December 31......

December 31 is the 365th day of the year (366th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are no days remaining in the year on this date.

EVENTS

● 335 - St Silvester I ends his reign as Catholic Pope

● 406 - Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gallia.

● 535 - Byzantine General Belisarius completes the conquest of Sicily, defeating the Ostrogothic garrison of Syracuse, and ending his consulship for the year.

● 765 - Coffin of Ho-tse Shen-hui interred in a stupa built in China

● 870 - Skirmish at Englefield: Ethelred of Wessex beats Danish invasion army

● 1229 - James I of Aragon the Conqueror enters Medina Mayurqa (nowadays Palma de Mallorca, Spain) thus consuming the Christian conquest of the island of Mallorca.

● 1492 - 100,000 Jews expelled from Sicily

● 1502 - Cesare Borgia (son of pope Alexander VI) occupies Urbino

● 1564 - Willem van Orange demands freedom of conscience/religion

● 1600 - British East India Company is chartered.

● 1604 - Admiral Steven van der Haghen's fleet reaches Bantam

● 1621 - Hungarian King Bethlen Gábor/Ferdinand II sign Treaty of Mikulov

● 1660 - James II of England is created Duke of Normandy by King Louis XIV.

● 1669 - France & Brandenburg sign secret treaty

● 1670 - France & England sign Boyne-treaty

● 1680 - Amsterdam opera at Leidsegracht opens

● 1687 - The first Huguenots (French Protestants) set sail from France for the Cape of Good Hope, where they would later create the South African wine industry with the vines they took with them on the voyage.

● 1688 - Pro-James II-earl of Devonshire occupies Nottingham

● 1695 - A window tax is imposed in England, causing many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid the tax. Never to be deterred lawmakers next thought of a brick tax.

● 1700 - Frisia/Groningen adopt Gregorian calendar, tomorrow is 1/12/1701

● 1708 - Great Alliance captures Bridge

● 1711 - Duke of Marlborough fired as English army commander

● 1712 - Birth of Peter Bohler, the Moravian missionary who, at age 25, influenced the religious spirit of John Wesley. Bohler taught the founder of Methodism the joys of personal conversion and self-surrendering faith, and Wesley later incorporated these spiritual emphases within Methodist theology.

● 1744 - James Bradley announces discovery of Earth's motion of nutation (wobble)

● 1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlies army meets with de Esk

● 1756 - Russia joins the Alliance of Versailles

● 1758 - British expeditionary army occupies Goree (Dakar) Senegal

● 1762 - Mozart family moves from Vienna to Salzburg

● 1775 - American attack on city of Quebec launched during a blinding snowstorm. General Montgomery, one of the two American leaders, was killed, and the second, General Benedict Arnold, was wounded during the opening encounter. The attack failed, the Canadians having killed or wounded fully half the American troops.

● 1776 - Rhode Island establishes wage & price controls to curb inflation: Limit is 70¢ a day for carpenters, 42¢ for tailors

● 1779 - English fleet beat Dutch Merchant vessels

● 1781 - Bank of North America, 1st US bank opens

● 1783 - Import of African slaves banned by all of the Northern states

● 1805 - End of French Republican calendar; France returns to Gregorianism

● 1823 - Birth of William O. Cushing, American clergyman. He penned over 300 hymns, among them "When He Cometh," "Under His Wings" and "Hiding in Thee."

● 1831 - Gramercy Park is deeded to New York City.

● 1837 - Birth of John R. Sweney, American sacred chorister. He composed over 1,000 gospel tunes, including SUNSHINE ("There is Sunshine in My Soul Today") and SWENEY ("More About Jesus Would I Know").

● 1841 - The State of Alabama enacted the first dental legislation in the U.S., including the need to license dental surgeons.

● 1846 - Birth of Domela Ferdinand Nieuwenhuis, Amsterdam. Protestant pastor, elected to Dutch office as a socialist in 1891, then abandoned politics for the anarchism of Bakunin. One of the organizers of the antimilitarist congress of Amsterdam in June 1904, as well as in August 1907, and an ardent propagandist of the general strike. In 1914, opposed the "Manifesto of the 16" (siding with the allies during WWI). A signatory, with Emma Goldman, Malatesta, et al., of the anti-war manifesto, "L'internationale et la guerre."

