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Today in History ~ December 21
Events1620 - 103 Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts, following a 63-day voyage aboard the Mayflower. Their stepping ashore onto a large rock that later became known as the Plymouth Rock probably is a myth.
1829 - 1st stone arch railroad bridge in US dedicated, Baltimore
1835 - HMS Beagle sails into Bay of Islands (New Zealand)
1898 - Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium.
1910 - Explosion in coal mine in Hulton England, 344 mine workers die
1913 - The first crossword puzzle in an American newspaper appeared in The New York Sunday World.
1919 - J Edgar Hoover gallantly deports anarchist/feminist Emma Goldman to Russia
1921 - Supreme Court rules labor injunctions and picketing unconstitutional
1923 - Nepal changes from British protectorate to independent nation
1929 - 1st group hospital insurance plan offered (Dallas Tx)
1932 - Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers 1st movie together (Flying Down to Rio)
1933 - Dried human blood serum 1st prepared, Univ of Pennsylvania
1933 - Newfoundland reverts to being a crown colony
1937 - Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" opened in Los Angeles, the first full-length animated feature film.
1939 - Heinrich Himmler & Reinhard Heydrich name Adolf Eichmann leader of "Referat IV B" (in charge of transport of Jews for Final Solution)
1945 - Gen. George S. Patton died in Heidelberg, Germany, of injuries from a car accident. [H]
1946 - Earthquake in South Japan kills 1,086
1946 - Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life," premieres
1948 - The state of Eire (formerly the Irish Free State) declared its independence.
1951 - Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement
1954 - Dr Sam Sheppard's wife, Marilyn, is murdered (he is accused of crime)
1958 - Charles de Gaulle was elected to a seven-year term as the first president of the Fifth Republic of France.
1961 - JFK & British PM MacMillan meet in Bermuda
1962 - US & Cuba accord, releases Bay of Pigs captive
1964 - Charlie Watts' book about jazz great Charlie "Bird" Parker, titled "Ode To A High Flying Bird," was published.
1966 - USSR launches Luna 13; soft-landed in Oceanus Procellarum
1968 - Apollo 8 (Borman, Lovell & Anders) 1st manned Moon voyage
1968 - David Crosby, Stephen Stills & Graham Nash premiere together in Calif
1968 - Apollo VIII, the first manned voyage to the moon, was launched.
1969 - Diana Ross final TV appearance as a Supreme (Ed Sullivan Show)
1969 - Vince Lombardi (Redskins) coaches his last football game, losing
1970 - Elvis Presley met with President Richard Nixon privately at the White House. "The King" said he wanted to help restore patriotism in the United States, and also made a pitch to be named a drug enforcement agent.
1971 - UN Security Council chooses former wartime Nazi Kurt Waldheim as 4th secretary General to succeed U Thant [H]
1973 - Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, US & USSR meet in Geneva
1976 - The Liberian-registered tanker Argo Merchant ran aground near Nantucket Island, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the North Atlantic.
1978 - Police in Des Plaines Ill, arrest John Wayne Gacy, Jr for murder
1979 - Willie Nelson's first movie, "Electric Horseman," opened nationwide.
1986 - A second generation of Osmonds, the six sons of Alan Osmond, made their network TV debut on a Bob Hope Christmas special.
1987 - In a case that highlighted racial tensions, three young white men were convicted of manslaughter in an attack on a black man in New York's predominantly white Howard Beach section. The victim was hit by a car and killed after being chased onto a busy highway.
1988 - Drexel pleads guilty to security felonies, pays a $650 million fine
1988 - 270 people were killed when a terrorist bomb exploded aboard a Pam Am Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, sending wreckage crashing to the ground, killing everyone aboard and 11 people on the ground
1989 - Kentuckian Larry Mahoney was convicted on 27 counts of manslaughter in 1988 collision with church bus. It was the nation's most deadly drunken-driving accident.
1989 - Romania's dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's final speech (he and his wife were executed 12/25)
1989 - VP Quayle sends out 30,000 Xmas cards with word beacon spelled beakon
1989 - Panama's U.S.-installed President Endara ordered a national curfew.
1990 - A boat carrying about 100 U.S. sailors involved in Operation Desert Shield capsized off the Israeli coast. 21 died.
1991 - Soviet Union formally dissolves 11 of 12 republics, signs treaty forming Commonwealth of Independent States
1991 - Cable TV and sports magnate Ted Turner married actress Jane Fonda near Capps, Fla. (they divorced in May 2001).
1991 - El Sayyid Nosair was acquitted in New York of killing Jewish extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane (Nosair was later convicted in a federal trial).
1991 - Eleven of the 12 former Soviet republics proclaimed the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the death of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
1992 - Dutch DC-10 in fire at landing on Faro Portugal, 56 die
1992 - 54 people were killed when a chartered jetliner carrying 340 people on a holiday to southern Portugal crashed in bad weather.
1992 - Nine people were injured during a concert in Edinburgh, Scotland, by the British rock group Madness.
1993 - Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz was charged with grand theft and battery in connection with his allegedly attack the previous month on a TV cameraman outside a memorial service for actor River Phoenix.
1993 - Hungary's parliament endorsed the nomination of Peter Boross as president, succeeding Jozsel Antall, who died in office on Dec. 12.
