IT HAPPENED ON DECEMBER 21ST

 

1163 Hurricane hits villages in Holland and Friesland, causing devastating floods

1582 Flanders adopts Gregorian calendar

1620 The Mayflower pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock

1835 HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin aboard sails into the Bay of Islands New Zealand

1864 General Sherman conquers Savannah
1898 Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium
1910 An Explosion in a coal mine in Hulton England kills 344 mine workers
1912 Denmark, Norway and Sweden declare neutrality in the Comende war
1913 The 1st 32 clue crossword puzzle was printed in New York World
1919 J Edgar Hoover deported anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman to Russia
1923 Nepal changes from British protectorate to an independent nation
1925 Eisenstein's movie the battleship Potemkin premieres in Moscow
1933 20^th century Fox signs Shirley Temple aged 5 to a studio contract

1937 Snow White the 1st feature length color and sound cartoon premiered
1941 German submarine U-567 sinks

1946 Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life," premiered

1946 An Earthquake in Southern Japan, kills 1,086
1948 State of Eire formerly called the Irish Free State declared its independence

1951 Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement

1954 Dr Sam Sheppard's wife Marilyn is murdered and the Dr is accused of the crime

1958 Charles De Gaulle wins 7 year term as 1st President of 5th Rep of France

1959 10th largest snowfall in New York City’s history 13.7"
1966 U.S.S.R. launches Luna 13 for soft-landing in Oceanus Procellarum

1968 Apollo 8 (Borman, Lovell & Anders) the 1st manned Moon voyage launched
1971 UN Security Council chooses Kurt Waldheim as 4th secretary General

1975 Madagascar adopts constitution

1976 UN General Assembly passes a resolution declaring 1979  the Year of Child
1978 Police in Des Plaines Illinois arrest John Wayne Gacy, Jr. for murder
1979 Zimbabwe adopts constitution
1988 NY bound Pan Am jumbo jet explodes over Lockerbie Scotland all 258 aboard die

1989 Dan Quayle sends out 30,000 Xmas cards with the word beacon spelled beakon
1991 Soviet Union formally dissolves 11 of 12 republics sign treaty forming Commonwealth of Independent States
1991 95 ticket holders share in the Madrid Spain $1.3 billion lottery

1992 Dutch DC-10 caught fire on landing at Faro Airport Portugal, 56 die

1994 Bomb goes off on #4 train on Fulton Street station New York City