November 27th
 

8 BC ~ Death of Horace, poet. Remembered for, among other things, “carpe diem” (seize the day).

1095 ~ Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont.

1895 ~ Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he died.

1907 ~ Birthday of L. Sprague de Camp, Science Fiction writer.

1921 ~ Birthday of Alexander Dubček, Czech politician.

1942 ~ Birthday of Jimi Hendrix, musician.

1946 ~ Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru appealed to the U.S. and the USSR to start nuclear disarmament, stating that such an action would "save humanity from the ultimate disaster".

1953 ~ Death of Eugene O'Neill, playwright.

1990 ~ John Major followed Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of the UK.

2001 ~ A hydrogen atmosphere was detected on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the HST, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.

November 28th
 

1520 ~ Ferdinand Magellan became the first to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.

1632 ~ Birthday of Jean-Baptiste Lully, Composer.

1820 ~ Birthday of Friedrich Engels, social philosopher.

1859 ~ Death of Washington Irving, writer.

1905 ~ Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founded Sinn Féin with a goal of independence for all of Ireland.

1939 ~ Death of James A Naismith, creator of basketball.

1954 ~ Death of Enrico Fermi, Physicist.

1969 ~ The Rolling Stones released the classic album Let It Bleed.

1989 ~ Velvet Revolution - The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia gave up its monopoly on political power.

2000 ~ The eighth tar drop falls in the University of Queensland pitch drop experiment.

November 29th
 

1643 ~ Death of Claudio Monteverdi, Composer.

1797 ~ Birthday of Gaetano Donizetti, Opera Composer.

1832 ~ Birthday of Louisa May Alcott, Writer.

1890 ~ In West Point, New York, the Middies defeated West Point 24 to 0 in the first Army-Navy football game. Go Navy!

1898 ~ Birthday of C. S. Lewis, Writer.

1975 ~ The name "Micro-soft" (for "microcomputer software") is first used in a letter from Bill Gates to Paul Allen.

1981 ~ Natalie Wood drowned in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island, California.

1982 ~ The UN General Assembly passed Resolution 37/37, stating that the Soviet Union forces should withdraw from Afghanistan.

1990 ~ The UN Security Council passed Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing military intervention in Iraq if that nation did not withdraw its forces from Kuwait and free all foreign hostages by January 15, 1991.

2001 ~ Death of George Harrison, musician.

November 30th
 

1667 ~ Birthday of Jonathan Swift, Writer & Satirist.

1835 ~ Birthday of Mark Twain, Writer. (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court.)

1872 ~ First international soccer match played at Hamilton Crescent, Scotland.

1874 ~ Birthday of Sir Winston Churchill, British political leader & Writer.

1936 ~ In London, the Crystal Palace was destroyed in a fire. It had been built for the 1851 Great Exhibition.

1900 ~ Death of Oscar Wilde, Writer.

1954 ~ In Sylacauga, Alabama, an 8.5 pound meteorite crashed through her roof and hit Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges in her living room after bouncing off her radio. This is the only documented case of anyone being hit by a meteorite.

1989 ~ Deutsche Bank board member Alfred Herrhausen was killed by a Red Army Faction terrorist bomb.

1999 ~ The anti-globalization movement caught police unprepared and forced the cancellation of opening ceremonies of a WTO meeting.

2004 ~ Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings lost, having won more than $2,500,000.

December 1st
 

1083 ~ Birthday of Anna Comnena, Byzantine historian.

1640 ~ Portugal regained its independence from Spain.

1824 ~ U.S. presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the House of Representatives was given the task to decide the winner, as stipulated by the Twelfth Amendment.

1835 ~ Hans Christian Andersen published his first book of fairy tales.

1918 ~ Founding of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia).

1935 ~ Birthday of Woody Allen, Film Director, Actor &Comedian.

1955 ~ Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white man and was arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws.

1964 ~ Death of J. B. S. Haldane, British geneticist.

1990 ~ English and French Channel Tunnel workers meet beneath the English Channel.

1991 ~ Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.