● 1852 - Future President & Mrs. Rutherford B Hayes marry

● 1857 - Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, Ontario, as the capital of Canada.

● 1859 - Dutch colony in Dutch Indies counts 4,800 slaves

● 1861 - 22,990 mm of rain falls in Cherrapunji Assam in 1861, world record

● 1862 - American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union (thus dividing Virginia in two).

● 1862 - American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River is fought near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

● 1862 - Skirmish at Parker Cross Roads TN

● 1862 - Union ironclad ship "Monitor" sinks off Cape Hatteras NC

● 1870 - J D Schneiter patents rocket mail in France, (not done)

● 1871 - Ellen Horup, anti-militarist feminist, born, Denmark.

● 1877 - Gustave Courbet dies. French painter, revolutionary socialist, man of independent character. Leader of the realist school. Courbet was placed in charge of all art museums under the revolutionary 1871 Commune of Paris and saved the city's collections from looters. With the fall of the Commune he was accused of allowing the destruction of Napoleon's triumphal column in the Place Vendôme; he was imprisoned and condemned to pay for its reconstruction, but fled to Vevey, Switzerland,where he died.

● 1877 - President Rutherford B. Hayes became the first U.S. President to celebrate his silver (25th) wedding anniversary in the White House.

● 1879 - Thomas Edison gave his first public demonstration of incandescent lighting to an audience in Menlo Park, NJ.

● 1879 - Cornerstone laid for Honolulu's Iolani Palace (only royal palace in US)

● 1890 - Ellis Island opens, replacing Castle Garden as the U.S. immigration depot.

● 1891 - New York's new Immigration Depot was opened at Ellis Island, to provide improved facilities for the massive numbers of arrivals.

● 1896 - 25th auto built in US

● 1897 - Brooklyn's last day as a city, it incorporates into NYC (1/1/1898)

● 1900 - Birth of Stephen C. Neill, British clergyman and biblical scholar. A prolific writer, some of Neill's better-known titles are "A History of Christian Missions" (1964), "The Interpretation of the New Testament: 1871-1961" (1966) and "The Modern Reader's Dictionary of the Bible" (1966).

● 1901 - Worst year in the 20th century for lynching in the U.S. ends with a tally of 130 of them (105 blacks, 25 whites).

● 1902 - Boers & British army sign peace treaty

● 1904 - The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square, then known as Longacre Square, in New York, New York.

● 1906 - French/British/Italian treaty concerning rights on Abyssinia

● 1907 - For the 1st time a ball drops at Times Square to signal the new year

● 1907 - G Mahler conducts the Metropolitan Opera

● 1909 - Manhattan Bridge opens.

● 1910 - US tobacco industry produced 9 billion cigarettes in 1910

● 1911 - Marie Curie receives her 2nd Nobel Prize

● 1914 - Colonel Jacob Ruppert & Cap Huston purchase New York Yankees for $460,000

● 1915 - U.S. branch of Fellowship of Reconciliation founded.

● 1916 - The Hampton Terrace Hotel in North Augusta, South Carolina, one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in the United States at the time, burns to the ground.

● 1917 - Dutch Social-democratic trade union NVV counts 159,450 members

● 1921 - Last San Francisco firehorses retired

● 1923 - 1st transatlantic radio broadcast of a voice, Pittsburgh-Manchester

● 1923 - The chimes of Big Ben are broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC for ID purposes, it becomes their trademark.

● 1924 - Edwin Hubble announces existence of distant galactic systems

● 1925 - 14th congress of CPSU decides to accelerate industry

● 1929 - Pope Pius XI publishes encyclical Divini illius magistri

● 1929 - Guy Lombardo performs Auld Lang Syne at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City for the first time.

● 1930 - Troops of the Sandinista head Miguel Angel Ortez ambushes a patrol of marines in Achuapa, El Salvador.

● 1930 - Pontifical encyclical Casti connubii against mixed marriages

● 1930 - US tobacco industry produced 123 billion cigarettes in 1930

● 1932 - John P O'Brien sworn-in as mayor of New York NY

● 1933 - American socialist leader Morris Hillquit dies.

