1689 ~ The English Bill of Rights adopted.

1770 ~ Birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer.

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.

1944 ~ The Battle of the Bulge began.

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

1950 ~ President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight “Communist imperialism”.

1998 ~ President Clinton ordered a sustained series of air strikes against Iraq by American and British forces in response to Saddam Hussein's continued defiance of UN weapons inspectors.

2007 ~ Death of Dan Fogelberg, Singer & Songwriter.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1778 ~ Birthday of Sir Humphry Davy, English chemist & physicist.

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.

1961 ~ India seized Goa from Portugal.

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

1976 ~ Birthday of Zsanett Égerházi, Hungarian-born Porn Actress.

1979 ~ Birthday of Jaimee Foxworth, mainstrean & Porn Actress.

1982 ~ ”Tootsie” opened in theaters.

1989 ~ The pilot episode of The Simpsons aired in the U.S.

__________________
Eudaimonia

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)

1912 ~ Official presentation of the discovery of Piltdown Man.

1936 ~ Death of Andrija Mohorovičić, Croatian seismologist.

1957 ~ The first U.S. civilian nuclear facility to generate electricity went online.

1989 ~ The British Labour Party under Neil Kinnock dropped its policy on trade union closed shops.

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 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.

2006 ~ Death of Joseph Barbera, of Hanna-Barbera, creators of The Flintstones, The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs, and Yogi Bear.

__________________
Eudaimonia

Joe Barbera brought the Smurfs to the screen in their animated form, but they were

the brainchild of a Belgian cartoonist in the '50s. Wikipedia says that "The Belgian

cartoonist Peyo introduced the Smurfs to the world in a series of comic strips, making

their first appearance in the Belgian magazine Spirou on October 23, 1958."

__________________
Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

Interesting little tidbit there, OF. I didn't know that.

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.

1971 ~ Birthday of Tiffany Towers, Porn Actress.

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.

1997 ~ "Titanic" the highest-grossing movie of all-time, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, opened in theaters.

1988 ~ The 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.

__________________
Eudaimonia

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.

1968 ~ Death of John Steinbeck, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1962.

1989 ~ American troops invaded Panama to remove dictator Manuel Noriega.

1991 ~ Paul Keating became the 24th Prime Minister of Australia.

1995 ~ IFOR (Implementation Force), a NATO-led multinational force, began peacekeeping in Bosnia. The task of IFOR was transfered to SFOR (Stabilisation Force) on 21-DEC-96, and transfered to EUFOR on 02-DEC-05.

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.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1804 ~ Birthday of Benjamin Disraeli, Politician & Writer.

1898 ~ Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium.

1913 ~ The first crossword puzzle was published, in the New York World.

1918 ~ Birthday of Kurt Waldheim, U.N. Secretary-General & Federal President of Austria.

1940 ~ Death of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Writer.

1942 ~ Birthday of Hu Jintao, Chinese president.

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

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

1979 ~ Apollo 8 was launched on a mission to orbit the moon.

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

__________________
Eudaimonia

1858 ~ Birthday of Giacomo Puccini, Composer.

1864 ~ Savannah, Georgia fell to the Union army of General Sherman.

1880 ~ Death of George Eliot, Writer.

1942 ~ Adolf Hitler signed the order to develop the V-2 (Vergeltungswaffe 2)rocket as a weapon.

1944 ~ Battle of the Bulge – German troops under the command of General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz demand the surrender of U.S. troops at Bastogne, Belgium, prompting the famous one word reply by General Anthony McAuliffe: "Nuts!"

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

1975 ~ Birthday of Crissy Moran, former Porn Actress.

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.

__________________
Eudaimonia

Leave it to jseal to know EVERYTHING that happened on this day lol... In 2001 I was headed home from a nervous breakdown from my husband leaving me for my sister-in -law and my father dying...yeah he's a member here.. Remember that DARLIN???? haha no worries.. I have a good man now...... Left my baggage on the plane home. :P

__________________
I am here for only a short time on this earth. My goal is to make everyone I see smile if only for a moment.

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.

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.

1972 ~ Death of Andrei Tupolev, Soviet aircraft designer.

1986 ~ Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, around-the-world flight without refueling.


Feastdays & Holidays

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

__________________
Eudaimonia

1818 ~ "Silent Night" composed by Franz Xaver Gruber.

1873 ~ Death of Johns Hopkins, Baltimore philanthropist and businessman.

1910 ~ Birthday of Fritz Leiber, Science Fiction writer.

1914 ~ World War I: The "Christmas truce" begins.

1914 ~ Death of John Muir, Naturalist.

1951 ~ Gian Carlo Menotti's "Amahl and the Night Visitors", the first opera written specifically for TV, was first broadcast

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

1968 ~ The Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve TV broadcast.

1974 ~ Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin, Australia.

1992 ~ President Bush pardoned 6 people involved in the Iran-Contra scandal.

__________________
Eudaimonia

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 assembled the first Nativity scene.

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

1868 ~ President Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War Confederate soldiers.

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

1977 ~ Deathof Charlie Chaplin, Entertainer.

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

1991 ~ Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on TV to announce his resignation as the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day).

2000 ~ Death of Willard Van Orman Quine, American philosopher.

Feastdays & Holidays

The Nativity of Jesus.

__________________
Eudaimonia

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 dissolved the USSR.

2004 ~ A tsunami triggered by an earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean left more than 216,000 people dead or missing, mostly in southern Asia.

Feastdays & Holidays

Boxing Day.

__________________
Eudaimonia

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 premiered 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.

__________________
Eudaimonia