Today In History

[minidog]

1431 - In Paris, Henry VI of England was crowned King of France.

1732 - The original Covent Garden Theatre Royal (now the Royal Opera House) was opened.

1787 - Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. constitution becoming the first of the United States.

1796 - John Adams was elected to be the second president of the United States.

1836 - Martin Van Buren was elected the eighth president of the United States.

1889 - The first of 554 performances of "The Gondoliers" took place.

1907 - At London's National Sporting Club, Eugene Corri became the first referee to officiate from inside a boxing ring.

1925 - Swimmer Johnny Weissmuller set a world record in the 150-yard freestyle with a time of 1 minute, 25 and 2/5 seconds. He went on to play "Tarzan" in several movies.

1926 - The gas operated refrigerator was patented by The Electrolux Servel Corporation.

1941 - Pearl Harbor, located on the Hawaiian island of Oahu was attacked by nearly 200 Japanese warplanes. The attack resulted in the U.S. entering into World War II.

1946 - A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta killed 119 people. It was America's worst hotel fire disaster. The hotel founder, W. Frank Winecoff, was also killed in the fire.

1971 - Libya announced the nationalization of British Petroleum's assets.

1972 - Apollo 17 was launched at Cape Canaveral. It was the last U.S. moon mission.

1972 - Imelda Marcos, wife of Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, was stabbed and seriously wounded by an assailant. The man was then shot and killed by her bodyguards.

1974 - President Makarios returned to Cyprus after five months in exile.

1980 - General Antonio Ramlho Eanes was reelected president of Portugal. His right-wing opposition was thrown into disarray by the death of Premier Francisco Sa Carneiro in a plane crash.

1982 - Charlie Brooks Junior, a convicted murderer, became the first prisoner in the U.S. to be executed by injection, at a prison in Huntsville, TX.

1983 - Madrid, Spain, an Aviaco DC-9 collided on a runway with an Iberia Air Lines Boeing 727 that was accelerating for takeoff. The collision resulted in the death of all 42 people aboard the DC-9 and 51 on the Iberia jet.

1987 - Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev set foot on American soil for the first time. He had come to the U.S. for a Washington summit with U.S. President Reagan.

1987 - 43 people were killed when a gunman opened fire on a fellow passenger and the two pilots aboard a Pacific Southwest Airlines jetliner.

1988 - An estimated 25,000 people were killed when a major earthquake hit northern Armenia in the Soviet Union. The quake measured 6.9 on the Richter Scale.

1988 - Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced the reduction of the number of Soviet military troops by half a million.

1989 - East Germany's Communist Party agreed to cooperate with the plan for free elections and a revised constitution.

1992 - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Mississippi abortion law which, required women to get counseling and then wait 24 hours before terminating their pregnancies.

1993 - Six people were killed and 17 were injured when a gunman opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train.

1993 - Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary revealed that the U.S. government had conducted more than 200 nuclear weapons tests in secret at its Nevada test site.

1993 - Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders suggested that the U.S. government study the impact of drug legalization.

1995 - A probe sent from the Galileo spacecraft entered into Jupiter's atmosphere. The probe sent back data to the mothership before it was presumably destroyed.

1996 - The space shuttle Columbia returned from the longest-ever shuttle flight of 17 days, 15 hours and 54 minutes.

1998 - The U.N. evacuated 14 peacekeepers that were trapped by fighting between army and rebel forces in central Angola.

1998 - U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno declined to seek an independent counsel investigation of President Clinton over 1996 campaign financing.

1999 - A U.S. federal grand jury indicted a former convict in the 1995 disappearance of atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair.

2002 - In Amsterdam, Netherlands, two Van Gogh paintings were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum. The two works were "View of the Sea st Scheveningen" and "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen." On July 26, 2004, two men were convicted for the crime and were sentenced to at least four years in prison each.

2002 - In Mymensingh, Bangladesh, four movies theaters were bombed within 30 minutes of each other. At least 15 people were killed and over 200 were injured.

2003 - A 12-inch by 26-inch painting of a river landscape and sailing vessel by Martin Johnson Heade was sold at auction for $1 million. The painting was found in the attic of a suburban Boston home where it had been stored for more than 60 years

Current Birthdays


Susan Collins turns 56 years old today.

93 Eli Wallach
Actor


77 Bobby Osborne
Bluegrass singer


71 Thad Cochran
U.S. senator, R-Miss.


68 Gerry Cheevers
Hockey Hall of Famer


68 Carole Simpson
Broadcast journalist


61 Johnny Bench
Baseball Hall of Famer


60 Gary Morris
Country singer


59 Tom Waits
Rock singer, actor


53 Priscilla Barnes
Actress


52 Larry Bird
Basketball Hall of Famer


50 Tim Butler
Rock musician (The Psychedelic Furs)


43 Jeffrey Wright
Actor


42 C. Thomas Howell
Actor


35 Terrell Owens
Football player


33 Nicole Appleton
Singer (All Saints)


32 Sunny Sweeney
Country singer


31 Eric Chavez
Baseball player


30 Shiri Appleby
Actress


29 Sara Bareilles
Singer


25 Fausto Carmona
Baseball player


21 Aaron Carter
Singer

Historic Birthdays


Willa Cather
12/7/1873 - 4/24/1947
American novelist

81 Gian Lorenzo Bernini
12/7/1598 - 11/28/1680
Italian sculptor


57 Allan Cunningham
12/7/1784 - 10/30/1842
Scottish poet


86 Sir Joseph Cook
12/7/1860 - 7/30/1947
Australian prime minister (1913-14)


81 Pietro Mascagni
12/7/1863 - 8/2/1945
Italian operatic composer


50 R.W. Sears
12/7/1863 - 9/28/1914
American merchant and founder of Sears, Roebuck retail company


92 Rudolf Friml
12/7/1879 - 11/12/1972
American operetta composer


102 Hamilton Fish
12/7/1888 - 1/18/1991
American politician


51 Joyce Cary
12/7/1888 - 12/18/1957
English novelist


51 Heywood Broun
12/7/1888 - 12/18/1939
American journalist

 

[Facetious]

A short lived genius by the name of James Douglas Morrison was born 65 Years ago !!

Happy Birthday, Jim ! It seems as if you've never left us . . or have you ? :bowdown:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHFK1yKfiGo&feature=related

Peace

 

[bodie54]

December 7, 1941

:hatsoff:

 

[historylover]

1796 - John Adams was elected to be the second president of the United States.

1836 - Martin Van Buren was elected the eighth president of the United States.

Seems odd - Shouldn't every president be listed?

 

[minidog]

1765 - Eli Whitney was born in Westboro, MA. Whitney invented the cotton gin and developed the concept of mass-production of interchangeable parts.

1776 - George Washington's retreating army in the American Revolution crossed the Delaware River from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

1854 - Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The theory holds that Mary, mother of Jesus, was free of original sin from the moment she was conceived.

1863 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln announced his plan for the Reconstruction of the South.

1863 - Tom King of England defeated American John Heenan and became the first world heavyweight champion.

1886 - At a convention of union leaders in Columbus, OH, the American Federation of Labor was founded.

1941 - The United States entered World War II when it declared war against Japan. The act came one day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Britain and Canada also declared war on Japan.

1949 - The Chinese Nationalist government moved from the Chinese mainland to Formosa due to Communists pressure.

1952 - On the show "I Love Lucy," a pregnancy was acknowledged in a TV show for the first time.

1953 - Los Angeles became the third largest city in the United States.

1962 - Workers of the International Typographical Union began striking and closed nine New York City newspapers. The strike lasted 114 days and ended April 1, 1963.

1980 - Zimbabwe’s manpower minister, Edgar Tekere, was found guilty in the killing of a white farmer. He was freed under a law that protected ministers acting to suppress terrorism.

1982 - Norman D. Mayer demanding an end to nuclear weapons held the Washington Monument hostage. He threatened to blow it up with explosives he claimed were inside a van. 10 hours later he was shot to death by police.

1984 - In Roanoke, Virginia, a jury found Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt innocent of libeling Reverend Jerry Falwell with a parody advertisement. However Falwell was awarded $200,000 for emotional distress.

1987 - U.S. President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty agreeing to destroy their nations' arsenals of intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

1987 - The "intefadeh" (Arabic for uprising) by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories began.