● 1934 - Helen Richey becomes 1st woman to pilot an airmail transport

● 1935 - Charles Darrow patents Monopoly

● 1935 - CPH becomes Dutch Communist Party

● 1938 - Dr R N Harger's "drunkometer", 1st breath test, introduced in Indiana

● 1938 - Dutch national debt hits ƒ3,986,629,805.70

● 1939 - 25 U boats sunk this month (81,000 ton)

● 1939 - Dutch national debt hits ƒ4,218,553,180.99

● 1940 - 37 U boats sunk this month (213,000 ton)

● 1941 - Young Park (2) in the Bronx named in honor of Samuel Young

● 1942 - 60 U boats sunk this month (330,000 ton)

● 1942 - Battle in Barents Sea

● 1942 - Potatoes rationed in Holland

● 1943 - NYC's Times Square greets Frank Sinatra at the Paramount Theater

● 1944 - 48 people die in a train accident in Ogden UT

● 1944 - Japanese army evacuates harbor city Akyab

● 1944 - World War II: Hungary declares war on Germany.

● 1945 - Ratification of UN Charter completed

● 1946 - French troops leave Lebanon

● 1946 - President Harry Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.

● 1947 - Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were married, yippy-ca-hey, while Trigger looked on sadly.

● 1948 - Sixty thousand Puerto Rican men refuse to register for the draft. Eight are prosecuted.

● 1948 - Dutch police actions up Java gone on strike

● 1949 - 18 countries recognize Republic Indonesia

● 1950 - Jockeys Willie Shoemaker & Joe Culmone set record of 388 wins in a year

● 1951 - Churchill sets sail for talks with Truman; The British Prime Minister sets off on his trip to America aboard the Queen Mary after more than 24 hours delay.

● 1951 - 1st battery to convert radioactive energy to electrical announced

● 1953 - Hulan Jack sworn in as Manhattan Borough president

● 1953 - Willie Shoemaker shatters record, riding 485 winners in a year

● 1955 - General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over USD $1 billion in a year.

● 1956 - On December, 31st. in Romania was launched the first TV program.

● 1957 - AAU awards Bobby Morrow, James Sullivan Memorial Trophy

● 1958 - International Geophyscial Year ends

● 1958 - Willie Shoemaker 1st jockey to win national riding championship 4X

● 1958 - The Cuban guerrilla columns of Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara take Yaguajay and the city of Santa Clara. The next day, Cuban dictator Juan Batista would flee the island, and on Jan. 2 Fidel Castro's victorious revolutionary forces would march into Havana.

● 1960 - The farthing coin, which had been in use in Great Britain since the 13th century, ceased to be legal tender.

● 1961 - The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than USD $12 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.

● 1961 - Failed coup by Syrian group in Lebanon

● 1962 - Katanga becomes part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

● 1962 - "Match Game" debuts on NBC with host Gene Rayburn

● 1962 - Dutch leave New Guinea

● 1963 - Dear Abby show premieres on CBS radio (runs 11 years)

● 1963 - Jerry Garcia & Bob Weir played music together for the 1st time

● 1963 - The Central African Federation officially collapses and splits into Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.

● 1964 - Campbell speeds to double record; Donald Campbell breaks the world water speed record, the only man to break both land and water speed records in the same year.

● 1964 - Indonesia proclaims expelled from the UN

● 1967 - 1st NBA game at Great Western Forum, Los Angeles Lakers beat Houston 147-118

● 1967 - The Green Bay Packers won the National Football League championship game by defeating the Dallas Cowboys 21-17. The game is known as the Ice Bowl since it was played in a wind chill of 40 degrees below zero.

● 1967 - Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Paul Krassner, Dick Gregory, and friends pronounce themselves "Yippies."

● 1968 - Marien Ngouabi assumed the presidency of the Republic of the Congo.

● 1968 - 1st supersonic airliner flown (Russian Tupolev TU-144)

● 1969 - Congo-Brazzaville becomes People's republic, under Major Ngouabi

● 1970 - U.S. Congress repeals the entirely fictitious Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which in 1964 authorized a dramatic increase in U.S. military involvement in Vietnam in response to an attack on U.S. forces that later turned out to not have happened.

● 1970 - Congress authorizes the Eisenhower dollar coin

● 1970 - Paul McCartney files a lawsuit to dissolve the Beatles

● 1970 - President Allende nationalizes Chilean coal mines

● 1971 - Lieutenant General Robert E Cushman, Jr, USMC, ends term as deputy director of CIA

● 1972 - Leap second day; also in 1973-79, 1987, 1998

● 1974 - Private U.S. citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years. Franklin Mint strikes Panamá's Gold 100 balboa coin.

