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Today in History ~ December 31
Events0406 - 80,000 Vandals attack the Rhine at Mainz
0765 - Coffin of Ho-tse Shen-hui interred in a stupa built in China
0870 - Skirmish at Englefield: Ethelred of Wessex beats back Danish invasion army
1492 - 100,000 Jews expelled from Sicily
1502 - Cesare Borgia (son of Pope Alexander VI) occupies Urbino
1564 - Willem of Orange demands freedom of conscience/religion
1600 - British East India Company chartered
1687 - 1st Huguenots depart France to Cape of Good Hope
1711 - Duke of Marlborough fired as English army commander
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's army meets with de Esk
1762 - Mozart family moves from Vienna to Salzburg
1775 - The British repulsed an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at Quebec; Montgomery was killed. [H]
1783 - Import of African slaves banned by all of the Northern states
1805 - End of French Republican calendar; France returns to Gregorianism
1841 - Alabama becomes 1st state to license dental surgeons
1857 - Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa as new capital of Canada
1862 - Battle of Murfreesboro/Stone's River, Tennessee
1862 - President Lincoln signed an act admitting West Virginia to the Union.
1879 - Edison gives 1st public demonstration of his incandescent lamp [H]
1879 - Gilbert/Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance," premieres in NYC
1890 - Ellis Island (NYC) opens as a US immigration depot. The misspelling of last names begins. ;)
1897 - Brooklyn's last day as a city, it incorporates into NYC (1/1/1898)
1907 - For 1st time a ball drops at Times Square to signal new year
1907 - Gustav Mahler conducts the Metropolitan Opera
1910 - US tobacco industry produced 9 billion cigarettes in 1910
1918 - Kid Gleason replaces Pants Rowland as White Sox manager
1923 - BBC begins using Big Ben chime ID
1924 - Hubble announces existence of distant galaxies
1929 - Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians played "Auld Lang Syne" as a New Year’s Eve song for the first time. Scottish poet Robert Burns said he heard an old man singing the words, and wrote them down; but Burns is considered the original author. The literal translation means "old long since" which less literally meant "days gone by".
1930 - Pontifical encyclical Casti connubial against mixed marriages
1930 - US tobacco industry produced 123 billion cigarettes in 1930
1935 - Charles Darrow patents Monopoly
1938 - Dr R N Harger's "drunkometer," 1st breath test, introduced in Indiana
1943 - NYC's Times Square greets Frank Sinatra at Paramount Theater
1945 - Ratification of UN Charter completed
1946 - President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
1951 - 1st battery to convert radioactive energy to electrical announced
1958 - Cubans dictator Juan Batista flees as Rebels under Fidel Castro march into Havana
1961 - "lrma La Douce" closes at Plymouth Theater NYC after 527 performances
1961 - Beach Boys play their debut gig under that name
1961 - Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid.
1968 - The Soviet Union's TU-144 supersonic airliner makes its first flight. [H]
1970 - Congress authorizes Eisenhower dollar coin
1970 - President Allende nationalizes Chilean coal mines
1974 - Private U.S. citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years.
1977 - "Bubbling Brown Sugar" closes at ANTA Theater NYC after 766 performances
1977 - Ted Bundy escapes from jail in Colorado
1978 - Taiwanese diplomats struck their colors for the final time from the embassy flagpole in Washington, marking the end of diplomatic relations with the United States.
1981 - CNN Headline News debuts
1982 - NBC radio cancels almost all of its network daily features
1984 - NYC subway gunman Bernhard Goetz surrenders to police in NH
1984 - Rajiv Gandhi takes office as India's 6th PM succeeding his assassinated mother, Indira
1985 - 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.
1986 - 97 people were killed when fire broke out in the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Three hotel workers later pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the blaze.)
1989 - "Me & My Girl" closes at Marquis Theater NYC after 1420 performances
1989 - Fog Bowl: Heavy fog rolls in on Bears 20-12 victory over Eagles
1990 - Sci-Fi Channel on cable TV begins transmitting
1991 - USSR, last day of existence
1991 - President Bush arrived in Australia as part of a 12-day Pacific trip.
1991 - Representatives of the government of El Salvador and rebels reached agreement at the United Nations on a peace accord aimed at ending 12 years of civil war.
1993 - Barbra Striesand does her 1st live public concert in 20 years
1995 - Cartoonist Bill Watterson ends his "Calvin & Hobbes" comic strip
1996 - Leftist rebels in Peru released two diplomats, leaving 81 hostages in the besieged Japanese embassy residence in Lima.
1997 - Intel cuts price of Pentium II-233 MHz from $401 to $268
1997 - Microsoft buys Hotmail E-mail service
1997 - Michael Kennedy, the 39-year-old son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was killed in a skiing accident on Aspen Mountain in Colorado.