December 2nd
 

1547 ~ Death of Hernán Cortés, Spanish explorer and conqueror.

1804 ~ At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of France.

1814 ~ Death of Marquis de Sade, Writer.

1859 ~ Militant abolitionist leader John Brown was hanged for his October 16th raid on Harper's Ferry.

1923 ~ Birthday of Maria Callas, Opera Singer.

1942 ~ Manhattan Project: A team led by Enrico Fermi initiate the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

1961 ~ Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was going to adopt Communism.

1990 ~ War on Drugs: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot and killed in Medellín.

1991 ~ Apple release the first version of QuickTime.

2001 ~ Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

December 3rd
 

1815 ~ Death of John Carroll - First Roman Catholic Archbishop in the U.S.

1857 ~ Birthday of Joseph Conrad, Writer.

1894 ~ Death of Robert Louis Stevenson, Writer.

1919 ~ Death of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Painter.

1967 ~ At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, Lewis Washkansky became the first human to receive a heart transplant. The transplant team was headed by Christiaan Barnard.

1984 ~ Bhopal Disaster: A leak from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killed nearly 3,000 people in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

1989 ~ U.S. President George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev released statements indicating that the cold war between their nations may be coming to an end.

1997 ~ Representatives from 121 countries signed a treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The U.S., PRC, and Russia are notable exceptions.

1999 ~ NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander just before it entered the Martian atmosphere.

1999 ~ Death of Madeline Kahn, Actress & Comedian.

December 4th
 

1110 ~ The Crusaders captured Sidon.

1642 ~ Death of Cardinal Richelieu, French statesman.

1674 ~ Father Jacques Marquette founded a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan which would later grow into the city of Chicago, Illinois.

1679 ~ Death of Thomas Hobbes, political philosopher.

1849 ~ Birthday of Crazy Horse, American Indian leader.

1872 ~ The Mary Celeste was found by the British brig Dei Gratia. The ship had been abandoned for 9 days but was only slightly damaged.

1952 ~ Great Smog of 1952: A "killer fog" descended on London. "Smog" for "smoke" and "fog" becomes a word.

1976 ~ Death of Benjamin Britten, Composer.

1991 ~ Pan American World Airways ceased operations.

1991 ~ Terry Anderson was released after seven years' captivity as a hostage in Beirut.

December 5th
 

1766 ~ James Christie held his first sale in London. He later founded Christie's, the world's oldest auction house.

1791 ~ Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer.

1839 ~ Birthday of George Armstrong Custer, American general.

1890 ~ Birthday of Fritz Lang, film director.

1901 ~ Birthday of Werner Karl Heisenberg, physicist.

1901 ~ Birthday of Walt Disney, film producer.

1926 ~ Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, debuted.

1933 ~ Prohibition ends: The Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified. This overturned the 18th Amendment, which had outlawed the inter-state sale of alcohol.

1945 ~ A U.S. Navy training flight, Flight 19, was lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

1978 ~ The Soviet Union signs a "friendship treaty" with the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

December 6th
 

1768 ~ First edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published.

1884 ~ The Halifax Munitions Explosion killed more than 1900 people, and destroyed part of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

1884 ~ The Thirteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, banning slavery, was ratified.

1896 ~ Birthday of Ira Gershwin, Lyricist.

1920 ~ Birthday of Dave Brubeck, jazz musician.

1929 ~ Birthday of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Conductor.

1933 ~ James Joyce’s novel Ulysses was judged not obscene.

1989 ~ Marc Lépine kills 14 young women in Montreal, Quebec.

1992 ~ In Ayodhya, India, right-wing Hindus demolished the Babri Masjid, a 16th century mosque.

2002 ~ Death of Philip Berrigan, civil rights activist.

December 7th
 

43 BC ~ Death of Cicero, Roman politician and author.

1787 ~ Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1817 ~ Death of William Bligh, British naval officer.

1905 ~ Birthday of Gerard Kuiper, Astronomer.

1928 ~ Birthday of Noam Chomsky, Linguist.

1941 ~ The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into World War II.

1965 ~ Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.

