest

● 1948 - Alger Hiss, former State Department official, indicted for perjury, after denying he passed secret documents to Whittaker Chambers for a communist spy ring. His second trial, Jan. 1950, ended in conviction and five years in prison.

● 1950 - NYC's Port Authority opens

● 1952 - Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Orientales Ecclesias

● 1953 - Veteran James Kutcher, who lost both his legs in WWII, informed his disability was being cut of due to his membership in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

● 1954 - Fordham University scraps football team for financial reasons

● 1954 - Netherlands Antilles becomes co-equal part of Kingdom of Netherlands

● 1956 - Emergency crisis in North Ireland proclaimed after IRA strikes

● 1957 - British apologist C.S. Lewis wrote in a letter: 'May it please the Lord that...faith unimpaired may strengthen us, contrition soften us and peace make us joyful.'

● 1958 - Film stars raise cash for Colleano; British stars of the big screen take part in a fund-raising football match for the family of America actor Bonar Colleano, killed in a car crash earlier this year.

● 1960 - U.S. backs right wing coup in Laos.

● 1960 - King Baudouin of Belgium marries Fabiola Fernanda María de las Victorias Antonia Adelaida de Mora y Aragón in Brussels.

● 1960 - Richard Paul Pavlick is arrested for attempting to blow up and assassinate the 35th U.S. President, John F. Kennedy only four days earlier.

● 1961 - The U.N. General Assembly voted against a Soviet proposal to admit Communist China as a member.

● 1961 - In Jerusalem, Adolph Eichmann is sentenced to death after being found guilty of 15 criminal charges, including charges of crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people and membership of an outlawed organization.

● 1961 - Equal access rule, political parties get TV broadcasting time

● 1961 - JFK visits Puerto Rico

● 1961 - L J Suenens appointed archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels

● 1962 - Vaughn Meader's "The 1st Family" album goes #1 & stays #1 for 12 weeks

● 1964 - Canada's House of Commons approved a newly designed flag thereby dropping the Canadian "Red Ensign" flag.

● 1965 - 3rd cyclone of year kills another 10,000 at mouth of Ganges River, Bangladesh

● 1965 - 1st time 4 people in space

● 1965 - Gemini program: Gemini 6A, crewed by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Four orbits later, it achieved the first space rendezvous with Gemini 7.

● 1965 - William Eckert replaces Ford Frick as 4th commissioner of baseball

● 1965 - Queen Juliana opens Zeeland Bridge to Oosterschelde

● 1965 - The film The Sound of Music is released.

● 1966 - Walter Elias "Walt" Disney died in Los Angeles at the age of 65.

● 1966 - Entertainer and fascist sympathizer Walt Disney dies. (He's still in the fridge).

● 1966 - Sixty-seven arrested in blockade of Manhattan army induction center, New York City.

● 1966 - Audouin Dollfus discovers 10th satellite of Saturn, Janus

● 1966 - John W Mecom Jr. becomes 1st owner of the New Orleans Saints

● 1967 - Silver Bay bridge (Ohio-West Virginia) collapses during afternoon rush hour, 34 die

● 1969 - Anarchist railway worker Pinelli "accidentally" defenestrated to his death from the 4th floor of police station in Milan, Italy where he had been held following an attack four days previous against the Bank of Agriculture. Pinelli's police murder was the subject of Nobel Prize-winner Dario Fo's play, "Accidental Death of an Anarchist."

● 1969 - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) reaffirms its Biblically ordained exclusion of blacks from the ministry.

● 1969 - San Francisco Fire Department replaces leather helmets with plastic ones

● 1970 - Pres. Nixon signs the Taos Land Bill. Forty-eight thousand acres of land are returned to the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, the first U.S. legislation ever to return a sizable amount of federal land to the Native Americans from whom it was stolen.

● 1970 - Poland: Youths and workers torch the Gdansk Communist Party HQ and quietly watch it burn.

● 1970 - Bank of America bombing, Santa Barbara, California.

● 1970 - The Nez Perce tribe of Idaho and Confederated Tribe of Colville, Wash., win $1.1 million for loss of tribal lands in 19th century.

● 1970 - Illinois State Constitution is adopted at a special election.

● 1970 - The Soviet probe Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to land softly on the surface of Venus. The probe only survived the extreme heat and pressure for about 23 minutes and transmitted the first date received on Earth from the surface of another planet.