1989 - Communist leaders in Czechoslovakia offered to surrender their control over the government and accept a minority role in a coalition Cabinet.

1991 - Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine declared the Soviet national government to be dead. They forged a new alliance to be known as the Commonwealth of Independent States. The act was denounced by Russian President Gorbachev as unconstitutional.

1992 - Americans got to see live television coverage of U.S. troops landing on the beaches of Somalia during Operation Restore Hope. (Due to the time difference, it was December 9 in Somalia.)

1993 - U.S. President Clinton signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement.

1994 - Bosnian Serbs released dozens of hostage peacekeepers, but continued to detain about 300 others.

1994 - In Los Angeles, 12 alternate jurors were chosen for the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

1997 - The second largest bank was created with the announcement that Union Bank Switzerland and the Swiss Bank Corporation would merge. The combined assets were more than $590 billion.

1997 - Jenny Shipley was sworn in as the first female prime minister of New Zealand.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police could not search a person or their cars after ticketing for a routine traffic violation.

1998 - The FBI opened its files on Frank Sinatra to the public. The file contained over 1,300 pages.

1998 - Nkem Chukwu and Iyke Louis Udobi's first of eight babies was born. The other seven were delivered 12 days later.

1998 - AT&T Corp. announced that it was buying IBM's data networking business for $5 billion cash.

1998 - The first female ice hockey game in Olympic history was played. Finland beat Sweden 6-0.

1999 - In Memphis, TN, a jury found that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had been the victim of a vast murder conspiracy, not a lone assassin.

1999 - Russia and Belarus agreed in principle to form an economic and political confederation.

2000 - Mario Lemieux announced to the Pittsburgh Penguins that he planned to return to the National Hockey League (NHL) as a player at age 35. He would be the first modern owner-player in U.S. pro sports.


Current Birthdays


Teri Hatcher turns 44 years old today.

78 Maximilian Schell
Actor, director


72 David Carradine
Actor


71 James MacArthur
Actor ("Hawaii Five-O")


69 Jerry Butler
R&B singer


69 James Galway
Flutist


67 Bobby Elliott
Rock musician (The Hollies)


63 Toots Hibbert
Reggae singer (Toots and the Maytals)


62 John Rubinstein
Actor


61 Gregg Allman
Rock singer, musician (The Allman Brothers)


55 Kim Basinger
Actress


52 Warren Cuccurullo
Rock musician (Duran Duran)


51 Phil Collen
Rock musician (Def Leppard)


49 Marty Raybon
Country singer


46 Marty Friedman
Rock musician (Megadeth)


46 Wendell Pierce
Actor


42 Bushwick Bill
Rapper (Geto Boys)


42 Matthew Laborteaux
Actor


42 Sinead O'Connor
Rock singer


40 Mike Mussina
Baseball player


36 Ryan Newell
Rock musician (Sister Hazel)


32 Dominic Monaghan
Actor ("Lost")


30 Ian Somerhalder
Actor


29 Ingrid Michaelson
Rock singer


15 AnnaSophia Robb
Actress

Historic Birthdays


Sammy Davis Jr.
12/8/1925 - 5/16/1990
American entertainer


44 Queen of Scots Mary
12/8/1542 - 2/8/1587
Scottish queen


62 Queen of Sweden Christina
12/8/1626 - 4/19/1689
Swedish queen


59 Eli Whitney
12/8/1765 - 1/8/1825
American inventor of the cotton gin


52 Richard Carlile
12/8/1790 - 2/10/1843
English journalist


82 Aristide Maillol
12/8/1861 - 9/27/1944
French artist


78 Camille Claudel
12/8/1864 - 10/19/1943
French sculptor


91 Jean Sibelius
12/8/1865 - 9/20/1957
Finnish composer


70 Diego Rivera
12/8/1886 - 11/25/1957
Mexican painter


66 James Thurber
12/8/1894 - 11/2/1961
American writer and cartoonist


43 Elzie (Crisler) Segar
12/8/1894 - 10/13/1938
American cartoonist and creator of Popeye


89 Josephine Bell
12/8/1897 - 4/24/1987
English physician and novelist

 

[minidog]

1594 - Gustavus II of Sweden was born.

1608 - English poet John Milton was born in London.

1625 - The Treaty of the Hague was signed by England and the Netherlands. The agreement was to subsidize Christian IV of Denmark in his campaign in Germany.

1783 - The first executions at Newgate Prison took place.

1793 - "The American Minerva" was published for the first time. It was the first daily newspaper in New York City and was founded by Noah Webster.

1803 - The 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. With the amendment Electors were directed to vote for a President and for a Vice-President rather than for two choices for President.

1848 - American author and creator of "Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit," Joel Chandler Harris was born.

1854 - Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," was published in England.

1879 - Thomas Edison organized the Edison Ore Milling Company.

1884 - Levant M. Richardson received a patent for the ball-bearing roller skate.

1892 - In London, "Widowers' Houses," George Bernard Shaw's first play, opened at the Royalty Theater.

1907 - Christmas Seals went on sale for the first time, in the Wilmington, DE, post office.

1926 - The United States Golf Association legalized the use of steel-shafted golf clubs.

1914 - The Edison Phonograph Works was destroyed by fire.

1917 - Turkish troops surrendered Jerusalem to British troops led by Viscount Allenby.

1940 - During World War II, British troops opened their first major offensive in North Africa.

1940 - The Longines Watch Company signed for the first FM radio advertising contract with experimental station W2XOR in New York City.

1941 - China declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy.

1942 - The Aram Khachaturian ballet "Gayane" was first performed by the Kirov Ballet.

1955 - Sugar Ray Robinson knocked out Carl Olson and regained his world middleweight boxing title.

1958 - In Indianapolis, IN, Robert H.W. Welch Jr. and 11 other men met to form the anti-Communist John Birch Society.

1960 - Sperry Rand Corporation unveiled a new computer, known as "Univac 1107."

1960 - The first episode of "Coronation Street" was screened on ITV.

1962 - "Lawrence of Arabia," by David Lean had its world premiere in London.

1965 - Nikolai V. Podgorny replaced Anastas I. Mikoyan as president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

1975 - U.S. President Gerald R. Ford signed a $2.3 billion seasonal loan authorization to prevent New York City from having to default.

1978 - The first game of the Women's Pro Basketball League (WBL) was played between the Chicago Hustle and the Milwaukee Does.

1983 - NATO foreign ministers called on the Soviet Union to join in a "comprehensive political dialogue" to ease tensions in the world.

1984 - Iranian security men seized control of the plane ending a five-day hijacking of a Kuwaiti jetliner, which was parked at the Tehran airport.

1985 - In Argentina, five former military junta members received sentences in prison for their roles in the "dirty war" in which nearly 9,000 people had "disappeared."

1987 - West Bank Palestinians launched an intifada (uprising) against Israeli occupation.

1987 - In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli patrol attacked the Jabliya refugee camp.

1990 - Lech Walesa won Poland's first direct presidential election in the country's history.

1990 - Slobodan Milosovic was elected president in Serbia's first free elections in 50 years.

1990 - The first American hostages to be released by Iraq began arriving in the U.S.

1991 - European Community leaders agreed to begin using a single currency in 1999.

1992 - Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation.

1992 - Clair George, former CIA spy chief, was convicted of lying to the U.S. Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. U.S. President George Bush later pardoned George.

1992 - U.S. troops arrived in Mogadishu, Somalia, to oversee delivery of international food aid, in operation 'Restore Hope'.

1993 - The U.S. Air Force destroyed the first of 500 Minuteman II missile silos that were marked for elimination under an arms control treaty.

1993 - Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavor completed repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope.

1993 - At Princeton University in New Jersey, scientists produced a controlled fusion reaction equivalent to 3 million watts.

1994 - Representatives of the Irish Republican Army and the British government opened peace talks in Northern Ireland.

1994 - U.S. President Clinton fired Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders after learning that she had told a conference that masturbation should be discussed in school as a part of human sexuality.

1996 - UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali approved a deal allowing Iraq to resume its exports of oil and easing the UN trade embargo imposed on Iraq in 1990.