1970 ~ Death of Rube Goldberg, cartoonist.

1972 ~ Launch of Apollo 17, the last manned lunar landing mission.

1975 ~ Indonesia invaded East Timor.

December 8th
 

1542 ~ Birthday of Mary Queen of Scots.

1864 ~ Death of George Boole, Mathematician.

1925 ~ Birthday of Sammy Davis Jr., Actor & Singer.

1939 ~ Birthday of James Galway, Irish flutist.

1978 ~ Death of Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel.

1980 ~ Mark Chapman murdered former Beatle John Lennon.

1984 ~ The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed.

1991 ~ Leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine signed an agreement ending the U.S.S.R. and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1993 ~ U.S. participation in The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law by President Clinton.

1994 ~ .S. participation in General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was signed into law by President Clinton.

December 9th
 

1608 ~ Birthday of John Milton, Poet & Writer.

1793 ~ New York City's first daily newspaper, the “American Minerva”, is established by Noah Webster.

1851 ~ First YMCA in North America established in Montreal.

1868 ~ Birthday of Fritz Haber, German chemist, Nobel prize winner in 1918.

1937 ~ Battle of Nanjing began. The Rape of Nanjing followed.

1950 ~ Harry Gold sentenced to thirty years in jail for stealing United States nuclear weapon secrets for the Soviet Union.

1961 ~ Adolf Eichmann found guilty of war crimes in Israel.

1987 ~ First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

1990 ~ Lech Wałęsa becomes the first directly elected president of Poland.

1996 ~ Death of Mary Leakey, Archeologist & Anthropologist.

December 10th
 

1815 ~ Birthday of Ada Lovelace, first computer programmer.

1822 ~ Birthday of César Franck, Composer & Organist.

1830 ~ Birthday of Emily Dickinson, Poet.

1896 ~ Death of Alfred Nobel, chemist, founder of the Nobel Prize.

1901 ~ Theodore Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize.

1941 ~ Japanese forces landed in the Philippines, captured Guam and sank the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse.

1953 ~ Dr. Albert Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1965 ~ The Grateful Dead played their first concert, at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

1978 ~ Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

2002 ~ The High Court of Australia hands down its judgment in the internet defamation case of Gutnick v Dow Jones.

December 11th
 

1725 ~ Birthday of George Mason, "Father of the Bill of Rights".

1803 ~ Birthday of Hector Berlioz, Composer.

1882 ~ Birthday of Max Born, physicist and 1954 Nobel laureate.

1918 ~ Birthday of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian author, 1970 Nobel laureate.

1931 ~ Statute of Westminster gave legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Newfoundland.

1941 ~ Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.

1943 ~ Birthday of John Kerry, US politician.

1981 ~ Javier Pérez de Cuéllar becomes UN Secretary-General.

1994 ~ A small bomb exploded on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. The bombing was a test of explosives that would have been used in Project Bojinka.

1994 ~ Russian President Boris Yeltsin orders Russian troops into Chechnya.

December 12th
 

1531 ~ Apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City.

1911 ~ The capital of India moved from Calcutta to New Delhi.

1913 ~ Mona Lisa recovered in Florence, 2 years and 3 months after it was stolen.

1915 ~ Birthday of Frank Sinatra, Singer & Actor.

1927 ~ Birthday of Robert Noyce , one of the men credited with the invention of the integrated circuit.

1963 ~ Kenya gained its independence from the UK.

1979 ~ Rhodesia changed its name to Zimbabwe.

1996 ~ Uday Hussein is seriously injured in an assassination attempt.

1999 ~ Death of Joseph Heller, Author.

2003 ~ Death of Keiko, the killer whale in the “Free Willy” movies.

December 13th
 

1204 ~ Death of Maimonides, Sephardi Philosopher.

1577 ~ Sir Francis Drake began his circumnavigation from Plymouth, England.

1642 ~ Abel Janszoon Tasman reached New Zealand.

1784 ~ Death of Samuel Johnson, Essayist.

1816 ~ Birthday of Werner von Siemens, Engineer, Inventor & Industrialist.