● 1970 - South Korean ferry Namyong-Ho sinks in Strait of Korea, 308 killed

● 1971 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR

● 1972 - Italy recognizes right to conscientious objection to military service.

● 1973 - J. Paul Getty III was found in southern Italy after being held captive for five months, during which his right ear was cut off and sent to a newspaper in Rome.

● 1973 - American Psychiatric Association declares homosexuality is not mental illness

● 1974 - New speed limit to curb fuel use; British drivers must adhere to reduced speed limits from midnight tonight as the government tries to save fuel.

● 1976 - Samoa becomes a member of the UN.

● 1976 - Argo Merchant tanker off Massachusetts' SE coast, spills 7.6 million gallons of crude when the ship runs aground

● 1976 - Jamaica premier Manley wins elections

● 1978 - Saint Maarten Patriotic Movement (SPM) forms under W James

● 1978 - U.S. President Carter announced he would grant diplomatic recognition to Communist China on New Year's Day and sever official relations with Taiwan.

● 1979 - The former shah of Iran, Muhammad Riza Pahlavi, left the United States for Panama. He had gone to the U.S. for medical treatment on October 22, 1979.

● 1979 - In a preliminary ruling, the International Court of Justice ordered Iran to release all hostages that had been taken at the U.S. embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979.

● 1980 - France: As part of an ongoing campaign of terror, a group of about 30 rightwing students attack students on Nanterre campus. But those attacked fought back this time, and a few hundred even chased the rightwingers off campus and caught them attempting to escape by subway, returning blow for blow.

● 1980 - Premier Queddei troops conquers Chad capital N'djamena

● 1980 - ZBZ Sangha (now ZBZ Bodhidharma) officially registered after 5 years of administrative hassles in Warsaw

● 1981 - NASA launches Intelsat V

● 1982 - United Nations General Assembly calls for nuclear weapons freeze.

● 1982 - Roy Williams, Teamsters president, & 4 others convicted of bribery

● 1982 - Paul "Bear" Bryant announced his retirement as head football coach at the University of Alabama.

● 1982 - Gibraltar's frontier with Spain was opened to pedestrian use after 13 years.

● 1982 - Sao Tome & Principe constitution approved

● 1983 - Columbia flies to Kennedy Space Center via El Paso, Kelly AFB

● 1983 - The last 80 U.S. combat soldiers in Grenada withdrew. It was just over seven weeks after the U.S.-led invasion of the Caribbean island.

● 1984 - USSR launches Vega 1 for rendezvous with Halley's Comet

● 1986 - CIA director William Casey suffers a cerebral seizure, at work, before he can answer questions about Iran-Contra Affair.

● 1986 - 150 killed during race riot in Karachi Pakistan

● 1988 - Lori Davis of Long Island sues Mike Tyson for grabbing her buttocks

● 1989 - An uprising in Romania began as demonstrators gathered to prevent the arrest of the Reverend Laszlo Tokes, a dissident clergyman, it led to the downfall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

● 1990 - More than 400 American Roman Catholic theologians charged that the Vatican had been throttling church reforms and imposing "an excessive Roman centralization." They contended that the Vatican had undercut a greater role for women, slowed the ecumenical drive for Christian unity and undermined the collegial functioning of national conferences of bishops. (The Vatican response was, “This a bad thing, how?”)

● 1992 - IBM announced it would eliminate 25-thousand employees in the coming year.

● 1992 - Bettino Craxi, the leader of Italy's Socialist Party, was informed that he was under investigation in a burgeoning corruption scandal in the northern city of Milan.

● 1992 - El Salvador's government and leftist guerrilla leaders formally declared the end of the country's 12-year civil war.

● 1992 - American rapper, Dr. Dre, releases his highly influential debut album, The Chronic. The Chronic is often labelled as the first ever G-Funk album.

● 1993 - In Geneva, 117 countries completed the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The countries agreed on a reform package.

● 1993 - The prime ministers of Britain and the Republic of Ireland (John Major and Albert Reynolds respectively) made the "Downing Street Declaration," stating the basis for trying to achieve peace in Northern Ireland.

