December 19
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
December 19 is the 354th day of the year (355th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 11 days remaining after December 19 until the end of the year.
[change] Births
- 1683 – King Philip V of Spain (d. 1746)
- 1699 – William Bowyer, printer (d. 1777)
- 1783 – William Parry, English admiral and polar explorer (d. 1855)
- 1813 – Thomas Andrews, chemist (d. 1885)
- 1819 – James Spriggs Payne, 4th and 8th President of Liberia (d. 1882)
- 1820 – Mary Ashton Livermore, women's rights activist (d. 1905)
- 1852 – Albert Abraham Michelson, Prussian-born physicist (d. 1931)
- 1861 – Italo Svevo, Italian writer (d. 1928)
- 1865 – Minnie Maddern Fiske, stage actress (d. 1932)
- 1875 – Mileva Maric, Serbian-Swiss scientist, was married to Albert Einstein (d. 1948)
- 1885 – Joe "King" Oliver, jazz musician (d. 1938)
- 1888 – Fritz Reiner, Hungarian conductor (d. 1963)
- 1891 – Edward Raczynski, Polish diplomat and politician (d. 1993)
- 1894 – Ford Frick, American commissioner of baseball (d. 1978)
- 1900 – Géza von Cziffra, film director (d. 1989)
- 1901 – Rudolf Hell, German inventor (d. 2002)
- 1903 – George Davis Snell, American geneticist (d. 1996)
- 1906 – Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet politician (d. 1982)
- 1910 – Jean Genet, French writer (d. 1986)
- 1915 – Édith Piaf, French singer and actress (d. 1963)
- 1916 – Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, German publicist (d. 2010)
- 1918 – Professor Longhair, musician (d. 1980)
- 1920 – David Susskind, movie, stage, and television producer (d. 1987)
- 1923 – Gordon Jackson, film, stage and television actor (d. 1990)
- 1925 – Tankred Dorst, German dramatist
- 1929 – Bob Brookmeyer, American musician (d. 2011)
- 1933 – Cicely Tyson, American actress
- 1934 – Rudi Carrell, Dutch entertainer (d. 2006)
- 1934 – Al Kaline, Baseball Hall of Famer
- 1934 – Pratibha Patil, President of India
- 1935 – Bobby Timmons, jazz pianist (d. 1974)
- 1938 – Karel Svoboda, Czech composer (d. 2007)
- 1940 – Phil Ochs, singer, songwriter (d. 1976)
- 1941 – Maurice White, American musician
- 1941 – Lee Myung-bak, President of South Korea
- 1942 – Cornell Dupree, American musician (d. 2011)
- 1944 – Richard Leakey, Kenyan anthropologist
- 1944 – Alvin Lee, British musician
- 1946 – Stan Smith, tennis player
- 1946 – Robert Urich, American actor (d. 2002)
- 1949 – Jupp Kapellmann, German footballer
- 1949 – Nasser Hejazi, Iranian footballer (d. 2011)
- 1949 – Claudia Kolb, swimmer
- 1956 – Jens Fink-Jensen, Danish writer
- 1957 – Kevin McHale, American basketball player
- 1960 – Mike Lookinland, actor
- 1961 – Reggie White, American football player (d. 2004)
- 1964 – Arvydas Sabonis, Lithuanian basketball player
- 1965 – Chito Martinez, Belizean baseball player
- 1967 – Criss Angel, American illusionist
- 1969 – Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, Azerbaijani composer, pianist and singer
- 1969 – Kristy Swanson, American actress
- 1969 – Richard Hammond, British television presenter
- 1971 – Tiffany Towers, actress
- 1972 – Alyssa Milano, actress
- 1972 – Warren Sapp, American football player
- 1974 – Jake Plummer, American football player
- 1974 – Ricky Ponting, Australian cricketer
- 1979 – Gareth Williams, Welsh rugby player
- 1980 – Jake Gyllenhaal, American actor
- 1980 – Marla Sokoloff, actress
- 1983 – Matt Stajan, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1985 – Gary Cahill, English footballer
- 1985 – Lady Sovereign, English musician
- 1986 – Ryan Babel, Dutch footballer
- 1987 – Karim Benzema, French footballer
- 1988 – Alexis Sanchez, Chilean footballer
- 1991 – Declan Galbraith, English singer
[change] Deaths
- 401 – Pope Anastasius I
- 1075 – Edith of Wessex, queen 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, queen of Frederick V of Denmark (b. 1724)
- 1807 – Friedrich Melchior, baron von Grimm, German writer (b. 1723)
- 1819 – Sir Thomas Fremantle, English naval officer and politician (b. 1765)
- 1848 – Emily Brontë, English author (b. 1818)
- 1851 – J. M. W. Turner, English painter (b. 1775)
- 1915 – Alois Alzheimer, German neuroscientist (b. 1864)
- 1932 – Yoon Bong-Gil, Korean resister against Japanese occupation (executed) (b. 1908)
