December 19
is the 353rd day of the year (354th in
leap years) in the
Gregorian calendar. There are 12 days remaining.
*
324 -
Licinius abdicates his position as
Roman Emperor.
*
1187 -
Pope Clement III is elected.
*
1777 -
American Revolutionary War:
George Washington's
Continental Army goes into winter quarters at
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
*
1828 -
Nullification Crisis:
Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun pens the
South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the
Tariff of 1828.
*
1835 - The first issue of
The Blade newspaper is published in
Toledo, Ohio.
*
1910 -
Edward Douglass White is sworn in as the 9th
Chief Justice of the United States.
*
1912 - William H. Van Schaick, captain of the
steamship General Slocum which caught fire and killed over 1,000 people, is pardoned by
President Taft after 3-and-a-half-years in
Sing Sing prison .
*
1916 -
World War I:
Battle of Verdun - On the
Western Front, the
French Army successfully holds off the
German Army and drives it back to its starting position.
*
1941 -
Hitler becomes Supreme
Commander-in-Chief of the
German Army*
1961 -
India annexes
Daman and Diu, part of
Portuguese India.
*
1963 -
Zanzibar receives its
independence from the
United Kingdom, to become a
constitutional monarchy under
Sultan Hamoud bin Mohammed.
*
1965 - Prison guard George Hodson is killed during
Ronald Ryan and
Peter Walker's escape from
HM Prison Pentridge in
Coburg, Victoria.
*
1967 -
Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt is
officially presumed dead.
*
1972 -
Project Apollo: The last manned lunar flight,
Apollo 17, crewed by
Eugene Cernan,
Ron Evans and
Harrison Schmitt, returns to
Earth.
*
1974 - The
Altair 8800 microcomputer kit goes on sale.
* 1974 -
Nelson A. Rockefeller is sworn is as the 41st
Vice President of the United States under President
Gerald Ford.
*
1984 - The
Sino-British Joint Declaration, stating that
China would resume the exercise of sovereignty over
Hong Kong and the
United Kingdom would restore Hong Kong to China with effect from
July 1,
1997, is signed in
Beijing by
Deng Xiaoping and
Margaret Thatcher.
*
1988 -
Lawn darts are banned from sale in the
United States by the
Consumer Product Safety Commission.
*
1997 -
Silkair Flight 185 crashes into the
Musi River, near
Palembang in
Indonesia, killing 104.
* 1997 - The film
Titanic is released.
*
1998 -
Lewinsky scandal: The
United States House of Representatives forwards articles I and III of
impeachment against
President Bill Clinton to the
Senate.
*
1999 -
Portugal transferred
sovereignty of
Macau to the
People's Republic of China.
*
2000 - The Leninist Guerrilla Units wing of the
Communist Labour Party of Turkey/Leninist attack a
Nationalist Movement Party office in
Istanbul, killing one person and injuring three.
*
2001 - A record high
barometric pressure of 1085.6
hPa (32.06
inHg) is recorded at
Tosontsengel, Hövsgöl in
Mongolia.
* 2001 -
Argentine economic crisis:
December 2001 riots - Riots erupt in
Buenos Aires after
Domingo Cavallo's
corralito measures restrict the withdrawal of cash from bank deposits. The film
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is released.
*
1554 -
Philip William, Prince of Orange (d.
1618)
*
1683 - King
Philip V of Spain (d.
1746)
*
1699 -
William Bowyer, English printer (d.
1777)
*
1714 -
John Winthrop, American astronomer (d.
1779)
*
1778 -
Marie Thérèse Charlotte, eldest child of
Marie Antoinette and
Louis XVI of France (d.
1851)
*
1813 -
Thomas Andrews, Irish chemist (d.
1885)
*
1852 -
Albert Abraham Michelson, Prussian-born American physicist and
Nobel Prize laureate (d.
1931)
*
1865 -
Minnie Maddern Fiske, American actress (d.
1932)
*
1885 -
Joe "King" Oliver, American jazz musician (d.
1938)
*
1888 -
Fritz Reiner, Austro-Hungarian-born American conductor (d.
1963)
*
1894 -
Ford Frick, American baseball commissioner (d.
1978)
*
1901 -
Rudolf Hell, German inventor (d.
2002)
*
1902 - Sir
Ralph Richardson, British actor (d.
1983)
*
1903 -
George Davis Snell, American geneticist and
Nobel Prize laureate (d.
1996)
*
1906 -
Leonid Brezhnev, Russian-born leader of the Soviet Union (d.
1982)
*
1907 -
Jimmy McLarnin, Northern Irish-born boxer and World
Welterweight Champion (d.
2004)
*
1910 -
Jean Genet, French writer (d.
1986)
*
1915 -
Édith Piaf, French singer and actress (d.
1963)
*
1918 -
Professor Longhair (Henry Roeland Byrd), American blues musician (d.
1980)
*
1920 -
David Susskind, American TV talk show host (d.
1987)
*
1923 -
Gordon Jackson, British actor (d.
1990)
*
1925 -
Robert B. Sherman, American songwriter
* 1925 -
Tankred Dorst, German dramatist
*
1927 -
James Booth (David Geeves), British actor and screenwriter (d.
