On December 16th...

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1431 King Henry VI of England was crowned King of France.

1485 Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of King Henry VIII, was born.

1631 Italy's Mount Vesuvious erupted, destroying 6 villages and killing about 4,000 persons.

1653 Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.

1689 The English Parliament passed a Bill of Rights.

1707 Mount Fuji, in Japan, erupted.

1770 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born.

1773 Boston, Massachusetts, patriots staged the Boston Tea Party.

1775 Author Jane Austen was born.

1777 Virginia became the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

1790 King Leopold of Belgium was born.

1796 Anthony Wayne, American Revolutionary War general, died.

1811 An earthquake struck New Madrid, Missouri.

1826 Benjamin W. Edwards declared himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.

1835 Fire destroyed over 600 buildings in New York, New York.

1859 Wilhelm Karl Grimm, collector and publisher of fairy tales, died.

1862 The Kingdom of Nepal accepted its constitution.

1863 Philosopher George Santayana was born.

1880 The Transvaal region declared itself the Republic of South Africa.

1888 King Alexander of Yugoslavia was born.

1890 The Negro Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in Jackson, Tennessee.

1897 The first submarine with an internal combustion engine was demonstrated.

1899 Playwright Noel Coward was born.

1901 Anthropologist Margaret Mead was born.

1903 The Majestic Theater in New York City, New York, became the first in the United States to employ women ushers.

1905 The first issue of Variety was published.

1907 President Theodore Roosevelt sent the U. S. Battle Fleet on a round-the-world "show of power" cruise.

1908 The first credit union in the United States was formed in Manchester, New Hampshire.

1915 Albert Einstein published his "General Theory of Relativity."

1917 Author Arthur C. Clarke was born.

1921 Composer Camille Saint-Saëns died.

1925 Alpha Phi Omega national service fraternity was founded at Lafayette College.

1927 Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe escaped from the prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.

1937 Actress Joyce Bulifant was born.

1938 Actress Liv Ullman was born.

1940 Judge Anthony J. Scirica was born.
1940 Anatomist/anthropologist Eugene DuBois died.

1941 Television journalist Lesley Stahl was born.

1943 Television producer Steven Bochco was born.

1944 The Germans began the Battle of the Bulge.

1945 Actress Patti Deutsch was born.

1946 Actor Robert Uhrich was born.

1949 Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (SAAB) was founded in Sweden.
1949 ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons was born.

1951 "Dragnet" premiered on NBC-TV.
1951 Advice columnist Dorothy Dix (pseudonym of Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer) died.

1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower held the first ever White House press conference.

1958 A fire gutted a department store crowded with shoppers in Bogotá, Colombia, killing 84 persons and injuring another 50.
1958 The guided missile facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, fired its first missile, a Thor ICBM, about 1,500 miles into the South Pacific.

1959 The Japanese Supreme Court ruled that the stationing of U. S. armed forces in Japan and the maintenance of Japanese military forces was constitutional.
1959 Prohibition-Era Chicago gang leader Roger Touhy was shot to death in Chicago, Illinois.

1960 Two airliners collided over New York, New York, killing all 128 persons aboard the two planes and 6 persons on the ground in Brooklyn.

1962 The film Lawrence of Arabia was released.
1962 Football player William "The Refrigerator" Perry was born.

1963 Actor Benjamin Bratt was born.

1965 Tons of wet concrete collapsed at a railway tunnel under construction in Montreal, Canada, killing 7 workmen.
1965 Novelist W. Somerset Maugham died.

1969 The British House of Commons voted 343-185 to abolish the death penalty.

1970 The film Love Story was released.

1971 Bangladesh became independent of West Pakistan.
1971 Don McLean released "American Pie."

1973 O. J. Simpson became the first NFL player to rush for 2,000 yards in a season.

1975 "One Day at a Time" premiered on CBS-TV.

1980 Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, died.

1983 A spokesperson for The Who announced that the group was disbanding.

1989 Actor Lee Van Cleef died.

1991 The Republic of Kazakhstan became independent of the Soviet Union.
1991 The Florida Marlins signed their first player, 16-year-old Clemente Nunez.

1997 Singer Nicolette Larson died.

2007 Musician Dan Fogelberg died.

2009 Businessman Roy E. Disney died.

2014 Militants attacked an army public school in Pakistan and killed 145 persons.

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This page was last updated on December 16, 2018.