1925 ~ Birthday of Dick Van Dyke, Actor & Comedian.

1941 ~ Hungary and Romania declare war on the United States.

1974 ~ Malta became a republic.

1996 ~ Kofi Annan elected as Secretary-General of the United Nations.

2003 ~ Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured near Tikrit.

December 14th
 

1503 ~ Birthday of Nostradamus, Astrologer & Mathematician.

1546 ~ Birthday of Tycho Brahe, Astronomer.

1799 ~ Death of George Washington, first U.S. President.

1900 ~ Max Planck published his study of the quantum theory.

1902 ~ First telegraph cable laid across the Pacific Ocean.

1911 ~ First expedition reached the South Pole, led by Roald Amundsen.

1939 ~ USSR expelled from the League of Nations.

1962 ~ Birthday of Ginger Lynn Allen, Actress.

1962 ~ Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.

1995 ~ The Dayton Agreement was signed in Paris to end the Yugoslav wars.

December 15th
 

37 ~ Birthday of Nero, Roman emperor.

1791 ~ The U.S. Bill of Rights ratified.

1832 ~ Birthday of Gustave Eiffel, civil engineer.

1852 ~ Birthday of Antoine Henri Becquerel, physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics.

1916 ~ France defeated Germany in Battle of Verdun.

1923 ~ Birthday of Freeman Dyson, Physicist.

1952 ~ Death of Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, Physicist.

1961 ~ An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentenced Adolph Eichmann to death.

1966 ~ Death of Walt Disney, Animator & Cartoonist.

1994 ~ Netscape Navigator 1.0 first released.

December 16th
 

1689 ~ The English Parliament adopts the Bill of Rights.

1773 ~ The Boston Tea Party.

1775 ~ Birthday of Jane Austen, Writer.

1893 ~ World premiere of Antonin Dvorak's "New World Symphony".

1901 ~ Birthday of Margaret Mead, Anthropologist.

1917 ~ Birthday of Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Science Fiction Writer.

1928 ~ Birthday of Philip K. Dick, Science Fiction Writer.

1944 ~ The Battle of the Bulge began.

1944 ~ A V-2 rocket hit the Rex Cinema in Antwerp killing 567 people.

1998 ~ Operation Desert Fox: American and British aircraft began to bomb Iraqi targets after Iraq obstructed UN weapons inspectors.

December 17th
 

1830 ~ Death of Simón Bolívar, Latin American politician & Activist.

1843 ~ A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, was first published.

1903 ~ The first controlled, powered heavier-than-air flight occurred when the Wright brothers took to the air, both of them twice at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1969 ~ The USAF, in closing Project Blue Book, announced that its UFO investigations found no evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft.

1961 ~ India seized Goa from Portugal.

1973 ~ The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.

1982 ~ ”Tootsie” opened in theaters.

1989 ~ Brazil held its first free election in 25 years.

1981 ~ Brigadier General James L. Dozier is abducted by the Red Brigades in Verona, Italy.

2003 ~ “The Return of the King” opened in theaters worldwide.

December 18th
 

1642 ~ Abel Tasman landed at Mohua Golden Bay becoming the first European in New Zealand.

1737 ~ Death of Antonio Stradivari, Italian violin maker.

1786 ~ Birthday of Carl Maria von Weber, Composer.

1863 ~ Birthday of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (d. 1914)

1865 ~ With the proclamation by Secretary of State William Seward, of the passing of the 13th Amendment, slavery was abolished in the United States.

1912 ~ Official presentation of the discovery of Piltdown Man.

1936 ~ Death of Andrija Mohorovičić, Croatian seismologist.

1946 ~ Birthday of Steven Spielberg, movie director.

1996 ~ "Ebonics" was declared a language or dialect by the outgoing school board of Oakland, California, whose vote was overturned by the incoming board. The Clinton administration subsequently declared "black English" a form of slang that did not belong in the classroom.

2002 ~ California Governor Grey Davis announced that the state would face a budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier. The budget issue was used to support his 2003 recall from office.