● 1993 - C-130 flies into a Philippines hill & explodes, 16 killed

● 1993 - Haitian premier Robert Malval resigns

● 1993 - Lee Aspen resigns as Secretary of Defense

● 1993 - Y-12 crashes at Phonesavanh, Laos: 18 killed

● 1994 - John Bruton becomes Ireland's premier

● 1994 - Liberia militia kills 48 inhabitants of Monrovia

● 1994 - Modahl banned for drug taking; Former 800m Commonwealth gold-medallist Diane Modahl is found guilty of taking a banned drug - but is cleared a year later on appeal.

● 1994 - The web browser Netscape Navigator 1.0 is released.

● 1994 - Palau becomes a member of the UN.

● 1995 - The European Communities Court of Justice hands down the "Bosman ruling", giving EU footballers the right to a free transfer at the end of their contracts, with the provision that they are transferring from one UEFA Federation to another.

● 1995 - The U.N. Security Council authorized NATO to take over the peacekeeping operations in Bosnia.

● 1995 - French rail workers voted to end a three-week-old strike.

● 1996 - Boeing Co. announced plans to pay $13.3 billion to acquire rival aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas Corp.

● 1997 - A chartered Tupolev TU-154 from Tajikistan crashes in the desert near Sharja, United Arab Emirates airport killing 85.

● 1997 - The San Francisco 49ers retired Joe Montana's number 16 during halftime of a game against the Denver Broncos.

● 1999 - Syria reopened peace talks with Israel in Washington, DC, with the mediation of U.S. President Clinton.

● 2000 - The Chernobyl atomic power plant in Kiev, Ukraine, was shut down.

● 2000 - New York Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed to accept an $8 million book deal with Simon & Schuster. The book was to be about her eight years in the White House. The advance was the highest ever to be paid to a member of the U.S. Congress.

● 2001 - It was announced that Siena Heights University would begin offering a class called "Animated Philosophy and Religion." The two-credit class would cover how religion and philosophy are part of popular culture and is based on the television series "The Simpsons."

● 2002 - The digital radio station BBC7 is launched by the comedian Paul Merton.

● 2003 - The late Sen. Strom Thurmond's family acknowledged Essie Mae Washington-Williams' claim that she was Thurmond's illegitimate mixed-race daughter.

● 2004 - Blunkett resigns over visa accusations; The British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, resigns after an email implicates him in using his position to grant favours to his ex-lover.

● 2005 - Millions of Iraqis turned out to choose a parliament in a mostly peaceful election.

● 2005 - Former Sen. William Proxmire, the Wisconsin Democrat who'd fought government waste with his "Golden Fleece" awards, died at age 90.

● 2005 - The 43rd known Mersenne prime is discovered by Dr. Curtis Cooper & Dr. Steven Boone of USA, participants of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search distributed computing project. The prime number is 2nd largest known prime and has more than nine million digits.

● 2005 - Latvia edits its constitution to ban equal marriage rights to gays and lesbians.

● 2005 - Argentina's president Néstor Kirchner announces the early repayment of its external debt to the IMF.

● 2006 - First flight of the F-35 Lightning II

BIRTHS

● 37 - Nero, Roman Emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty (d. 68)

● 1734 - George Romney, English portrait painter (d. 1802)

● 1812 - Joseph Moses Levy, English newspaperman; founded the London newspaper Daily Telegraph (d. 1888)

● 1831 - Franklin Sanborn, American journalist and biographer (d. 1917)

● 1832 - Gustave Eiffel, French engineer and architect (Eiffel tower) (d. 1923)

● 1859 - L. L. Zamenhof, Russian initiator of Esperanto (d. 1917)

● 1860 - Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish physician and Nobel laureate (d. 1904)

● 1860 - Abner Powell, American baseball player (d. 1953)

● 1861 - Charles Duryea, American automobile pioneer (d. 1938)

● 1878 - Hans Carossa, German writer (d. 1956)

● 1888 - Kaare Klint, Danish architect and furniture designer (d. 1954)

● 1888 - Maxwell Anderson, American writer (d. 1959)

● 1892 - J. Paul Getty, American oil tycoon (d. 1976)

● 1899 - Harold Abrahams, British sprinter and Olympic gold medalist (d. 1978)

● 1907 - Oscar Niemeyer, Brazilian architect

● 1910 - John H. Hammond, American musician (d. 1987)

● 1911 - Stan Kenton, American musician (d. 1979)

● 1912 - Ray Eames, American designer (d. 1988)

● 1913 - Muriel Rukeyser, American poet (d. 1980)

● 1913 - Roger Gaudry, French Canadian chemist, businessman and corporate director (d. 2001)