● 1974 - Lindsey Buckingham & Stevie Nicks join Fleetwood Mac

● 1974 - Popular Electronics displays Altair 8800 computer

● 1977 - Donald Woods, a banned white editor flees South Africa

● 1977 - Ted Bundy escapes from jail in Colorado

● 1977 - Amir Sheikh Jabir al-Ahmad al-Jabir Al Sabah becomes leader of Kuwait

● 1977 - Cambodia drops diplomatic relations with Vietnam

● 1978 - Indian Claims Commission is terminated, ending the U.S. process of "repaying" tribes for lands stolen by U.S. government.

● 1978 - Taiwanese diplomats struck their colors for the final time from the embassy flagpole in Washington, DC. The event marked the end of diplomatic relations with the U.S.

● 1978 - CIA director, Admiral Stansfield Turner retires from the Navy

● 1978 - Iran shah names Chapour Bakhtiar premier

● 1979 - At year end oil prices were 88% higher than at the start of 1979.

● 1980 - A Jewish owned hotel in Nairobi Kenya is bombed killing 18

● 1980 - Senegal President Leopold Senghor resigns

● 1981 - CNN Headline News debuts

● 1981 - Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings stages coup in Ghana, suspends constitution

● 1981 - Netherlands unemployment stands at record 475,000

● 1982 - NBC radio cancels almost all of its network daily features

● 1983 - Brunei gains complete independence from Britain

● 1983 - José Happart installed as mayor of Voeren Belgium

● 1983 - Nigeria's National Assembly dissolves after military coup

● 1983 - The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government.

● 1984 - NYC subway gunman Bernhard Goetz surrenders to police in New Hampshire

● 1984 - Rajiv Gandhi takes office as India's 6th PM succeeds his mother, Indira who had been assassinated by her own gaurds.

● 1984 - US leaves UNESCO

● 1985 - King Hussein of Jordan and President Assad hold talks

● 1985 - Rock singer Rick Nelson, 45, and six other people were killed when fire broke out aboard a DC-3 that was taking the group to a New Year's Eve performance in Dallas. What was originally thought to be caused by freebasing cocaine the fire was caused by a faulty heater on the plane.

● 1986 - A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, killed 97 and injured 140 people. Three hotel workers later plead guilty to charges in connection with the fire.

● 1987 - Zeebrugge heroes honoured; People who displayed heroism during the Zeebrugge ferry disaster are recognised in the New Year's Honours List.

● 1988 - Mario Lemieux became the first player in National Hockey League history to score one each of the five types of goals in a single game: an even-strength goal, a power-play goal, a short-handed goal, a penalty shot and an empty-net goal.

● 1989 - Actress Annabella Sciorra (Jungle Fever) weds Joe Petruzzi

● 1989 - Jockey Kent Desormeaux sets record with 598 wins in a year

● 1990 - Iraq begins a military draft of 17 year olds

● 1990 - The Sci-Fi Channel on cable TV begins transmitting

● 1990 - United Somali Congress seizes Presidential Palace

● 1990 - Garry Kasparov holds his title by winning the World Chess Championship match against his countryman Anatoly Karpov.

● 1991 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is officially dissolved.

● 1991 - The civil war in El Salvador ends.

● 1991 - Salim Nanji's Birthday

● 1991 - Dow Jones closes at record high 3168.83

● 1991 - CPN, Communist Party of Netherlands, last day of existance

● 1991 - USSR, last day of existence

● 1992 - Target date for Europe's single market

● 1992 - WCBS TV news anchor Carol Martin weds Joe Terry

● 1992 - In the last of the great ITV franchise renewals, Thames Television, Television South West and Television South cease broadcasting, replaced by Carlton Television, Westcountry Television and Meridian Television respectively.

● 1993 - "Loveboat" actress Jill Whelan (27) weds Brad St John (33)

● 1993 - Entertainer Barbra Streisand performed her first paid concert in 22 years, singing to a sellout crowd at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas.

● 1994 - 1st snowless December in Baltimore MD

● 1994 - Anti Apartheid Group of Netherlands (AABN) disbands

● 1994 - This date is skipped altogether in Kiribati as the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands change time zones from UTC-11 to UTC+13 and UTC-10 to UTC+14, respectively.