- 1939 – Hans Langsdorff, German naval officer (b. 1894)
- 1953 – Robert Millikan, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1868)
- 1967 – Harold Holt, seventeenth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)
- 1968 – Norman Thomas, American socialist (b. 1884)
- 1977 – Nellie Tayloe Ross, Governor of Wyoming (b. 1876)
- 1989 – Stella Gibbons, English author (b. 1902)
- 1996 – Marcello Mastroianni, Italian actor (b. 1924)
- 1999 – Desmond Llewelyn, Welsh actor (b. 1914)
- 2003 – Peter Carter-Ruck, British lawyer (b. 1914)
- 2003 – Hope Lange, American actress (b. 1941)
- 2004 – Herbert C. Brown, English-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1912)
- 2004 – Renata Tebaldi, Italian soprano (b. 1922)
- 2009 – Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Iranian cleric (b. 1922)
- 2009 – Kim Peek, American megasavant, inspiration for the film Rain Man (b. 1951)
[change] Events
- 324 – Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor.
- 1187 – Pope Clement III elected
- 1732 – Benjamin Franklin publishes Poor Richard's Almanack
- 1777 – George Washington's army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
- 1828 – John C. Calhoun pens South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828.
- 1835 – Toledo Blade newspaper begins publishing.
- 1842 – United States recognizes the independence of Hawaii
- 1912 – William H. Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum which killed over 1,000 people was pardoned by President Taft after 3 1/2 years in Sing Sing prison .
- 1916 – The Battle of Verdun ended.
- 1928 – First autogiro flight in the United States
- 1944 – The Soviet Union completely occupies Estonia (Ruhnu island).
- 1945 – Austria becomes a republic for the second time, the first having been founded in 1918 and interrupted by the Austro-fascist dictatorship from 1934 onwards and the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938.
- 1946 – Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi
- 1961 – The Indian Army invades the Portuguese province of Estado da India Portuguesa (Portuguese State of India) which will become part of India.
- 1962 – Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia and Nyasaland
- 1963 – Zanzibar received its independence from the United Kingdom to become a constitutional monarchy under the sultan.
- 1965 – Prisoners Ronald Ryan and Peter Walker escape from HM Prison Pentridge, Melbourne. During the escape a guard is killed. Ryan would hang for his death, in 1967.
- 1967 – Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt is declared dead.
- 1972 – Apollo 17, the last manned lunar flight, returns to Earth.
- 1974 – The Altair 8800, the first personal computer, goes on sale
- 1978 – John Wayne Gacy is arrested for the killings of 33 boys and young men
- 1980 – Anguilla is made a dependency of the United Kingdom separate from Saint Kitts and Nevis
- 1984 – The United Kingdom and People's Republic of China sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which handed Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
- 1997 – A Silkair Boeing 737-300 crashes into the Musi River, in Sumatra, Indonesia killing 104
- 1997 – Titanic (the highest-grossing movie ever as of 2005) opens in U.S. theaters.
- 1998 – The U.S. House of Representatives passes articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.
- 2000 – The Leninist Guerrilla Units attack a party office of the far-right MHP in Istanbul, Turkey. One MHP member is killed and several wounded.
- 2001 – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the first film in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, opens in theaters.
- 2001 – A new world-record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is set at Tosontsengel, Hövsgöl Aymag, Mongolia.
- 2001 – The Argentine economic crisis burst into street riots after the announcement by the economy minister of the measures of holding back the bank deposits.
- 2005 – Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon suffers a minor stroke.
- 2007 – Marcus Stephen becomes President of Nauru.
- 2011 – North Korean state television announces that Kim Jong-il died two days earlier. His son Kim Jong-un has been named as his successor, as North Korea's leader.