1999 - The U.S. announced that it was expelling a Russian diplomat that had been caught gathering information with an eavesdropping device at the U.S. State Department.

2002 - United Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after losing $4 billion in the previos two years. It was the sixth largest bankruptcy filing.

2003 - In Australia, thieves broke into a home and stole two 300-year-old etchings by Rembrandt. The 4-by-4-inch etchings, a self-portait and a depiction of the artist's mother, were valued around $518,000.

Current Birthdays


Kirk Douglas turns 92 years old today.


80 Dick Van Patten
Actor ("Eight is Enough")


78 Buck Henry
Actor, writer


74 Judi Dench
Actress


70 Deacon Jones
Football Hall of Famer


67 Beau Bridges
Actor


67 Dan Hicks
Jazz guitarist


66 Dick Butkus
Football Hall of Famer


63 Michael Nouri
Actor


61 Tom Daschle
Former U.S. senator, D-S.D.


59 Tom Kite
Golfer


58 Joan Armatrading
Rock singer


56 Michael Dorn
Actor


55 John Malkovich
Actor


52 Sylvia
Country singer


51 Donny Osmond
Singer, game show host


50 Nick Seymour
Rock musician (Crowded House)


49 Mario Cantone
Comedian


47 Joe Lando
Actor


43 Jerry Hughes
Country musician (Yankee Grey)


41 Thomas Flowers
Rock musician (Oleander)


40 Brian Bell
Rock musician (Weezer)


39 Jakob Dylan
Rock musician (Wallflowers)


39 Brian Hayes
Country musician


39 Allison Smith
Actress


38 Kara DioGuardi
Songwriter, TV personality ("American Idol")


38 David Kersh
Country singer


36 Tre Cool
Rock musician (Green Day)


34 Canibus
Rapper


32 Eric Zamora
Saxophonist (Save Ferris)


31 Imogen Heap
Rock singer


30 Jesse Metcalfe
Actress


28 Simon Helberg
Actor ("The Big Bang Theory")



Historic Birthdays


Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill

12/9/1912 - 1/5/1994
American politician and longest serving speaker of the House of Representatives (1977-86)


65 John Milton
12/9/1608 - 11/8/1674
English poet and scholar


43 Carl Wilhelm Scheele
12/9/1742 - 5/21/1786
Swedish chemist


73 Comte Claude-Louis Berthollet
12/9/1748 - 11/6/1822
French chemist


69 Clarence Birdseye
12/9/1886 - 10/7/1956
American businessman and pioneer of frozen foods


80 Emmett Kelly
12/9/1898 - 3/28/1979
American circus clown


70 Dalton Trumbo
12/9/1905 - 9/10/1976
American screenwriter and novelist


85 Grace Murray Hopper
12/9/1906 - 1/1/1992
American admiral


59 John Cassavetes
12/9/1929 - 2/3/1989
American actor and film director

 

[khartoum]

Re: Today's date in history...

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor they killed around 2,000 people, most of which were soldiers. We killed 200,000 non-combatant civilians with atomic bombs. moral of the story: killing innocent people is wrong, if it's Americans that are being killed. If we are the one's doing the killing, then it's OK.

The japanese started an un-provoked war. The Japanese murdered, executed and enslaved more than 400,000 Chinese civilians in Nanking alone. They did similar in every inch of territory they acquired by war. They used real torture, not the Guantanamo stuff, maiming, murder, be-headings, disembowelment, starvation, germ warfare, rape and burial alive. The people of Manchuria, Russia, China, India, Thailand, Burma and Singapore would like to compare numbers of "innocents" with people of your opinion.

One should know history before one types the word 'innocent'.

 

[minidog]

1520 - Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict. The papacy demanded that he recant or face excommunication. Luther refused and was formally expelled from the church in January 1521.

1768 - The Royal Academy of Arts was founded in London by George III. Joshua Reynolds was its first president.

1787 - Thomas H. Gallaudet, a pioneer of educating the deaf, was born in Philadelphia.

1817 - Mississippi was admitted to the Union as the 20th American state.

1830 - Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, MA. Only seven of her works were published while she was alive.

1845 - British civil engineer Robert Thompson patented the first pneumatic tires.

1851 - American librarian Melvil Dewey was born. He created the "Dewey Decimal Classification" system.

1869 - Women were granted the right to vote in the Wyoming Territory.

1896 - Alfred Bernhard Nobel died in San Remo, Italy. He was a Swedish chemist who invented dynamite. In his in his will he stipulated that income from his $9 million estate be used for annual prizes for people judged to have made valuable humanitarian deeds.

1898 - A treaty was signed in Paris that officially ended the Spanish-American War. Also, Cuba became independent of Spain.

1901 - The first Nobel prizes were awarded.

1906 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for helping mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War.

1931 - Jane Addams became a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, she was the first American woman to do so.

1939 - The National Football League's attendance exeeded 1 million in a season for the first time.

1941 - Japan invaded the Philippines.

1941 - The Royal Naval battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by Japanese aircraft in the Battle of Malaya.

1948 - The United Nations General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

1950 - Dr. Ralph J. Bunche was presented the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the first African-American to receive the award. Bunche was awarded the prize for his efforts in mediation between Israel and neighboring Arab states.

1953 - Hugh Hefner published the first "Playboy" magazine with an investment of $7,600.

1958 - The first domestic passenger jet flight took place in the U.S. when 111 passengers flew from New York to Miami on a National Airlines Boeing 707.

1962 - Frank Gifford (New York Giants) was on the cover of "Sports Illustrated."

1964 - In Oslo, Norway, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the youngest person to receive the award.

1980 - South Carolina Representative John W. Jenretter resigned to avoid being expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives following his conviction on charges to the FBI's Abscam investigation.

1982 - The Law of the Sea Convention was signed by 118 countries in Montego Bay, Jamaica. 23 nations and the U.S. were excluded.

1983 - Raul Alfonsin was inaugurated as Argentina's first civilian president after nearly eight years of military rule.

1984 - South African Bishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize.

1990 - Industrialist Armand Hammer died at age 92.

1990 - The U.S. Food & Drug Administration approved wtf?wtf?wtf?wtf?lant, a long-acting contraceptive implant.

1991 - The play Revival "The Crucible" opened.

1992 - Oregon Senator Bob Packwood apologized for what he called "unwelcome and offensive" actions toward women. However, he refused to resign.

1993 - The crew of the space shuttle Endeavor deployed the repaired Hubble Space Telescope into Earth's orbit.

1994 - Advertising executive Thomas Mosser of North Caldwell, NJ, was killed by a mail bomb that was blamed on the Unabomber.

1994 - Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin received the Nobel Peace Prize. They pledged to pursue their mission of healing the Middle East.

1995 - The first U.S. Marines arrived in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo to join NATO soldiers sent to enforce peace in the former Yugoslavia.

1996 - South Africa's President Mandela signed into law a new democratic constitution, completing the country's transition from white-minority rule to a non-racial democracy.

1998 - Six astronauts opened the doors to the new international space station 250 miles above the Earth's surface.

1998 - The Palestinian leadership scrapped constitutional clauses that rejected Israel's existence.

1999 - After three years under suspicion of being a spy for China, computer scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested. He was charged with removing secrets from the Los Alamos weapons lab. Lee later plead guilty to one count of downloading restricted data to tape and was freed. The other 58 counts were dropped.

2003 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld new restrictions on political advertising in the weeks before an election. The court did strike down two provisions of the new law that involved a ban on political contibutions from those too young to vote and a limitation on some party spending. (McConnell v. FEC, 02-1674)

2003 - The U.S. barred firms based in certain countries, opponents of the Iraq war, from bidding on Iraqi reconstruction projects. The ban did not prevent companies from winning subcontracts.

Current Birthdays


Raven-Symone turns 23 years old today.