2005)
*
1929 -
Bob Brookmeyer, American jazz musician
*
1933 -
Cicely Tyson, American actress
*
1934 -
Al Kaline, baseball player
* 1934 -
Rudi Carrell, Dutch singer
*
1935 -
Barbara Bostock, American actress
* 1935 -
Bobby Timmons, American jazz pianist (d.
1974)
*
1940 -
Phil Ochs, American folk singer and songwriter (d.
1976)
*
1941 -
Maurice White, American singer and songwriter (
Earth, Wind & Fire)
*
1943 -
Ross M. Lence, American political scientist (d.
2006)
*
1944 -
Richard Leakey, British anthropologist
* 1944 -
Mitchell Feigenbaum, American mathematical physicist
* 1944 -
Alvin Lee (Graham Barnes), British singer and guitarist (
Ten Years After)
* 1944 -
Zal Yanovsky, Canadian guitarist and singer (
The Lovin' Spoonful)
*
1946 -
Stan Smith, American tennis player
* 1946 -
Robert Urich, American actor (d.
2002)
*
1949 -
Sebastian, Danish musician
*
1956 -
Tom Lawless, baseball player
*
1957 -
Kevin McHale, American profesional basketball player
* 1957 -
John Gulager, American film director
*
1958 -
Limahl (Christopher Hamill), British singer (
Kajagoogoo)
*
1960 -
Mike Lookinland, American actor
*
1961 -
Eric Allin Cornell, American physicist and
Nobel Prize laureate
* 1961 -
Matthew Waterhouse, British actor
* 1961 -
Reggie White, American football player (d.
2004)
*
1964 -
Arvydas Sabonis, Soviet-born Lithuanian basketball player and Olympic gold medalist
*
1965 -
Chito Martinez, Belizean baseball player
*
1966 -
Eric Weinrich, American ice hockey player
*
1969 -
Kristy Swanson, American actress
*
1969 -
Richard Hammond,
Top Gear and
Brainiac: Science Abuse Presenter
*
1970 -
Tyson Beckford, American male supermodel
*
1971 -
Tiffany Towers, Canadian adult film actress
*
1972 -
Alyssa Milano, American actress
* 1972 -
Warren Sapp, American football player
*
1973 -
Zulfiya Zabirova, Russian cyclist
*
1974 -
Jake Plummer, American football player
* 1974 -
Ricky Ponting,
Australian test cricketer
*
1975 -
Olivier Tebily,
Ivorian international footballer
*
1979 -
Rebecca Nasir, British actress and TV presenter
*
1980 -
Jake Gyllenhaal, American actor
* 1980 -
Marla Sokoloff, American actress
*
1983 -
Kahlen Rondot, American model
*
1988 -
Paulina Gretzky, American actress; daughter of
Wayne Gretzky*
401 -
Pope Anastasius I*
1075 -
Edith of Wessex, wife of
Edward the Confessor of England
*
1327 -
Agnes of France, Duchess of Burgundy
*
1370 -
Pope Urban V (b.
1310)
*
1737 -
James Sobieski, Crown Prince of Poland (b.
1667)
*
1741 -
Vitus Bering, Danish-born explorer (b.
1681)
*
1745 -
Jean-Baptiste van Loo, French painter (b.
1684)
*
1749 -
Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (b.
1672)
*
1751 -
Louise of Great Britain, wife of
Frederick V of Denmark (b.
1724)
*
1807 -
Friedrich Melchior, baron von Grimm, German writer (b.
1723)
*
1819 - Sir
Thomas Fremantle, British naval officer and politician (b.
1765)
*
1848 -
Emily Brontë, British author (b.
1818)
*
1915 -
Alois Alzheimer, German neuroscientist (b.
1864)
*
1932 -
Yoon Bong-Gil, Protester against Japanese occupation of Korea (executed) (b.
1908)
*
1939 -
Hans Langsdorff, German naval officer (b.
1894)
*
1944 - Khedive
Abbas II of Egypt, (b.
1874)
* 1944 -
Rudolph Karstadt, German entrepreneur (b.
1856)
*
1946 -
Paul Langevin, French physicist (b.
1872)
*
1953 -
Robert Millikan, American physicist and
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1868)
*
1967 -
Harold Holt, seventeenth
Prime Minister of Australia (b.
1908)
*
1968 -
Norman Thomas, American socialist (b.
1884)
*
1989 -
Stella Gibbons, British author (b.
1902)
*
1996 -
Marcello Mastroianni, Italian actor (b.
1924)
*
1999 -
Desmond Llewelyn, British actor (b.
1914)
*
2003 -
Peter Carter-Ruck, British lawyer (b.
1914)
* 2003 -
Hope Lange, American actress (b.
1931)
*
2004 -
Herbert C. Brown, British-born American chemist and
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1912)
* 2004 -
Renata Tebaldi, Italian soprano (b.
1922)
*
2005 -
Vincent Gigante, American mafioso (b.
1927)
*
Roman festivals -
Opalia* Also see
December 19 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)*
2003 - the events of the fictional docu-drama
The Day Britain Stopped take place.
*
BBC: On This DayDecember 18 -
December 20 -
November 19 -
January 19 --
listing of all days