1994 - Bomb goes off on #4 train on Fulton Street NYC
1994 - Beach Boys Brian Wilson and cousin Mike Love settled Love's lawsuit seeking songwriting credits on 35 songs with $5 million and a handshake.
1994 - More than 40 people were injured when an incendiary device exploded on a crowded subway in lower Manhattan. Later that day, New York City police arrested one of the burn victims, saying the man had been carrying the firebomb when it went off.
1994 - Motley Crue's Tommy Lee was arrested for allegedly beating up his girlfriend.
1995 - A commuter train rammed the rear of a passenger train in heavy fog near Cairo, Egypt, killing 75 people.
1995 - A Houston judge heard arguments on the request for a new trial from the woman convicted of killing Tejano singer Selena.
1995 - The city of Bethlehem passed from Israeli to Palestinian control.
1996 - After two years of denials, House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted violating House ethics rules.
1996 - AIDS researcher Dr. David Ho was named Time magazine's "Man of the Year."
1997 - A disastrous fire swept through Tokyo's Tsukji wholesale fish market, destroying more than 100 shops and stores.
1998 - A judge certified that George Michael had completed the community service that was part of his no-contest plea to lewd conduct charges. Michael had been arrested earlier in the year in a Beverly Hills, Calif., park bathroom after an undercover cop allegedly witnessed him performing a "lewd act."
1998 - The shaky coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu collapsed when the Knesset (Israel's parliament) voted 81-30 to dissolve the government.
2000 President-elect Bush resigned as governor of Texas; Lt. Gov. Rick Perry was sworn in to replace him.
Birthdays Today
1117 - Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, becomes close friend to Henry II of England, who later orders his martyrdom
1639 - Jean Baptiste Racine (dramatist: Alexandre, Andromaque, Les Plaideurs, Britannicus, Berenice, Bajazet, Mithridate, etc.)
1804 - Benjamin Disraeli (author, statesman: "No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition.")
1818 - Lewis H Morgan, US, etnologist (Systems of Consanguinity)
1879 - Joseph Stalin, [Dzoegashvili], Russian dictator; murdered at least 11,000,000 people
1892 - Walter Hagen (golf champion: U.S. Open [1914 & 1919], British Open [1922, 1924, 1928-29], PGA [1921, 1924-27])
1908 - Pat Weaver (President of NBC-TV, credited with the idea for Today and Tonight shows; father of actress, Sigourney Weaver)
1911 - Josh Gibson, pro baseball player, "Negro Babe Ruth" (hit 800+ HRs)
1917 - Andre Eglevsky, choreographer (Limelight)
1918 - Donald Regan, White House staffer/US Secretary of Treasury (1981-85)
1921 - Alicia Alonso (Martinez Hoyo) (dancer)
1922 - Paul Winchell, NYC, ventriloquist (Jerry Mahoney, Knucklehead Smith)
1925 - Phyliss Love (actress)
1926 - Joe Paterno (football coach: Penn State)
1928 - Ed Nelson (actor: Anatomy of a Seduction, Deadly Weapon)
1933 - Freddie Hart (country singer: Easy Loving; TV: Home Town Jamboree)
1935 - Phil Donahue (TV talk show host: Donahue; husband of Marlo Thomas)
1937 - Jane Fonda (Academy Award-winning actress: Coming Home [1978], Klute [1971]; Barbarella, The China Syndrome, Cat Ballou, They Shoot Horses Don't They; On Golden Pond; wife of CNN's Ted Turner; daughter of actor, Henry Fonda; sister of actor, Peter; exercise videos; Vietnam-era peace activist)
1940 - Frank Zappa (musician, songwriter, singer: group: Mothers of Invention; Valley Girl [w/daughter, Moon])
1940 - Ray Hildebrand, "Paul" of the duo Paul and Paula,
1943 - Jared Martin (actor: The New Gladiators, Karate Warrior)
1944 - Michael Tilson Thomas (jazz band conductor: led London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic)
1945 - Gordon Kannegiesser (hockey)
1946 - Carl Wilson (musician: guitar, group: The Beach Boys; brother of Brian and Dennis; original group: Carl and the Passions)
1947 - Elliott Maddox (baseball)
1947 - Nate Wright (football)
1949 - Claude Chartre (hockey)
1954 - Chris Evert (tennis champion: Women's singles: Australian Open [1982, 84], French Open - a record for most wins [1974-75, 1979-80, 1983, 1985-86], Wimbledon [1974, 1976, 1981], U.S. Open [1975-78, 1980, 1982])
1959 - Florence Griffith Joyner (Flo-Jo) (track star: Olympic gold medalist, 100 and 200-meter run [1988])
Famous deaths
1375 - Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian poet (Vita di Dante), dies
1429 - Jacquemart de Blaharies, Tournay "heretic", burned to death
1907 - Oskar Lassar, German dermatologist (public baths), dies at 58
1937 - Frank Kellog, US foreign minister (Nobel 1929), dies at 80
1940 - F Scott Fitzgerald, author (Zelda, The Great Gatsby), dies of a heart attack at 44
1945 - George S Patton, US General (Sicily/Normandy), dies from injuries recieved in car crash at 60 [H]
1948 - Seishiro Itagaki, Japanese General/min of War, hanged
1967 - Louis Washkansky, 18 days after 1st heart transplant, dies at 55
1988 - Bob Steele, [Robert Bradbury], dies after short illness at 60
1994 - Dean Rusk, US Sect of State, dies at 85
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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