● 1995 - Cartoonist Bill Watterson ends his "Calvin & Hobbes" comic strip

● 1996 - NCR Corp. became an independent company.

● 1997 - Michael Kennedy, 39-year-old son of the late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was killed in a skiing accident on Aspen Mountain in Colorado.

● 1997 - Quaker Oats settles a lawsuit involving the immoral use of child subjects in radioactivity experiments circa 1945-56.

● 1997 - Intel cuts price of Pentium II-233 MHz from $401 to $268

● 1997 - Marv Levy retires as coach of Buffalo Bills

● 1997 - Microsoft buys Hotmail E-mail service

● 1997 - More Swedes died than were born in 1997, 1st time since 1809

● 1997 - Orlando Hernandez, half-brother of pitcher Livan, defects from Cuba

● 1997 - South Africa & US surgeons separate Zambian Siamese twins joined at the head

● 1998 - US movie box office hits record $6.24 billion for year

● 1999 - Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.

● 1999 - Five hijackers left the airport where they had been holding 150 hostages on an Indian Airlines plane. They left with two Islamic clerics that they had demanded be freed from an Indian prison. The plane had been hijacked during a flight from Katmandu, Nepal to New Dehli on December 24.

● 1999 - Sarah Knauss died at the age of 119 years. She was the world's oldest person. She was born September 24, 1880.

● 1999 - The United States Government handed Panama Canal control over to Panama

● 1999 - UK prepares to celebrate millennium; Britain gears up to join a global party with a spectacular array of revelries to welcome in the third millennium. (Of course, they were a whole year early like most of the world.)

● 2004 - Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych resigned, acknowledging that he had little hope of reversing the presidential election victory of his Western-leaning rival, Viktor Yushchenko.

● 2004 - The official opening of Taipei 101, the current tallest skyscraper in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 feet).

● 2005 - AT&T and SBC Communications merge, SBC name is dropped. A new AT&T is formed.

BIRTHS

● 1378 - Pope Callixtus III (d. 1458)

● 1491 - Jacques Cartier, French explorer (d. 1557)

● 1514 - Vesalius, Flemish anatomist (d. 1564)

● 1572 - Emperor Go-Yozei of Japan, (d. 1617)

● 1668 - Herman Boerhaave, Dutch humanist and physician (d. 1738)

● 1720 - Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the British throne (d. 1788)

● 1738 - Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British general (d. 1805)

● 1763 - Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, French admiral (d. 1806)

● 1830 - Isma'il Pasha, Governor of Egypt (d. 1895)

● 1860 - Joseph S. Cullinan, American oil industrialist, founder of Texaco (d. 1937)

● 1864 - Robert Aitken, American astronomer (d. 1951)

● 1869 - Henri Matisse, French painter (d. 1954)

● 1880 - George C. Marshall, United States Secretary of State, Nobel Laureate (d. 1959)

● 1880 - Fred Beebe, baseball player (d. 1957)

● 1881 - Max Pechstein, German painter (d. 1955)

● 1882 - Ben Jones, American racehorse trainer (d. 1961)

● 1882 - Martin O'Meara, Australian soldier (d. 1935)

● 1884 - Elizabeth Arden, Canadian-born American cosmetic executive (d. 1966)

● 1884 - Bobby Byrne, American baseball player (d. 1964)

● 1894 - Pola Negri, Polish actress (d. 1987)

● 1903 - Nathan Milstein, Ukrainian violinist (d. 1992)

● 1905 - Jule Styne, English-born composer (d. 1994)

● 1908 - Simon Wiesenthal, Austrian Holocaust survivor (d. 2005)

● 1910 - Carl Dudley, American film director (d. 1973)

● 1919 - Tommy Byrne, baseball player

● 1920 - Rex Allen, American actor and singer (d. 1999)

● 1924 - Taylor Mead, American actor

● 1926 - Tom Marvolo Riddle, English wizard

● 1928 - Siné, French cartoonist

● 1930 - Odetta, American folk singer

● 1931 - Bob Shaw, Irish writer (d. 1996)

● 1934 - Akram Awan, Islamic scholar

● 1937 - Avram Hershko, Israeli biologist, Nobel laureate

● 1937 - Anthony Hopkins, Welsh actor

● 1938 - Rosalind Cash, American actress (d. 1995)