85 Harold Gould
Actor


67 Fionnula Flanagan
Actress


67 Tommy Kirk
Actor


67 Chad Stuart
Singer (Chad and Jeremy)


62 Gloria Loring
Actress, singer


60 Jessica Cleaves
R&B singer (Friends of Distinction)


60 Ralph Tavares
R&B singer


57 Johnny Rodriguez
Country singer


56 Susan Dey
Actress ("L.A. Law," "The Partridge Family")


52 Rod Blagojevich
Governor of Illinois


51 Michael Clarke Duncan
Actor


51 Paul Hardcastle
Jazz musician


48 Kenneth Branagh
Actor, director


47 Nia Peeples
Actress


44 Bobby Flay
TV chef


43 J Mascis
Rock musician


38 Kevin Sharp
Country singer


37 Scot Alexander
Rock musician (Dishwalla)


34 Meg White
Rock musician (The White Stripes)

Historic Birthdays


Melvil Dewey

12/10/1851 - 12/26/1931
American librarian and inventor of the Dewey Decimal classification system


73 (Giovanni) Battista Guarini
12/10/1538 - 10/7/1612
Italian poet and dramatist


? Adriaen von Ostade
12/10/1610 - ?/2/1685
Dutch painter and printmaker


63 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet
12/10/1787 - 9/10/1851
American philanthropist


67 Cesar Franck
12/10/1822 - 11/8/1890
Belgian-French Romantic composer


80 George Macdonald
12/10/1824 - 9/18/1905
Scottish novelist


55 Emily Dickinson
12/10/1830 - 5/15/1886
American poet


62 Adolf Loos
12/10/1870 - 8/23/1933
Austrian architect


78 Nelly Sachs
12/10/1891 - 5/12/1970
German poet and dramatist


88 Mary Norton
12/10/1903 - 8/29/1992
English children's author


82 Morton Gould
12/10/1913 - 2/21/1996
American composer and pianist

 

[minidog]

1282 - Llywelyn (Llewelyn ap Gruffydd) was killed in Cilmeri, central Wales.

1719 - The first recorded sighting of the Aurora Borealis was in New England.

1769 - Edward Beran of London patented venetian blinds.

1792 - France's King Louis XVI went before the Convention, which had replaced the National Assembly, to face charges of treason. He was convicted and condemned and was sent to the guillotine the following January.

1816 - Indiana was admitted to the Union as the 19th American state.

1844 - Dr. Horace Wells became the first person to have a tooth extracted after receiving an anesthetic for the dental procedure. Nitrous Oxide, or laughing gas, was the anesthetic.

1872 - Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became America's first black governor when he took office as acting governor of Louisiana.

1882 - Boston's Bijou Theater had its first performance. It was the first American playhouse lit exclusively by electricity.

1894 - The world's first motor show opened in Paris with nine exhibitors.

1928 - In Buenos Aires, police thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Herbert Hoover.

1930 - The Bank of the United States in New York failed.

1936 - Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated in order to marry American Wallis Warfield Simpson. He became the Duke of Windsor.

1937 - The Fascist Council in Rome, withdrew Italy from the League of Nations.

1941 - Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The U.S in turn declared war on the two countries.

1943 - The City Center of Music and Drama was dedicated in New York by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.

1946 - The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established by the U.N. General Assembly. The fund provides relief to children in countries devastated by war.

1951 - Joe DiMaggio (New York Yankees) announced his retirement from major league baseball. DiMaggio only played for the Yankees during his 13-year career.

1961 - The first direct American military support for South Vietnam occurred when a U.S. aircraft carrier carrying Army helicopters arrived in Saigon.

1967 - The prototype of the Concorde was shown for the first time in Toulouse, France.

1973 - West German Chancellor Willy Brandt and Czech Prime Minister Lubomir Strougal formally nullified the 1938 Munich pact when they signed a treaty sanctioning Hitler's seizure of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland.

1980 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed into law legislation creating $1.6 billion environmental "superfund" that would be used to pay for cleaning up chemical spills and toxic waste dumps.

1981 - Muhammad Ali fought his last fight. He lost his 61st fight to Trevor Berbick.

1985 - The U.S. House of Representatives joined the U.S. Senate by giving final congressional approval to the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law.

1985 - General Electric Company agreed to buy RCA Corporation for $6.3 billion. Also included in the deal was NBC Radio and Television.

1986 - The government of South Africa expanded its media restrictions by imposing prior censorship and banning coverage of a wide range of peaceful anti-apartheid protests.

1987 - Charlie Chaplin's trademark cane and bowler hat were sold at Christie's for £82,500.

1988 - 62 people were killed in a Mexico City marketplace when tons of illegal fireworks exploded.

1990 - Ivana Trump was divorced from Donald Trump after 12 years of marriage.

1991 - Salman Rushdie, under an Islamic death sentence for blasphemy, made his first public appearance since 1989 in New York, at a dinner marking the 200th anniversary of the First Amendment (which guarantees freedom of speech in the U.S.).

1994 - Thousands of Russian troops, armored columns and jets entered Chechnya. The move by Moscow was an effort to restore control the breakaway republic.

1994 - The world's largest free trade zone was created when leaders of 34 Western Hemisphere nations signed a free-trade declaration known as "The Miami Process."

1996 - In Crystal City, VA, "The Art of the Toy" opened. The exhibit was at the Patent and Trademark Office Museum.

1997 - Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams became the first political ally of the IRA to meet a British leader in 76 years. He conferred with Prime Minister Tony Blair in London.

1997 - More than 270 Tutsi refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo were killed by Juto guerillas in Mudende, Rwanda.

1997 - More than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth's "greenhouse gases."

1998 - Scientists announced that they had deciphered the entire genetic blueprint of a tiny worm.

1998 - The Mars Climate Orbiter blasted off on a nine-month journey to the Red Planet. However, the probe disappeared in September of 1999, apparently destroyed because scientists had failed to convert English measures to metric values.

1998 - Majority Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee pushed through three articles of impeachment against U.S. President Clinton.

2000 - Mario Lemeiux, owner of Pittsburgh Penquins, announced that he would end his three-plus year retirement and become an active National Hockey League (NHL) player again. When Lemieux returned officially he became the first owner/player in NHL history.

2001 - U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft announced the first federal indictment directly related to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Zacarias Moussaoui was charged with six conspiracy charges. Moussaoui was in custody at the time of the attacks.

2001 - Ted Turner purchased 12,000 acres in Nebraska for Bison ranches.

2001 - It was announced that U.S. President George W. Bush would withdraw the U.S. from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.

2001 - Federal agents seized computers in 27 U.S. cities as part of "Operation Buccaneer." The raids were used to gain evidence against an international software piracy ring.

Current Birthdays


Rita Moreno turns 77 years old today.

69 Tom Hayden
Activist


68 David Gates
Singer (Bread)


67 Max Baucus
U.S. senator, D-Mont.


66 Donna Mills
Actress ("Knots Landing")


65 John Kerry
U.S. senator, D-Mass.


64 Lynda Day George
Actress


64 Brenda Lee
Singer


62 Tony Brown
Country music producer


60 Teri Garr
Actress


56 Susan Seidelman
Director


55 Bess Armstrong
Actress


54 Jermaine Jackson
Singer (The Jackson 5)


51 Mike Mesaros
Rock musician (The Smithereens)


50 Nikki Sixx
Rock musician (Motley Crue)


47 Darryl Jones
Rock musician


44 David Schools
Rock musician (Widespread Panic)


44 Justin Currie
Rock musician (Del Amitri)


42 Gary Dourdan
Actor ("CSI")


41 Mo'Nique
Actress, comedian


35 Mos Def
Rapper, actor


29 Rider Strong
Actor


Historic Birthdays


Fiorello H. La Guardia

12/11/1882 - 9/20/1947
New York City mayor


45 Leo X
12/11/1475 - 12/1/1521
Italian pope


86 Sir David Brewster
12/11/1781 - 2/10/1868
Scottish physicist


65 (Louis-)Hector Berlioz
12/11/1803 - 3/8/1869
French composer and conductor


46 Alfred de Musset
12/11/1810 - 5/2/1857
French poet and playwright


66 Robert H.H. Koch
12/11/1843 - 5/27/1910
German physician


77 Annie Jump Cannon
12/11/1863 - 4/13/1941
American astronomer


87 Max Born
12/11/1882 - 1/5/1970
German physicist and Nobel Prize winner


68 Erskine (Hamilton) Childers
12/11/1905 - 11/17/1974
Irish statesman and fourth president (1973-74)


62 Sir Kenneth MacMillan
12/11/1929 - 10/29/1992
Scottish-English choreographer

 

[minidog]

1787 - Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1792 - In Vienna, 22-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven received one of his first lessons in music composition from Franz Joseph Haydn.