● 1916 - Buddy Cole, American pianist (d. 1964)

● 1916 - Maurice Wilkins, New Zealand-born physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 2004)

● 1917 - Shan-ul-Haq Haqqee, Linguist and writer of Pakistan (d. 2005)

● 1918 - Jeff Chandler, American actor (d. 1961)

● 1922 - Alan Freed, American disc jockey (d. 1965)

● 1923 - Freeman Dyson, English-born American physicist

● 1923 - Valentin Varennikov, Russian general and statesman

● 1925 - Sam Pollock, National Hockey League general manager

● 1928 - Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Austrian artist (d. 2000)

● 1928 - Ernest Ashworth, Country singer

● 1928 - Jerry Wallace, American country and popular music singer

● 1933 - Tim Conway, American actor and comedian (''The Carol Burnett Show'')

● 1938 - Billy Shaw, American football player

● 1939 - Cindy Birdsong, American singer (The Supremes)

● 1940 - Nick Buoniconti, American football player and Hall of Fame member

● 1942 - Kathleen Blanco, Governor of Louisiana

● 1942 - Dave Clark, British musician (The Dave Clark Five)

● 1944 - Chico Mendes, Brazilian Campaigner (d. 1988)

● 1946 - Carmine Appice, Rock musician (Vanilla Fudge)

● 1946 - Art Howe, American baseball player

● 1949 - Don Johnson, American actor (''Miami Vice'')

● 1952 - Cassandra Harris, Australian actress (d. 1991)

● 1952 - Allan Simonsen, Danish footballer

● 1952 - Julie Taymor, American director

● 1953 - J. M. DeMatteis, American comic book writer

● 1954 - Justin Ross, Actor

● 1954 - Mark Warner, Former Governor of Virginia

● 1954 - Alex Cox, Director (''Repo Man,'' ''Sid and Nancy'')

● 1955 - Paul Simonon, British musician (The Clash)

● 1960 - Doug Phelps, Country singer (Kentucky Headhunters)

● 1961 - Reginald Hudlin, Director

● 1961 - Karin Resetarits, Austrian journalist

● 1963 - Andrew Luster, Max Factor heir

● 1963 - Helen Slater, American actress

● 1966 - Molly Price, Actress (''Third Watch'')

● 1967 - Mo Vaughn, American baseball player

● 1968 - Javid Hussain, Indian film producer

● 1968 - Garrett Wang, American actor

● 1969 - Chantal Petitclerc, Quebec wheelchair athlete

● 1970 - Frankie Dettori, Italian champion jockey

● 1970 - Michael Shanks, Canadian actor

● 1972 - Stuart Townsend, Irish actor

● 1972 - Rodney Harrison, American football player

● 1973 - Surya Bonaly, French-born American figure skater

● 1973 - Ryu Seung-wan, South Korean actor and director

● 1976 - Baichung Bhutia, Indian footballer

● 1976 - Aaron Miles, American baseball player

● 1976 - Elix Skipper, American professional wrestler

● 1977 - Kito Trawick, Crowd-hyper (Ghostown DJs)

● 1978 - Mark Jansen, Dutch guitarist (Epica)

● 1978 - Jerome McDougle, American football player

● 1979 - Adam Brody, American actor

● 1979 - Eric Young, Canadian wrestler

● 1981 - George O. Gore II, Actor (''My Wife and Kids'')

● 1981 - Najoua Belyzel, French singer

● 1981 - Brendan Fletcher, Canadian actor

● 1981 - Thomas Herrion, American football player (d. 2005)

● 1981 - Creighton Lovelace, American Baptist minister

● 1982 - Borja Garcia, Spanish racing driver

● 1982 - George O. Gore II, American actor

● 1983 - René Goguen, Canadian wrestler

● 1986 - Snejana Onopka, Ukrainian supermodel

DEATHS

● 1025 - Basil II, Byzantine Emperor (b. 958)

● 1072 - Alp Arslan, Turkish sultan in Persia (b. 1029)

● 1230 - King Otakar I of Bohemia

● 1263 - King Haakon IV of Norway (b. 1204)

● 1598 - Philips van Marnix, lord of Sint-Aldegonde, Dutch writer and statesman (b. 1538)

● 1621 - Charles de Luynes, Constable of France (b. 1578)

● 1673 - Margaret Cavendish, English writer (b. 1623)