1998 - Europe's leaders proclaimed a new era as 11 nations merged currencies to create the euro.
1999 - Control of Panama Canal reverts to Panama
2000 - The United States finally agreed to sign a treaty creating the world's first permanent international war crimes tribunal, joining most other countries of the world.
Birthdays Today
1378 - Callistus III, [Alfonso the Borgia], Pope (1455-58)
1514 - Andreas Vesalius, Brussels Belgium, anatomist (Fabrica)
1720 - [Bonnie Prince] Charles Edward Stuart, English pretender to throne
1738 - Charles Lord Cornwallis, soldier/statesman "fire when ready Gridley"
1815 - George Gordon Meade, Major General (Union Army)/victor at Gettysburg, died in 1872
1869 - Henri Matisse, France, impressionist painter (Odalisque)
1880 - George Marshall (U.S. Secretary of State [1947]; designer of Marshall Plan; Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff during WWII)
1899 - Silvestre Revueltas, Santiago Papasquiaro M^Âxico, composer (Sensemaya)
1904 - Nathan Milstein, Odessa Russia, concert violinist
1908 - Jonah (Robert) Jones (musician: trumpet, singer: played with Cab Calloway; threw spitball that got Dizzy Gillespie fired from band)
1908 - Simon Wiesenthal, Polish/Austrian Nazi hunter
1924 - Rex Allen ('The Arizona Cowboy': entertainer: rodeo star; singer; songwriter: published over 300 songs)
1928 - Ross Barbour (singer: group: The Four Freshmen: It's a Blue World, Charmaine, Love is Just Around the Corner, Poincianna)
1930 - Odetta (Holmes Felious Gordon) (blues/folk singer, musician, songwriter: Music, Give Me Your Hand, Got to be Me; actress: The Medium, The Crucible, Sanctuary)
1937 - Sir Anthony Hopkins (Academy Award-winning actor: Silence of the Lambs [1991], Emmy for Best Actor: The Bunker [1981] and The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case [1976])
1941 - Paul Casanova (baseball)
1941 - Sarah Miles (actress: Ryan's Daughter, Dynasty, Queenie)
1943 - Ben Kingsley (Krishna Bhanji) (Academy Award-winning actor: Gandhi [1982]; Schindler's List, Sneakers, Joseph, Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story, Searching for Bobby Fischer)
1943 - John Denver (Deutschendorf) (songwriter: Leavin' on a Jet Plane; singer: Take Me Home Country Roads, Sunshine on my Shoulders, Annie's Song, Rocky Mountain High, Fly Away, Calypso, Thank God I'm a Country Boy)
1946 - Cliff Richey (tennis)
1947 - Burton Cummings, Jr. (singer: group: The Guess Who: No Time, American Woman, These Eyes, Laughing; solo: Stand Tall, You Saved My Soul)
1947 - Tim Matheson (actor: National Lampoon's Animal House, Yours Mine and Ours, Magnum Force, Fletch, The Virginian, Bonanza)
1948 - Donna Summer (LaDonna Gaines) (Grammy Award-winning singer: Last Dance [1978], Hot Stuff [1979], He's a Rebel [1983], Forgive Me [1984]; Love to Love You Baby, I Feel Love, Bad Girls, She Works Hard for the Money, On the Radio; No More Tears (Enough is Enough) [w/Barbra Streisand])
1948 - Robert Rene (football)
1950 - Golden (John) Richards (football: Dallas Cowboys wide receiver: Super Bowls X, XII)
1959 - Bebe Neuwirth, Princeton NJ, actress (Lilith-Cheers, Damn Yankees)
Famous deaths
0192 - Lucius AA Commodus, Emperor of Rome (180-192), murdered at 31
0406 - Godagisel, king of the Vandals, dies in battle
1384 - John Wycliffe, English religious reformer/bible translator, dies
1775 - Richard Montgomery, General, dies fighting British in assault on Quebec
1859 - Luigi Ricci, composer, dies at 54
1882 - Leon Michel Gambetta, French attorney/premier (1881-82), dies at 44
1899 - Karl Millocker, Austrian conductor/composer, dies at 57
1969 - Salvatore Baccaloni, opera basso buffa/actor (Full of Life), dies at 69
1980 - Marshall McLuhan, Canadian cultural philosopher, dies at 69
1990 - George Allen, US football coach (LA Rams, Wash Redskins), dies
2000 - Flemenco dancer Jose Greco died in Lancaster, Pa., at age 82.
2000 - Former Sen. Alan Cranston died in Los Altos, Calif., at age 86.
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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