1800 - Washington, DC, was established as the capital of the United States.

1805 - Henry Wells was born in Thetford, VT. He was one of the founders of the American Express Company and he teamed up with William Fargo to form the Wells Fargo Company.

1863 - Norwegian painter Edvard Munch was born. His most known work is "The Scream."

1870 - Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina became the first black lawmaker to be sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives.

1896 - Guglielmo Marconi gave the first public demonstration of radio at Toynbee Hall, London.

1897 - The comic strip"The Katzenjammer Kids" (Hans and Fritz), by Rudolph Dirks, appeared in the New York Journal for the first time.

1899 - George Grant patented the wooden golf tee.

1900 - Charles M. Schwab formed the United States Steel Corporation.

1901 - The first radio signal to cross the Atlantic was picked up near St. John's Newfoundland, by inventor Guglielmo Marconi.

1912 - The Mother's Day International Association was incorporated with the purpose of furthering meaningful observations of Mother's Day.

1915 - The first all-metal aircraft, the German Junkers J1, made its first flight.

1917 - Father Edward Flanagan opened Boys Town in Nebraska. The farm village was for wayward boys. In 1979 it was opened to girls.

1925 - The "Motel Inn," the first motel in the world, opened in San Luis Obispo, CA.

1937 - Japanese aircraft sank the U.S. gunboat "Panay" on China's Yangtze River. Japan apologized for the attack, and paid $2.2 million in reparations.

1946 - A United Nations committee voted to accept a six-block tract of Manhattan real estate to be the site of the UN's headquarters. The land was offered as a gift by John D. Rockefeller Jr.

1947 - The United Mine Workers union withdrew from the American Federation of Labor.

1951 - The U.S. Navy Department announced that the world's first nuclear powered submarine would become the sixth ship to bear the name Nautilus.

1955 - It was announced that the Ford Foundation gave $500,000,000 to private hospitals, colleges and medical schools.

1955 - British engineer Christopher Cockerell patented the first hovercraft.

1963 - Kenya gained its independence from Britain.

1975 - Sara Jane Moore pled guilty to a charge of trying to kill U.S. President Ford in San Francisco the previous September.

1982 - 20,000 women encircled Greenham Common air base in Britain in protest against proposed cite of U.S. Cruise missiles there.

1983 - Car bombs were set off in front of the French and U.S. embassies in Kuwait City. Shiite extremists were responsible for the five deaths and 86 wounded. Total of five bombs went off in different locations.

1984 - In a telephone conversation with U.S. President Reagan, William J. Schroeder complained of a delay in his Social Security benefits. Schroeder received a check the following day.

1985 - 248 American soldiers and eight crewmembers were killed when an Arrow Air charter crashed in Gander, Newfoundland after takeoff.

1989 - Britain forcibly removed 51 Vietnamese from Hong Kong and returned them to their homeland.

1989 - Leona Helmsley was fined $7 million and sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion.

1994 - The Brazilian Supreme Court acquitted former President Fernando Collor de Mello of corruption charges that had forced him to resign in 1992.

1994 - IBM stopped shipments of personal computers with Intel's flawed Pentium chip.

1995 - The U.S. Senate stopped a constitutional amendment giving Congress authority to outlaw flag burning and other forms of desecration against the American flag.

1995 - Two French airmen shot down over Bosnia arrived home after almost four months of being held captive by the Bosnian Serbs.

1997 - Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the international terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal," went on trial in Paris on charges of killing two French investigators and a Lebanese national. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

1997 - The U.S. Justice Department ordered Microsoft to sell its Internet browser separately from its Windows operating system to prevent it from building a monopoly of Web access programs.

1997 - Denver Pyle received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1998 - The House Judiciary Committee rejected censure, and approved the final article of impeachment against U.S. President Clinton. The case was submitted to the full House for a verdict.

2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court found that the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election was unconstitutional. U.S. Vice President Al Gore conceded the election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush the next day.

2000 - Timothy McVeigh, over the objections of his lawyers, abandoned his final round of appeals and asked that his execution be set within 120 days. McVeigh was convicted of the April 1995 truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Fedal Building in Oklahoma City, OK, that killed 168 and injured 500.

2000 - The Texas Rangers signed Alex Rodriguez to a record breaking 10-year, $252 million contract. The contract amount broke all major league baseball records and all professional sports records.

2001 - The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would implement minimum federal election standards and provide funding to help states modernize their voting systems.

2001 - Gerardo Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison for being the leader of a Cuban spy ring. His conviction was based on his role in the infiltration of U.S. military bases and in the deaths of four Cuban-Americans whose planes were shot down five years before.

2001 - In Beverly Hills, CA, actress Winona Ryder was arrested at Saks Fifth Avenue for shoplifting and possessing pharmaceutical drugs without a prescription. The numerous items of clothing and hair accessories were valued at $4,760.

2002 - North Korea announced that it would reactivate a nuclear power plant that U.S. officials believed was being used to develop weapons.

Current Birthdays


Jennifer Connelly turns 38 years old today.

85 Bob Barker
TV game show host ("The Price is Right")


84 Ed Koch
Former New York City mayor


70 Connie Francis
Singer, actress


68 Dionne Warwick
R&B singer


65 Dickey Betts
Rock musician (The Allman Brothers)


61 Wings Hauser
Actor


59 Bill Nighy
Actor ("Pirates of the Caribbean" movies)


58 Duane Chase
Actor (Kurt in "The Sound of Music")


58 LaCosta
Country singer


56 Cathy Rigby
Actress, Olympic gymnast


51 Sheila E.
Singer, musician


50 Sheree J. Wilson
Actress


47 Daniel O'Donnell
Singer


46 Tracy Austin
Tennis Hall of Famer


45 Eric Schenkman
Rock musician (Spin Doctors)


41 Nicholas Dimichino
Rock musician (Nine Days)


39 Maggie Rodriguez
TV host ("The Early Show")


38 Madchen Amick
Actress


36 Hank Williams III
Country singer


33 Mayim Bialik
Actress ("Blossom")


31 Bridget Hall
Model

Historic Birthdays


Frank Sinatra

12/12/1915 - 5/14/1998
American actor and singer




61 Alvaro de Bazan Santa Cruz
12/12/1526 - 2/9/1588
Spanish naval commander


83 John Jay
12/12/1745 - 5/17/1829
First chief justice of the United States


73 William Lloyd Garrison
12/12/1805 - 5/24/1879
American abolitionist


64 Stand Watie
12/12/1806 - 9/9/1871
Cherokee chief


67 Gustave Flaubert
12/12/1821 - 5/8/1880
French novelist


80 Edvard Munch
12/12/1863 - 1/23/1944
Norweigan painter


72 Arthur Garfield Brisbane
12/12/1864 - 12/25/1936
American editor and writer


51 Alvin Kraenzlein
12/12/1876 - 1/6/1928
American Olympic athlete; first competitor to win four gold medals in a single Olympics


73 Arthur Garfield Hays
12/12/1881 - 12/14/1954
American lawyer and defender of civil liberties


79 Edward G. Robinson
12/12/1893 - 1/26/1973
American actor and singer


85 Henry Armstrong
12/12/1912 - 10/24/1988
American boxer


65 John Osborne
12/12/1929 - 12/24/1994
English playwright

 

[minidog]

1577 - Five ships under the command of Sir Francis Drake left Plymouth, England, to embark on Drake's circumnavigation of the globe. The journey took almost three years.

1636 - The United States National Guard was created when militia regiments were organized by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1642 - New Zealand was discovered by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman.

1769 - Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, received its charter.

1809 - The first abdominal surgical procedure was performed in Danville, KY, on Jane Todd Crawford. The operation was performed without an anesthetic.

1816 - John Adamson received a patent for a dry dock.

1862 - In America, an estimated 11,000 Northern soldiers were killed or wounded when Union forces were defeated by Confederates under General Robert E. Lee, at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

1883 - The border between Ontario and Manitoba was established.

1884 - Percy Everitt received a patent for the first coin-operated weighing machine.

1913 - The Federal Reserve System was established as the first U.S. central bank.

1913 - It was announced by authorities in Florence, Italy, that the "Mona Lisa" had been recovered. The work was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1911.