● 1940 - Tim Considine, Actor (''My Three Sons'')

● 1941 - Sarah Miles, Actress

● 1941 - Alex Ferguson, Scottish footballer

● 1942 - Andy Summers, British musician (The Police)

● 1943 - Peter Quaife, Rock musician (The Kinks)

● 1943 - John Denver, American musician (d. 1997)

● 1943 - Ben Kingsley, English actor

● 1944 - Taylor Hackford, Director-producer

● 1945 - Taylor Hackford, American film producer and director

● 1945 - Diane von Fürstenberg, Belgian-born fashion designer

● 1945 - Connie Willis, American writer

● 1946 - Diane Von Furstenberg, Fashion designer

● 1947 - Burton Cummings, Canadian musician (The Guess Who)

● 1947 - Tim Matheson, American actor (''Animal House,'' ''The West Wing'')

● 1948 - Joe Dallesandro, Actor

● 1948 - Donna Summer, American singer

● 1949 - Ellen Datlow, American editor

● 1949 - Susan Shwartz, American writer

● 1951 - George Thorogood, American musician

● 1951 - Tom Hamilton, American musician (Aerosmith)

● 1953 - James Remar, American actor

● 1953 - Jane Badler, American actress

● 1954 - Alex Salmond, Scottish Politician

● 1958 - Bebe Neuwirth, American actress (''Cheers'')

● 1959 - Phill Kline, American politician

● 1959 - Val Kilmer, American actor

● 1959 - Paul Westerberg, American musician (The Replacements)

● 1960 - John Allen Muhammad, American serial killer

● 1961 - Rick Aguilera, baseball player

● 1962 - Ric Ivanisevich, Rock musician (Oleander)

● 1962 - Heather McCartney, British activist

● 1963 - Scott Ian, American musician (Anthrax)

● 1964 - Allen D'Nulderf, American stuntman

● 1965 - Gong Li, Actress

● 1968 - Joe McIntyre, Actor-singer

● 1971 - Brent Barry, American basketball player

● 1971 - Esteban Loaiza, Mexican Major League Baseball player

● 1976 - Vanessa Kerry, daughter of American Senator John Kerry

● 1977 - Wardy Alfaro, Costa Rican footballer

● 1977 - Donald Trump Jr., son of entrepeneur Donald Trump

● 1978 - Papoose (rapper), African American Rapper

● 1980 - Richie McCaw, New Zealand rugby player

● 1980 - Bob Bryar, American drummer (My Chemical Romance)

● 1980 - Matt Cross, American professional wrestler

● 1981 - Jason Campbell, American football player

● 1981 - Matthew Pavlich, Australian football player

DEATHS

● 192 - Commodus, Roman Emperor (b. 161)

● 1164 - Margrave Ottokar III of Styria (b. 1124)

● 1194 - Duke Leopold V of Austria (killed at a tournament) (b. 1157)

● 1297 - Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford, English soldier (b. 1249)

● 1302 - Frederick III, Duke of Lorraine (b. 1238)

● 1384 - John Wycliffe, English theologian and Bible translator

● 1424 - Thomas Beaufort, 1st Duke of Exeter, English military leader

● 1460 - Edmund, Earl of Rutland, brother of Kings Edward IV of England and Richard III of England (executed) (b. 1443)

● 1460 - Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, English politician (b. 1400)

● 1510 - Bianca Maria Sforza, wife of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1472)

● 1535 - William Skeffington, Lord Deputy of Ireland (b. 1465)

● 1568 - Shimazu Tadayoshi, Japanese warlord (b. 1493)

● 1575 - Pierino Belli, Italian soldier and jurist (b. 1502)

● 1583 - Thomas Erastus, Swiss theologian (b. 1524)

● 1610 - Ludolph van Ceulen, German mathematician (b. 1540)

● 1650 - Dorgon, Chinese emperor (b. 1612)

● 1673 - Oliver St John, English statesman and judge

● 1679 - Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Italian physiologist and physicist (b. 1608)

● 1691 - Dudley North, English economist (b. 1641)

● 1719 - John Flamsteed, English astronomer (b. 1646)

● 1742 - Karl III Philip, Elector Palatine (b. 1661)

● 1799 - Jean-François Marmontel, French historian and writer (b. 1723)

● 1872 - Aleksis Kivi, Finnish author (b. 1834)