December 19th
 

1733 ~ Benjamin Franklin first published Poor Richard's Almanack.

1848 ~ Death of Emily Brontë, Author.

1888 ~ Birthday of Fritz Reiner, Conductor.

1906 ~ Birthday of Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet politician.

1962 ~ Nyasaland seceded from Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

1974 ~ The Altair 8800, the first personal computer, went on sale.

1979 ~ ”Kramer vs. Kramer”, starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, opened in theaters.

1984 ~ The UK and People's Republic of China signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which returned Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

1988 ~ The U.S. House of Representatives passed articles of impeachment against President Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.

2003 ~ Libya announced that it would begin to destroy its weapons of mass destruction.

December 20th
 

1833 ~ Birthday of Samuel Mudd, physician, convicted conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

1860 ~ South Carolina became the first state to secede from the US.

1901 ~ Birthday of Robert Van de Graaff, Physicist & Inventor.

1915 ~ Last Australian troops evacuated from Gallipoli.

1968 ~ Death of John Steinbeck, Writer.

1982 ~ Death of Artur Rubinstein, Musician.

1995 ~ NATO begins peacekeeping in Bosnia.

1996 ~ Death of Carl Sagan, Astronomer & Writer.

1999 ~ Vermont's Supreme Court ruled that homosexual couples are entitled to the same benefits and protections as married heterosexual couples.

1999 ~ Macau was returned to the People's Republic of China by Portugal.

December 21st
 

1118 ~ Birthday of Thomas Becket, Lord Chancellor & Archbishop of Canterbury.

1804 ~ Birthday of Benjamin Disraeli, Politician & Writer.

1898 ~ Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium.

1914 ~ First feature-length silent film comedy, “Tillie's Punctured Romance”, was released, starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin.

1933 ~ Newfoundland becomes a crown colony.

1940 ~ Death of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Writer.

1945 ~ Death of George S. Patton, U.S. General.

1958 ~ Charles de Gaulle became the first leader of the Fifth Republic.

1979 ~ The U.S. Federal government bailed out the Chrysler Corporation.

1988 ~ A terrorist bomb exploded in Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland killing 270, including 11 on the ground.

December 22nd
 

1858 ~ Birthday of Giacomo Puccini, Composer.

1880 ~ Death of George Eliot, Writer.

1939 ~ Death of Ma Rainey, Blues Singer.

1944 ~ German forces demanded the surrender of Allied troops at Bastogne, Belgium.

1989 ~ Ion Iliescu assumed executive power of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceauşescu's Communist dictatorship.

1989 ~ Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opened, ending the division of East and West Germany.

1990 ~ Lech Wałęsa sworn in as President of Poland.

2001 ~ The Afghan Northern Alliance, handed over power in Afghanistan to the government headed by President Hamid Karzai.

2001 ~ Richard Reid tried to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes.

2001 ~ Cc the cat, the first cloned pet, was born.

December 23rd
 

1790 ~ Birthday of Jean François Champollion, Egyptologist. He deciphered the Rosetta Stone.

1823 ~ A Visit From St. Nicholas, by Clement Clarke Moore, was first published.

1834 ~ Death of Thomas Malthus, Demographer and Economist.

1888 ~ Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear.

1939 ~ Death of Anthony Fokker, aircraft manufacturer.

1947 ~ The transistor was first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.

1953 ~ Death of Lavrenty Beria, Soviet Communist leader.

1956 ~ British and French forces withdrawn from Suez, Egypt.

1979 ~ Soviet military occupies Kabul, Afghanistan.

Feastdays & Holidays

Fans of Seinfeld - Festivus (for the restofus) held.

December 24th
 

1491 ~ Birthday of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits.

1818 ~ Silent Night composed by Franz Xaver Gruber.

1818 ~ Birthday of James Prescott Joule, Physicist.

1910 ~ Birthday of Fritz Leiber, Science Fiction writer.

1914 ~ World War I: The Christmas truce begins.

1914 ~ Death of John Muir, Naturalist.

1957 ~ Birthday of Hamid Karzai, first democratically elected President of Afghanistan.