1918 - U.S. President Wilson arrived in France, becoming the first chief executive to visit a European country while holding office.

1921 - Britain, France, Japan and the United States signed the Pacific Treaty.

1937 - Japanese forces took the Chinese city of Nanking (Nanjing). An estimated 200,000 Chinese were killed over the next six weeks. The event became known as the "Rape of Nanking."

1944 - During World War II, the U.S. cruiser Nashville was badly damaged in a Japanese kamikaze suicide attack. 138 people were killed in the attack.

1961 - Anna Mary Robertson Moses, "Grandma Moses," passed away at the age of 101.

1964 - In El Paso, TX, President Johnson and Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz set off an explosion that diverted the Rio Grande River, reshaping the U.S.-Mexican border. This ended a century-old border dispute.

1966 - The rights to the first four Super Bowls were sold to CBS and NBC for total of $9.5 million.

1978 - The Philadelphia Mint began stamping the Susan B. Anthony U.S. dollar. The coin began circulation the following July.

1980 - Three days after a disputed general election, Uganda’s President Milton Obote was returned to office.

1981 - Authorities in Poland imposed martial law in an attempt to crackdown on the Solidarity labor movement. Martial law ended formally in 1983.

1982 - The Sentry Armored Car Company in New York discovered that $11 million had been stolen from its headquarters overnight. It was the biggest cash theft in U.S. history.

1987 - U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz told reporters in Copenhagen, Denmark, that the Reagan administration would begin making funding requests for the proposed Star Wars defense system.

1988 - PLO chairman Yasser Arafat addressed the U.N. General Assembly in Geneva, were it had recovened after the United States had refused to grant Arafat a visa to visit New York.

1988 - A bankruptcy judge in Columbia, SC, ordered the assets of the troubled PTL television ministry sold to a Toronto real estate developer for $65 million.

1989 - South African President F.W. de Klerk met for the first time with imprisoned African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, at de Klerk's office in Cape Town.

1991 - Five Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union agreed to join the new Commonwealth of Independent States.

1991 - North Korea and South Korea signed a historic non-aggression agreement.

1993 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people must receive a hearing before property linked to illegal drug sales can be seized.

1993 - The European Community ratified a treaty creating the European Economic Area (EEA), to go into effect January 1, 1994.

1994 - An American Eagle commuter plane carrying 20 people crashed short of Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina, killing 15 people.

1995 - China's most influential democracy activist, Wei Jingsheng, who already had spent 16 years in prison, was sentenced to 14 more years.

1997 - The Getty Center in Los Angeles, CA, was opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

1998 - Puerto Rican voters rejected U.S. statehood in a non-binding referendum.

1998 - Gary Anderson (Minnesota Vikings) kicked six field goals against Baltimore. In the game Anderson set an National Football League (NFL) record for 34 straight field goals without a miss.

2000 - U.S. Vice President Al Gore conceded the 2000 Presidential election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush. The Florida electoral votes were won by only 537 votes, which decided the election. The election had been contested up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which said that the Florida recount (supported by the Florida Supreme Court) was unconstitutional.

2000 - Seven convicts, the "Texas 7," escaped from Connally Unit in Kenedy, TX, southeast of San Antonio, by overpowering civilian workers and prison employees. They fled with stolen clothing, pickup truck and 16 guns and ammunition.

2001 - The U.S. government released a video tape that showed Osama bin Laden and others discussing their knowledge of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

2001 - U.S. President George W. Bush served formal notice to Russia that the United States was withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

2001 - Israel severed all contact with Yasser Arafat. Israel also launched air strikes and sent troops into Palestine in response to a bus ambush that killed 10 Israelis.

2001 - Gunmen stormed the Indian Parliament and killed seven people and injured 18. Security forces killed the attackers during a 90-minute gunbattle.

2001 - NBC-TV announced that it would begin running hard liquor commercials. NBC issued a 19-point policy that outlined the conditions for accepting liquor ads.

2001 - Michael Frank Goodwin was arrested and booked on two counts of murder, one count of conspiracy and three special circumstances (lying in wait, murder for financial gain and multiple murder) in connection to the death of Mickey Thompson. Thompson and his wife Trudy were shot to death in their driveway on March 16, 1988. Thompson, known as the "Speed King," set nearly 500 auto speed endurance records including being the first person to travel more than 400 mph on land.


Current Birthdays


Taylor Swift turns 19 years old today.

88 George P. Shultz
Former Secretary of State


83 Dick Van Dyke
Actor


79 Christopher Plummer
Actor


78 Buck White
Country singer


78 Lou Adler
Music producer


74 Richard Zanuck
Movie producer


67 John Davidson
Singer


65 Ferguson Jenkins
Baseball Hall of Famer


63 Kathy Garver
Actress ("Family Affair")


60 Jeff "Skunk" Baxter
Rock musician (The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan)


60 Ron Getman
Country singer (The Tractors)


60 Ted Nugent
Rock musician


59 Robert Lindsay
Actor


59 Randy Owen
Country singer, musician (Alabama)


58 Wendie Malick
Actress ("Just Shoot Me")


58 Tom Vilsack
Former governor of Iowa


55 Ben Bernanke
Federal Reserve chairman


54 John Anderson
Country singer


54 Steve Forbert
Rock singer


52 Morris Day
R&B singer-actor (The Time)


51 Steve Buscemi
Actor


49 Johnny Whitaker
Actor ("Family Affair")


39 Gary Zimmerman
Football Hall of Famer


41 Jamie Foxx
Actor, singer


39 Sergei Fedorov
Hockey player


34 Debbie Matenopoulos
TV personality


33 Thomas Delonge
Rock musician


33 James Kyson Lee
Actor ("Heroes")


27 Chelsea Hertford
Actress ("Major Dad")


27 Amy Lee
Rock singer (Evanescence)

Historic Birthdays


Carlos Montoya

12/13/1903 - 3/3/1993
Spanish-American flamenco guitarist


85 Carlos Gozzi
12/13/1720 - 4/4/1806
Italian poet and dramatist


72 Sir William Hamilton
12/13/1730 - 4/6/1803
English diplomat and archaeologist


68 Joseph Howe
12/13/1804 - 6/1/1873
Canadian statesman and publisher


86 Lawrence Lowell
12/13/1856 - 1/6/1943
American lawyer, educator, and president of Harvard University (1909-1933)


73 Emily Carr
12/13/1871 - 3/2/1945
Canadian painter and writer


76 Alvin York
12/13/1887 - 9/2/1964
American military hero of World War I


90 Marc Connelly
12/13/1890 - 12/21/1980
American playwright and journalist


84 Archie Moore
12/13/1913 - 12/9/1998
American boxer

 

[minidog]

1503 - Physician, astrologer and clairvoyant Nostradamus was born at St. Remy, Provence, France.

1798 - David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patented the nut and bolt machine.

1799 - The first president of the United States, George Washington, died at the age 67.

1819 - Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state.

1896 - Gen. James H. Doolittle, who led the first air raid on Japan during World War II, was born.

1900 - Professor Max Planck of Berlin University revealed his revolutionary Quantum Theory.

1903 - Orville Wright made the first attempt at powered flight. The engine stalled during take-off and the plane was damaged in the attempt. Three days later, after repairs were made, the modern aviation age was born when the plane stayed aloft for 12 seconds and flew 102 feet.

1911 - Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole. He reached the destination 35 days ahead of Captain Robert F. Scott.

1915 - Jack Johnson became the first black world heavyweight champion.

1918 - For the first time in Britain women (over 30) voted in a General Election.

1939 - The Soviet Union was dropped from the League of Nations.

1945 - Josef Kramer, known as "the beast of Belsen," and 10 others were executed in Hamelin for the crimes they committed at the Belsen and Auschwitz Nazi concentration camps.

1946 - The U.N. General Assembly voted to establish the United Nation's headquarters in New York City.

1959 - Archbishop Makarios was elected Cyprus' first president.

1962 - The U.S. space probe Mariner II approached Venus. It transmitted information about the planet's atmosphere and surface temperature.

1975 - Six South Moluccan terrorists surrendered to police after holding 23 people hostage for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen.

1981 - Israel annexed the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in war in 1967.