● 1675 - Johannes Vermeer, Dutch painter (b. 1632)

● 1683 - Izaak Walton, English writer (b. 1593)

● 1688 - Gaspar Fagel, Dutch statesman (b. 1634)

● 1715 - George Hickes, English minister and scholar (b. 1642)

● 1753 - Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, English architect (b. 1694)

● 1792 - Joseph Martin Kraus, Swedish composer (b. 1756)

● 1855 - Jacques Charles François Sturm, French mathematician (b. 1803)

● 1890 - Sitting Bull, Sioux nation leader (b. circa 1831)

● 1943 - Fats Waller, American musician (b. 1904)

● 1944 - Glenn Miller, American musician (later declared dead on this date, true date unknown) (b. 1904)

● 1947 - Arthur Machen, British author (b. 1863)

● 1950 - Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Indian political leader, Iron Man of India (b.1875)

● 1958 - Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, Austrian-born American physicist and Nobel laureate (b. 1900)

● 1962 - Charles Laughton, English actor (b. 1899)

● 1966 - Walt Disney, American animator (b. 1901)

● 1968 - Jess Willard, American boxer (b. 1881)

● 1968 - Antonio Barrette, politician, premier of Quebec (b. 1899]])

● 1971 - Paul Pierre Lévy, French mathematician (b. 1886)

● 1974 - Anatole Litvak, Russian-born filmmaker (b. 1902)

● 1977 - Wilfred Kitching, the 7th General of The Salvation Army (b. 1893)

● 1984 - Jan Peerce, American tenor (b. 1904)

● 1984 - Lennard Pearce, British actor (b. 1915)

● 1989 - Arnold Moss, American character actor (b. 1910)

● 1991 - Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev, Russian-born Soviet sniper (b. 1915)

● 2001 - Russ Haas, American professional wrestler (b. 1974)

● 2001 - Rufus Thomas, American musician (b. 1917)

● 2003 - George Fisher, American political cartoonist (b. 1923)

● 2003 - Keith Magnuson, National Hockey League defenceman (b. 1947)

● 2004 - Pauline Gore, mother of American Vice President Al Gore (b. 1912)

● 2005 - William Proxmire, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin (b. 1911)

● 2005 - Darrell Russell, American football player (b. 1976)

● 2005 - Heinrich Gross, Austrian physician (b. 1914)

● 2005 - Stan Leonard, Canadian professional golfer (b. 1915)

● 2006 - Clay Regazzoni, Swiss Formula 1 driver (b. 1939)

HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:
● St. Valerian
● St. Wunibald of Heidenheim
● St. Nino
● St. Drostan.
● St. Mary Di Rosa
● St. Adalbero
● St. Urbitius
● St. Florentius
● St. Maximinus
● St. Paul of Latros, hermit
● St. Offa of Essex, king

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for December 2 (Civil Date: December 15)
● Nativity Fast.
● Prophet Habbakuk (Abbacum).
● St. Athanasius "the Resurrected," recluse of the Kiev Caves, whose relics are in the Near Caves.
● Saints John, Heraclemon, Andrew, and Theophilus of Egypt
● Martyr Myrope of Chios.
● St. Cyril of Phileotes in Greece.
● St. Jesse (Ise), Bishop of Tsilkansk in Georgia.
● St. Stephen Urosh, king of Serbia.
● St. Solomon, Archbishop of Ephesus.
● St. Athanasius, recluse of the Kiev Caves whose relics are in the Far Caves.

● Greek Calendar:
● Martyr Abibus the New.
● St. Ioannicius of Devich, monk.

● Roman festivals:
● Consualia in honor of Consus is held.

● Zamenhof Day -celebrated in the Esperanto movement in honor of L. L. Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto (1859).

● Malaysia : Hol Al-Marhom Sultan Ibrahim of Johore

● Netherlands Antilles : Kingdom Day/Statute Day (1954)

● Pakistan : Quaid-i-Azam's Birthday

● US : Bill of Rights Day (1791)

● Hanukkah begins (2006).

● This Holiday is only applicable on a given "day of the week"
● World : Underdog Day - ( Friday )


Click on this LINK to see original Wikipedia list with many having links with details.

Additional facts taken from:

On this day in the New York Times

The BBC’s Take on the day

On This Day Website

Scope Systems Any Day Website

Geov Parrish's this Day in Radical History, things that happened on this day that you never had to memorize in school.

Permanent Backlink to Post