It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
1012 - Aelfheah was murdered by Danes who had been ravaging the south of England. Aelfhear became the 29th Archbishop of Canterbury in 1005.
1539 - Emperor Charles V reached a truce with German Protestants at Frankfurt, Germany.
1587 - English admiral Sir Francis Drake entered Cadiz harbor and sank the Spanish fleet.
1689 - Residents of Boston ousted their governor, Edmond Andros.
1713 - Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI issued the Pragmatic Sanction, which gave women the rights of succession to Hapsburg possessions.
1764 - The English Parliament banned the American colonies from printing paper money.
1770 - Captain James Cook discovered New South Wales, Australia. Cook originally named the land Point Hicks.
1775 - The American Revolution began as fighting broke out at Lexington, MA.
1782 - The Netherlands recognized the new United States.
1794 - Tadeusz Kosciuszko forced the Russians out of Warsaw.
1802 - The Spanish reopened the New Orleans port to American merchants.
1839 - The Kingdom of Belgium was recognized by all the states of Europe when the Treaty of London was signed.
1852 - The California Historical Society was founded.
1861 - Thaddeus S. C. Lowe sailed 900 miles in nine hours in a hot air balloon from Cincinnati, OH, to Unionville, SC.
1861 - The Baltimore riots resulted in four Union soldiers and nine civilians killed.
1861 - U.S. President Lincoln ordered a blockade of Confederate ports.
1892 - The Duryea gasoline buggy was introduced in the U.S. by Charles and Frank Duryea.
1897 - The first annual Boston Marathon was held. It was the first of its type in the U.S.
1927 - In China, Hankow communists declared war on Chaing Kai-shek.
1933 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a proclamation that removed the U.S. from the gold standard.
1938 - General Francisco Franco declared victory in the Spanish Civil War.
1939 - Connecticut approved the Bill of Rights for the U.S. Constitution after 148 years.
1943 - The Warsaw Ghetto uprising against Nazi rule began. The Jews were able to fight off the Germans for 28 days.
1951 - General Douglas MacArthur gave his "Old Soldiers" speech before the U.S. Congress. In the address General MacArthur said that "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."
1951 - Shigeki Tanaka won the Boston Marathon. Tanaka had survived the atomic blast at Hiroshima, Japan during World War II.
1956 - Actress Grace Kelly became Princess Grace of Monaco when she married Prince Rainier III of Monaco. The civil ceremony took place on April 18.
1958 - The San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers played the first major league baseball game on the West Coast.
1960 - Baseball uniforms began displaying player's names on their backs.
1967 - Surveyor 3 landed on the moon and began sending photos back to the U.S.
1971 - Russia launched the Salyut into orbit around Earth. It was the first space station.
1975 - India launched its first satellite with aid from the USSR.
1977 - Alex Haley received a special Pulitzer Prize for his book "Roots."
1981 - In Davao, Philippines, thirteen people were killed when members of the New People's Army threw hand grenades into the Roman Catholic cathedral during Easter services.
1982 - NASA named Sally Ride to be first woman astronaut.
1982 - NASA named Guion S. Bluford Jr. as the first African-American astronaut.
1982 - The U.S. announced a ban on U.S. tourist and business traval to Cuba. The U.S. charged the Cuban government with subversion in Central America.
1987 - In Phoenix, AZ, skydiver Gregory Robertson went into a 200-mph free-fall to save an unconscious colleague 3,500 feet from the ground.
1987 - The last California condor known to be in the wild was captured and placed in a breeding program at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.
1989 - A gun turret exploded aboard the USS Iowa. 47 sailors were killed.
1989 - A giant asteroid passed within 500,000 miles of Earth.
1989 - In El Salvador, Attorney General Alvadora was killed by a car bomb.
1993 - The Branch-Davidian’s compound in Waco, TX, burned to the ground. It was the end of a 51-day standoff between the cult and U.S. federal agents. 86 people were killed including 17 children. Nine of the Branch Davidians escaped the fire.
1994 - A Los Angeles jury awarded $3.8 million to Rodney King for violation of his civil rights.
1995 - The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK, was destroyed by a bomb. It was the worst bombing on U.S. territory. 168 people were killed including 19 children, and 500 were injured. Timothy McVeigh was found guilty of the bombing on June 2, 1997.
1998 - Wang Dan, a leader of 1989 Tienanmen Square pro democracy protests, was freed by the Chinese government.
2000 - The Oklahoma City National Memorial was dedicated on the fifth anniversary of the bombing in Oklahoma that killed 168 people.
2000 - Letters written by Greta Garbo were put on exhibit. The letters were made public ten years after Garbo's death.
2000 - In the Philippines, Air Philippines GAP 541 crashed while preparing to land. 131 people were killed.