● 1877 - Gustave Courbet, French painter (b. 1819)

● 1888 - Samson Raphael Hirsch, German rabbi (b. 1808)

● 1889 - Ion Creangă, Romanian writer (b. 1837 or 1839)

● 1894 - Thomas Joannes Stieltjes, Dutch mathematician (b. 1856)

● 1905 - Alexander Popov, Russian physicist (b. 1859)

● 1921 - Boies Penrose, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania (b. 1860)

● 1936 - Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish writer and philosopher (b. 1864)

● 1948 - Malcolm Campbell, English race car driver (b. 1885)

● 1953 - Albert Plesman, Dutch aviation pioneer (b. 1889)

● 1964 - Ólafur Thors, Prime Minister of Iceland (b. 1892)

● 1964 - Bobby Byrne, baseball player (b. 1884)

● 1969 - George Lewis, American clarinetist (b. 1900)

● 1971 - Pete Duel American actor (b. 1940)

● 1971 - Marin Sais, American actress (b. 1890)

● 1971 - Vikram Sarabhai, Indian physicist (b. 1919)

● 1972 - Roberto Clemente, Puerto Rican baseball player (b. 1934)

● 1977 - Sabah III Al-Salim Al-Sabah, ruler of Kuwait (b. 1924)

● 1980 - Marshall McLuhan, Canadian writer (b. 1911)

● 1980 - Raoul Walsh, American film director (b. 1887)

● 1985 - Rick Nelson, American singer (b. 1940)

● 1986 - Lloyd Haynes, American actor (b. 1934)

● 1990 - Vasili Lazarev, Soviet cosmonaut (b. 1928)

● 1993 - Zviad Gamsakhurdia, first President of Georgia (b. 1939)

● 1997 - Floyd Cramer, American musician (b. 1933)

● 1997 - Michael Kennedy, American politician (b. 1958)

● 1999 - Elliot Richardson, American politician (b. 1920)

● 2000 - Alan Cranston, American politician (b. 1914)

● 2003 - Arthur R. von Hippel German-born physicist (b. 1898)

● 2004 - Gerard Debreu, French-born economist, Bank of Sweden Prize laureate (b. 1921)

● 2005 - Phillip Whitehead, British politician (b. 1937)

HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:
● St. Pope Slyvester I (314-35), 33rd pope
● St. Melania
● St. Barbatian
● St. Zoticus
● Sts. Sabinian & Potentian
● St. Columba of Sens
● St. Donata
● St. Hermes
● St. Offa

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for December 18 (Civil Date: December 31)
● Nativity Fast.
● Martyr Sebastian at Rome and his companions: Martyrs Nicostratus, Zoe, Castorius, Tranquillinus, Marcellinus, Mark, Claudius, Symphorian, Victorinus, Tiburtius, and Castulus.
● St. Modestus, Archbishop of Jerusalem.
● St. Florus, Bishop of Amisus.
● St. Micahel the Confessor at Constantinople.
● Martyr Eubotius at Cyzicus.
● St. Sebastian, abbot of Poshekhonye Monastery (Vologda).
● Righteous Simeon, Wonderworker of Verkhoturye.

● Greek Calendar:
● Hieromartyr Zacchaeus the Deacon and St. Alphaeus the Reader, of Caesarea.
● St. Sophia the Wonderworker.

● Moslem:
● 1st day of Ramadan (1418 AH) (2006)

● New Year's Eve on the Gregorian Calendar.

● Austria : Imperial Ball

● Bangladesh, Brunei, India, México, Philippines, Sri Lanka : Bank Holiday

● Benin : Feed Yourself Day

● Congo : National Day

● Indians at Mitla, Oaxaca : Noche de Pedimento/Wishing Night

● Japan : Omisoka Day/Grand Purification

● Lebanon : Evacuation Day (1946)

● Mauritania : People's Party Day

● Scotland : Hogmanay Day

● World : New Year's Eve/Watch Night

● Last Day of the Year Celebration, special non-working holiday in the Philippines.

FICTION

● 1999 - Futurama - Pizza deliveryman Phillip J. Fry accidentally becomes cryogenically frozen, only to be awakened a thousand years later.


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

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

Scope Systems Any Day Website

Roman Catholic Saint of the Day

Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar

Permanent Backlink to Post