1983 - The U.S. battleship New Jersey fired on Syrian positions in Lebanon for the first time after American F-14 reconnaissance flights were fired on.

1984 - Howard Cosell retired from the NFL's Monday Night Football.

1985 - Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she formally took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

1986 - The experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from California on the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world. The trip took nine days to complete.

1987 - Chrysler pled no contest to federal charges of selling several thousand vehicles as new. Chrysler employees had driven the vehicles with the odometer disconnected.

1988 - CBS won the exclusive rights to major league baseball's 1990-94 seasons for $1.1 billion.

1988 - The first transatlantic underwater fiber-optic cable went into service.

1990 - After 30 years in exile, ANC president Oliver Tambo returned to South Africa.

1993 - A judge in Colorado struck down the state's voter-approved Amendment Two prohibiting gay rights laws, calling it unconstitutional.

1993 - The United Mine Workers approved a five-year contract that ended a strike that had reached seven states and involved some of the nation's biggest coal operators.

1995 - The presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia signed the Dayton Accords to end fighting in Bosnia.

1995 - AIDS patient Jeff Getty received the first-ever bone-marrow transplant from a baboon.

1997 - Iran's newest president, Mohammad Khatami, called for a dialogue with the people of the United States. The preceding Iranian leaders had reviled the U.S. as "The Great Satan."

1997 - Mike Gartner (Phoenix Coyotes) became only the fifth player in National Hockey League (NHL) history to score 700 career goals.

1997 - Cuban President Fidel Castro declared Christmas 1997 an official holiday to ensure the success of Pope John Paul II's upcoming visit to Cuba.

1998 - Hundreds of Palestinian leaders renounced a call for the destruction of Israel.

1999 - U.S. and German negotiators agreed to establish a $5.2 billion fund for Nazi-era slave and forced laborers.

1999 - Charles M. Schulz announced he was retiring the "Peanuts" comic strip. The last original "Peanuts" comic strip was published on February 13, 2000.

2000 - It was announced that American businessman Edmond Pope would be released from a Russian prison for humanitarian reasons. Pope had been sentenced to 20 years in prison after his conviction on espionage charges.

2001 - European Union leaders agreed to dispatch 3,000-4,000 troops to join an international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.

2001 - The first commercial export, since 1963, of U.S. food to Cuba began. The 24,000 metric tons for corn were being sent to replenish what was lost when Hurricane Michelle struck on November 4.

 

[minidog]

1654 - A meteorological office established in Tuscany began recording daily temperature readings.

1791 - In the U.S., the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, went into effect following ratification by the state of Virginia.

1815 - Jane Austen's "Emma" was published.

1840 - Napoleon Bonapart's remains were interred in Les Invalides in Paris, having been brought from St. Helena, where he died in exile.

1854 - In Philadelphia, the first street cleaning machine was put into use.

1877 - Thomas Edison patented the phonograph.

1890 - American Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull and 11 other tribe members were killed in Grand River, SD, during an incident with Indian police working for the U.S. government.

1925 - The third Madison Square Gardens opened.

1938 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt presided over the ground-breaking ceremonies for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC.

1939 - "Gone With the Wind," produced by David O. Selznick based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell, premiered at Loew's Grand Theater in Atlanta. The movie starred Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.

1941 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt singed into practice Bill of Rights Day.

1944 - A single-engine plane carrying U.S. Army Major Glenn Miller disappeared in thick fog over the English Channel while en route to Paris.

1944 - American forces invaded Mindoro Island in the Philippines.

1944 - Dr. R. Townley Paton and a small group of doctors laid the groundwork for the Eye-Bank for Sight Restoration.

1961 - Former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death in Jerusalem by an Israeli court. He had been tried on charges for organizing the deportation of Jews to concentration camps.

1961 - The U.N. General Assembly voted against a Soviet proposal to admit Communist China as a member.

1964 - Canada's House of Commons approved a newly designed flag thereby dropping the Canadian "Red Ensign" flag.

1965 - Two U.S. manned spacecraft, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7, maneuvered within 10 feet of each other while in orbit around the Earth.

1966 - Walter Elias "Walt" Disney died in Los Angeles at the age of 65.

1970 - The Soviet probe Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to land softly on the surface of Venus. The probe only survived the extreme heat and pressure for about 23 minutes and transmitted the first date received on Earth from the surface of another planet.

1973 - J. Paul Getty III was found in southern Italy after being held captive for five months, during which his right ear was cut off and sent to a newspaper in Rome.

1978 - U.S. President Carter announced he would grant diplomatic recognition to Communist China on New Year's Day and sever official relations with Taiwan.

1979 - The former shah of Iran, Muhammad Riza Pahlavi, left the United States for Panama. He had gone to the U.S. for medical treatment on October 22, 1979.

1979 - In a preliminary ruling, the International Court of Justice ordered Iran to release all hostages that had been taken at the U.S. embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979.

1982 - Paul "Bear" Bryant announced his retirement as head football coach at the University of Alabama.

1982 - Gibraltar's frontier with Spain was opened to pedestrian use after 13 years.

1983 - The last 80 U.S. combat soldiers in Grenada withdrew. It was just over seven weeks after the U.S.-led invasion of the Caribbean island.

1989 - An uprising in Romania began as demonstrators gathered to prevent the arrest of the Reverend Laszlo Tokes, a dissident clergyman.

1992 - IBM announced it would eliminate 25-thousand employees in the coming year.

1992 - Bettino Craxi, the leader of Italy's Socialist Party, was informed that he was under investigation in a burgeoning corruption scandal in the northern city of Milan.

1992 - El Salvador's government and leftist guerrilla leaders formally declared the end of the country's 12-year civil war.

1993 - In Geneva, 117 countries completed the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The countries agreed on a reform package.

1993 - The prime ministers of Britain and the Republic of Ireland (John Major and Albert Reynolds respectively) made the "Downing Street Declaration," stating the basis for trying to achieve peace in Northern Ireland.

1995 - The U.N. Security Council authorized NATO to take over the peacekeeping operations in Bosnia.

1995 - French rail workers voted to end a three-week-old strike.

1996 - Boeing Co. announced plans to pay $13.3 billion to acquire rival aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas Corp.

1997 - The San Francisco 49ers retired Joe Montana's number 16 during halftime of a game against the Denver Broncos.

1999 - Syria reopened peace talks with Israel in Washington, DC, with the mediation of U.S. President Clinton.

2000 - The Chernobyl atomic power plant in Kiev, Ukraine, was shut down.

2000 - New York Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed to accept an $8 million book deal with Simon & Schuster. The book was to be about her eight years in the White House. The advance was the highest ever to be paid to a member of the U.S. Congress.

2001 - It was announced that Siena Heights University would begin offering a class called "Animated Philosophy and Religion." The two-credit class would cover how religion and philosophy are part of popular culture and is based on the television series "The Simpsons."

Current Birthdays


Mark Warner turns 54 years old today.

80 Ernest Ashworth
Country singer


75 Tim Conway
Comedian ("The Carol Burnett Show")


69 Cindy Birdsong
Singer (The Supremes)


68 Nick Buoniconti
Football Hall of Famer


66 Dave Clark
Rock musician, producer (The Dave Clark Five)


62 Carmine Appice
Rock musician (Vanilla Fudge)


59 Don Johnson
Actor ("Miami Vice")


56 Julie Taymor
Director


54 Alex Cox
Director ("Repo Man," "Sid and Nancy")


54 Justin Ross
Actor


53 Paul Simonon
Rock musician (The Clash)


48 Doug Phelps
Country singer


47 Reginald Hudlin
Movie producer


45 Helen Slater
Actress


43 Molly Price
Actress


38 Michael Shanks
Actor ("Stargate SG-1," "Stargate: Atlantis")


36 Stuart Townsend
Actor


31 Kito Trawick
Crowd hyper (Ghostown DJs)


29 Adam Brody
Actor ("The O.C.")


27 George O. Gore II
Actor ("My Wife and Kids")


Historic Birthdays


J. Paul Getty

12/15/1892 - 6/6/1976
American oil tycoon


31 Nero
12/15/AD 37 - 6/9/AD 68
Roman emperor


67 George Romney
12/15/1734 - 11/15/1802
English portrait painter


75 Joseph Moses Levy
12/15/1812 - 10/12/1888
English newspaperman; founded the London newspaper Daily Telegraph


85 Franklin Sanborn
12/15/1831 - 2/24/1917
American journalist and biographer


91 Gustave Eiffel
12/15/1832 - 12/28/1923
French civil engineer and designer of the Eiffel Tower


43 Niels Ryberg Finsen
12/15/1860 - 9/24/1904
Danish physician, founder of modern phototherapy and Nobel prize winner


76 Charles Duryea
12/15/1861 - 9/28/1938
American automobile inventor


70 Maxwell Anderson
12/15/1888 - 2/28/1959
American playwright


65 Kaare Klint
12/15/1888 - 3/28/1954
Danish architect and furniture designer


78 Harold Abrahams
12/15/1899 - 1/14/1978
English athlete and Olympic gold medalist

 

[minidog]

1653 - Oliver Cromwell became lord protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.