1962 ~ The last of the Bay of Pigs prisoners freed.

1968 ~ The Apollo 8 crew becomes the first manned space mission to orbit the Moon.

1974 ~ Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin, Australia.

December 25th
 

800 ~ Coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome.

1066 ~ Coronation of William the Conqueror as king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London.

1223 ~ Saint Francis of Assisi assembles the first Nativity scene.

1642 ~ Birthday of Sir Isaac Newton, Physicist & Mathematician.

1821 ~ Birthday of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross.

1918 ~ Birthday of Anwar Sadat, Egyptian president.

1938 ~ Birthday of Karel Čapek, Czech author, inventor of the word robot.

1973 ~ A programming bug routed all ARPANET traffic through the server at Harvard, causing the server to freeze - crashing the network.

1989 ~ Death of Nicolae Ceauşescu, Romanian dictator (executed).

1991 ~ Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day).


Feastdays & Holidays


The Nativity of Jesus.

December 26th
 

1610 ~ Elizabeth Bathory's crimes were uncovered.

1791 ~ Birthday of Charles Babbage, Mathematician and designer of computing machines.

1792 ~ Final trial of Louis XVI of France began.

1890 ~ Death of Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist.

1893 ~ Birthday of Mao Zedong, Chinese Politician.

1941 ~ Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

1948 ~ Cardinal Mindszenty arrested in Hungary.

1966 ~ The first Kwanzaa was celebrated.

1991 ~ Supreme Soviet meets and formally dissolves the USSR.

2004 ~ An Indian Ocean tsunami killed more than 200,000 people in 13 countries.

December 27th
 

1571 ~ Birthday of Johannes Kepler, astronomer.

1822 ~ Birthday of Louis Pasteur, Scientist.

1831 ~ Charles Darwin embarked on his journey aboard the HMS Beagle.

1871 ~ The world's first cat show was held at the Crystal Palace in London.

1904 ~ James Barrie's play Peter Pan premiers in London.

1932 ~ Radio City Music Hall opened in New York City.

1945 ~ The World Bank was created with an agreement signed by 28 nations.

1945 ~ Queen Juliana of the Netherlands granted Indonesia sovereignty.

1985 ~ Naturalist Dian Fossey was found murdered in Rwanda.

2001 ~ The U.S. announced plans to hold Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

December 28th
 

1065 ~ Westminster Abbey consecrated.

1836 ~ Spain recognized Mexico’s independence.

1869 ~ William F. Semple patented chewing gum.

1895 ~ The Lumiere Brothers gave birth to Cinema at the Grand Cafe in Paris.

1937 ~ Death of Maurice Ravel, French composer.

1951 ~ The Peak District became the UK’s first National Park.

1969 ~ Birthday of Linus Torvalds, Benevolent Dictator for Life of Linux.

1973 ~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn published Gulag Archipelago.

1983 ~ Death of Dennis Wilson, the only Beach Boy who could surf.

2000 ~ Montgomery Ward announced it was going out of business after 128 years.

December 29th
 

1170 ~ Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered by knights acting under the orders of Henry II.

1845 ~ Texas became the 28th state of the United States.

1851 ~ The first Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) opened in Boston.

1890 ~ Defeat at the Battle of Wounded Knee effectively ended American Indian resistance to European settlement of the U.S.

1916 ~ Death of Grigori Rasputin, Russian monk.

1937 ~ The Constitution of Ireland, changing the Irish Free State into Eire, went into effect.

1940 ~ The Luftwaffe began dropping incendiary bombs on London.

1986 ~ Death of Harold Macmillan, former Prime Minister of the UK.

1989 ~ Vaclav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia.

1989 ~ San Francisco rocked by a 6.9 earthquake.

December 30th
 

1691 ~ Death of Robert Boyle, the first modern Chemist.

1853 ~ The U.S. bought some 45,000 sq miles of land from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase.

1879 ~ The Pirates of Penzance was first performed.

1896 ~ Jose Rizal, hero of the Philippine Revolution, was executed by firing-squad by the Spanish.

1911 ~ Sun Yat-sen was elected the first president of the Republic of China.

1922 ~ The Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formed by the confederation of Russia, Byelorussia, Ukraine, and Transcaucasian Federation.

1924 ~ Edwin Hubble announced the existence of other galaxies.

1937 ~ Birthday of Gordon Banks, the best Goalkeeper ever.

1981 ~ Wayne Gretzky scored his 50th goal in 39 games.

1993 ~ Israel and the Vatican established diplomatic relations.

December 31st
 

404 ~ The last gladiatorial contest took place in Rome.

1879 ~ Thomas Edison gave the first public demonstration of an electric incandescent lamp.

1880 ~ Birthday of George Marshall, U.S. Secretary of State, recipient of 1953 Nobel Peace Prize.

1938 ~ The first breath test for drivers, "drunkometer," was introduced.

1960 ~ The farthing coin ceases to be legal tender.

1964 ~ One of my boyhood heroes, Donald Campbell set the world water speed record, the only man to set both the world land and water speed records in the same year.

1980 ~ Death of Marshall McLuhan, Canadian writer.

1987 ~ Robert Mugabe sworn in as Zimbabwe's president.

1995 ~ The last new Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip was published.

1999 ~ Russian President Boris Yeltsin resigned. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was designated acting president.

January1st
 

45 BC ~ Julian calendar went into effect.

630 ~ The Prophet Muhammad set out with an army of about 1,600 from Medina to capture Mecca.

1752 ~ Birthday of Betsy Ross, American seamstress.

1801 ~ Discovery of 1 Ceres, first known asteroid.

1879 ~ Birthday of E. M. Forster, English novelist.

1892 ~ Ellis Island began accepting immigrants to the U.S.

1901 ~ Establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia (Federation).

1983 ~ The ARPANET officially changed to use the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.

1985 ~ The Internet's Domain Name System created.

2002 ~ Euro banknotes and coins became legal tender.

January 2nd
 

1492 ~ Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, surrendered.

1727 ~ Birthday of James Wolfe, British general in French and Indian War.

1757 ~ The UK captured Calcutta, India

1872 ~ Brigham Young was arrested for bigamy (25 wives).

1882 ~ John D. Rockefeller united his oil holdings into the Standard Oil trust.

1904 ~ Death of James Longstreet, Confederate general.

1920 ~ Birthday of Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American science fiction author.

1929 ~ Canada and the United States agreed on a plan to preserve Niagara Falls.

1942 ~ World War II: Manila was captured by Japanese forces.

1996 ~ U.S. peacekeepers arrive in Bosnia.

January 3rd
 

106 BC ~ Birthday of Cicero, Roman Statesman & Philosopher.

1521 ~ Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther.

1777 ~ General George Washington defeated General Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.

1861 ~ Delaware voted to not secede from the United States.

1892 ~ Birthday of J. R. R. Tolkien, South African-born Writer & Philologist.

1945 ~ Birthday of Stephen Stills, American Singer, Songwriter, & Guitarist.

1956 ~ Birthday of Mel Gibson, Australian Actor & Director.

1979 ~ Death of Conrad Hilton, American hotelier.

1987 ~ Aretha Franklin became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1993 ~ Presidents George Bush and Boris Yeltsin signed the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow. (START).

January 4th
 

1643 ~ Birthday of Isaac Newton, Scientist & Philosopher.

1710 ~ Birthday of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Composer.

1785 ~ Birthday of Jakob Grimm, German philologist, elder half of the Brothers Grimm.

1809 ~ Birthday of Louis Braille, Inventor of a writing system for the blind.

1948 ~ Burma gained its independence from the UK.

1951 ~ Korean War: Chinese and North Korean forces recapture Seoul.

1960 ~ Death of Albert Camus, French Philosopher & Writer.

1961 ~ Death of Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian Physicist.

1967 ~ Donald Campbell died while trying to break the water speed record.

2004 ~ Spirit, the first of two NASA Mars Rovers, landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 GMT.

Schrodinger, hmmmm, did we ever find that blasted cat of his?