1773 - Nearly 350 chests of tea were dumped into Boston Harbor off of British ships by Colonial patriots. The patriots were disguised as Indians. The act was to protest taxation without representation and the monopoly the government granted to the East India Company.

1809 - Napoleon Bonaparte was divorced from the Empress Josephine by an act of the French Senate.

1835 - In New York, 530 buildings were destroyed by fire.

1838 - The Zulu chief Dingaan was defeated by a small force of Boers at Blood River celebrated in South Africa as 'Dingaan's Day'.

1850 - The first immigrant ship, the Charlotte Jane, arrived at Lyttleton, New Zealand.

1901 - "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," by Beatrix Potter, was printed for the first time.

1903 - Women ushers were employed for the first time at the Majestic Theatre in New York City.

1905 - Sime Silverman published the first issue of "Variety".

1912 - The first postage stamp to depict an airplane was issued was a 20-cent parcel-post stamp.

1916 - Gregory Rasputin, the monk who had wielded powerful influence over the Russian court, was murdered by a group of noblemen.

1940 - French Premier Petain arrested Pierre Laval after learning of a plan for Laval to seize power and set up a new government with German support.

1944 - During World War II, the Battle of the Bulge began in Belgium. It was the final major German counteroffensive in the war.

1950 - U.S. President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight "Communist imperialism."

1951 - NBC-TV debuted "Dragnet" in a special preview on "Chesterfield Sound Off Time". The show began officially on January 3, 1952.

1960 - A United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation collided over New York City, killing 134 people.

1972 - The Miami Dolphins became the first NFL team to go unbeaten and untied in a 14-game regular season. The Dolphins went on to defeat the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII.

1973 - O.J. Simpson broke Jim Brown’s single-season rushing record in the NFL. Brown had rushed for 1,863 yards, while Simpson attained 2,003 yards.

1984 - The play "Diamonds" opened in New York City.

1985 - Reputed organized-crime chief Paul Castellano was shot to death outside a New York City restaurant.

1990 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist priest, was elected president in Haiti's first democratic elections.

1991 - The U.N. General Assembly rescinded its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism by a vote of 111-25.

1993 - The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for negotiations on a comprehensive test ban.

1995 - Many U.S. government functions were again closed as a temporary finance provision expired and the budget dispute between President Clinton and Republicans in Congress continued.

1995 - NATO launched a military operation in support of the Bosnia peace agreement.

1996 - Britain's agriculture minister announced the slaughter of an additional 100,000 cows thought to be at risk of contracting BSE in an effort to persuade the EU to lift its ban on Britain.

1998 - The U.S. and Britain fired hundreds of missiles on Iraq in response to Saddam Hussein's refusal to comply with U.N. weapons inspectors.

1999 - Sigourney Weaver received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1999 - wtf?wtf?wtf?wtf?wtf?wtf?wtf?ial rains and mudslides in Venezuela left thousands of people dead and forced at least 120,000 to leave their homes.

2000 - Researchers announced that information from NASA's Galileo spacecraft indicated that Ganymede appeared to have a liquid saltwater ocean beneath a surface of solid ice. Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, is the solar system's largest moon. The discovery is considered important since water is a key ingredient for life.

2000 - U.S. President-elect George W. Bush selected Colin Powell to be the first African-American secretary of state. Powell was sworn in January 20, 2001.

2001 - In Tora Bora, Afghanistan, tribal fighters announced that they had taken the last al-Quaida positions. More than 200 fighters were killed and 25 captured. They also announced that they had found no sign of Osama bin Laden.

2001 - Cuba received the first commercial food shipment from the United States in nearly 40 years. The shipment was sent to help Cuba after Hurrican Michelle hit Cuba on November 4, 2001.

2001 - A British newspaper, The Observer, reported that a notebook had been found at an al-Quaida training camp in southern Afghanistan. The notebook contained a "blue print" for an bomb attack on London's financial district.

2002 - Canada ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The 1997 treaty was aimed a reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Current Birthdays


Benjamin Bratt turns 45 years old today

72 Morris Dees
Civil rights attorney


71 Joyce Bulifant
Actress


70 Liv Ullmann
Actress


67 Lesley Stahl
Broadcast journalist ("60 Minutes")


66 Don Carcieri
Governor of Rhode Island


65 Steven Bochco
TV producer ("NYPD Blue," "Hill Street Blues")


64 Jim Gibbons
Governor of Nevada


63 Tony Hicks
Rock musician (The Hollies)


62 Benny Andersson
Singer (ABBA)


61 Ben Cross
Actor


57 Bill Bateman
Rock musician (The Blasters)


49 Alison LaPlaca
Actress


47 Sam Robards
Actor


47 Jon Tenney
Actor ("The Closer")


45 Jeff Carson
Country singer, songwriter


37 Michael McCary
R&B singer (Boyz II Men)


26 Chris Scruggs
Country musician


21 Hallee Hirsh
Actress ("JAG")


20 Anna Popplewell
Actress ("The Chronicles of Narnia" films )

Historic Birthdays


Margaret Mead

12/16/1901 - 11/15/1978
American anthropologist

50 Catherine of Aragon
12/16/1485 - 1/7/1536
English queen


41 Jane Austen
12/16/1775 - 7/18/1817
English novelist


58 Francois Boieldieu
12/16/1775 - 10/8/1834
French composer


61 Josephine Shaw Lowell
12/16/1843 - 10/12/1905
American social reformer


51 Hans Buchner
12/16/1850 - 4/5/1902
German bacteriologist


88 George Santayana
12/16/1863 - 9/26/1952
Spanish-American philosopher and poet


81 Sir John Berry Hobbs
12/16/1882 - 12/21/1963
English athlete


73 Sir Noel Coward
12/16/1899 - 3/26/1973
English actor and playwright


96 V.S. Pritchett
12/16/1900 - 3/20/1997
English author


61 James McCracken
12/16/1926 - 4/29/1988
American operatic tenor

 

[Baill Inneraora]

1653 - Oliver Cromwell became lord protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Not Wales? Can a British person help with an explanation?

 

[marquis2]

Not Wales? Can a British person help with an explanation?

Certainly.In 1536 the Act of Union made Wales a part of England so the reference to England included Wales.This Act was repealed in 1993.


Notice that in 1773 some tea was tipped into the sea.THIS IS NOT how to make a good cup of tea. Use BOILING fresh water and NOT seawater.

 

[minidog]

Certainly.In 1536 the Act of Union made Wales a part of England so the reference to England included Wales.This Act was repealed in 1993.


Notice that in 1773 some tea was tipped into the sea.THIS IS NOT how to make a good cup of tea. Use BOILING fresh water and NOT seawater.

:hatsoff:

 

[Baill Inneraora]

Well that makes sense. I would have been pissed off if I was Welsh and all of a sudden my country doesn't even exist anymore!

 

[marquis2]

Well that makes sense. I would have been pissed off if I was Welsh and all of a sudden my country doesn't even exist anymore!

It happens! There is a border town between England and Scotland called Berwick on Tweed. As far as I know it is at war with Russia.
When the Crimean War started the British declaration of war was by"England,Ireland,Scotland and Berwick on Tweed" but the peace settlement was on behalf of "England,Ireland and Scotland"

 

[Wheeler Ronan]

Howard Sterns last day on shitty terresrial radio in 2005..