2002 - The USS Cole was relaunched. In Yemen, 17 sailors were killed when the ship was attacked by terrorists on October 12, 2000. The attack was blamed on Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
1012 – Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 954)
1054 – Pope Leo IX (b. 1002)
1321 – Gerasimus I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (b. unknown)
1390 – King Robert II of Scotland (b. 1316)
1560 – Philipp Melanchthon, German humanist and reformer (b. 1497)
1567 – Michael Stifel, German mathematician (b. 1487)
1578 – Uesugi Kenshin, Japanese samurai and warlord (b. 1530)
1588 – Paolo Veronese, Italian painter (b. 1528)
1608 – Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, English statesman and poet (b. 1536)
1618 – Thomas Bastard, clergyman and epigrammatist
1627 – John Beaumont, English poet (b. 1583)
1629 – Sigismondo d'India, Italian composer
1684 – Roger Williams, English theologian and colonist (b. 1603)
1686 – Antonio de Solís y Ribadeneyra, Spanish writer (b. 1610)
1689 – Queen Christina of Sweden (b. 1626)
1733 – Elizabeth Villiers, mistress of William III of England (b. 1655)
1739 – Nicholas Saunderson, English mathematician (b. 1682)
1751 – Peter Lacy, Irish-born Russian Field marshal (b. 1678)
1768 – Canaletto, Italian artist (b. 1697)
1791 – Richard Price, Welsh philosopher (b. 1723)
1813 – Benjamin Rush, physician, activist (b. 1745)
1824 – George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, English poet (b. 1788)
1831 – Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger, German mathematician (b. 1765)
1833 – James Gambier, 1st Baron Gambier, Royal Navy admiral of the fleet (b. 1756)
1840 – Jean-Jacques Lartigue, Roman Catholic bishop of Montreal (b. 1777)
1854 – Robert Jameson, Scottish naturalist (b. 1774)
1881 – Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1804)
1882 – Charles Darwin, English biologist (b. 1809)
1892 – T. Pelham Dale SSC, Anglican clergyman prosecuted for Ritualist practices in the 1870s (b. 1821)
1901 – Alfred Horatio Belo, American newswriter and businessman (b. 1839)
1906 – Pierre Curie, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1859)
1906 – Spencer Gore, British tennis player and cricketer (b. 1850)
1914 – Charles Sanders Peirce, American philosopher and mathematician (b. 1839)
1916 – Ephraim Shay, American inventor (b. 1839)
1926 – Alexander Alexandrovich Chuprov, Russian statistician (b. 1874)
1930 – Georges-Casimir Dessaulles, Canadian senator (b. 1827)
1937 – William Martin Conway, British art critic and mountaineer (b. 1856)
1941 – Johanna Müller-Hermann, Austrian composer and pedagogue (b. 1878)
1949 – Ulrich Salchow, Swedish figure skater (b. 1877)
1950 – Ernst Robert Curtius, Alsatian philologist (b. 1886)
1966 – Javier Solis, Mexican singer (b. 1931)
1967 – Konrad Adenauer, German statesman (b. 1876)
1975 – Percy Lavon Julian, American scientist (b.1899)
1988 – Kwon Ki-ok, first Korean female pilot (b. 1901)
1989 – Daphne du Maurier, British novelist (b. 1907)
1991 – Stanley Hawes, British-born Australian film producer, director and administrator (b. 1905)
1992 – Benny Hill, English comic actor (b. 1924)
1993 – David Koresh, leader of Branch Davidians (b. 1959)
1993 – George S. Mickelson, American politician (b. 1941)
1993 – Timos Perlegas, Greek actor (b. 1938)
1997 – El Duce, American singer and drummer (The Mentors) (b. 1958)
1998 – Octavio Paz, Mexican diplomat and writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1914)
1999 – Hermine Braunsteiner, Nazi war criminal (b. 1919)
1999 – David Sanes, US Navy employee (b. 1954)
2000 – Louis Applebaum, Canadian conductor and composer (b. 1918)
2004 – Norris McWhirter, Scottish co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records (b. 1925)
2004 – John Maynard Smith, English biologist (b. 1920)
2005 – George Pan Cosmatos, Greek film director (b. 1941)
2005 – Ruth Hussey, American actress (b. 1911)
2005 – Clement Meadmore, Australian sculptor (b. 1929)
2005 – Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Danish jazz bassist (b. 1946)
2006 – Scott Crossfield, American pilot, first man to fly at Mach 2 (b. 1921)
2006 – Zola Levitt, Messianic Jewish preacher (b. 1938)
2007 – Jean-Pierre Cassel, French actor (b. 1932)
2007 – Helen Walton, wife of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton (b. 1919)
2008 – John Marzano, American baseball player (b. 1963)
2008 – Germaine Tillion, French anthropologist, member of French Resistance (b. 1907)
2008 – Alfonso López Trujillo, Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church (b. 1935)
2009 – J.G. Ballard, British novelist (b. 1930)
2010 – Keith "Guru" Elam, American rapper (b. 1966)
2010 – Edwin Valero, Venezuelan boxer (b. 1981)
2010 – Carl Williams, Australian criminal (b. 1970)
2010 – Burkhard Ziese, German football manager (b. 1944)
1521 - Martin Luther confronted the emperor Charles V in the Diet of Worms and refused to retract his views that led to his excommunication.
1676 - Sudbury, Massachusetts, was attacked by Indians.
1775 - American revolutionaries Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott rode though the towns of Massachusetts giving the warning that "the Regulars are coming out." Later, the phrase "the British are coming" was attributed to Revere.
1791 - National Guardsmen prevented Louis XVI and his family from leaving Paris.
1818 - A regiment of Indians and blacks were defeated at the Battle of Suwann, in Florida, ending the first Seminole War.
1834 - William Lamb became prime minister of England.
1838 - The Wilkes' expedition to the South Pole set sail.
1846 - The telegraph ticker was patented by R.E. House
1847 - U.S. troops defeated almost 17,000 Mexican soldiers commanded by Santa Anna at Cerro Gordo. (Mexican-American War)
1853 - The first train in Asia began running from Bombay to Tanna.
1861 - Colonel Robert E. Lee turned down an offer to command the Union armies during the U.S. Civil War.
1877 - Charles Cros wrote a paper that described the process of recording and reproducing sound. In France, Cros is regarded as the inventor of the phonograph. In the U.S., Thomas Edison gets the credit.
1895 - New York State passed an act that established free public baths.
1906 - San Francisco, CA, was hit with an earthquake. The orginal death toll was cited at about 700. Later information indicated that the death toll may have been 3 to 4 times the original estimate.
1910 - Walter R. Brookins made the first airplane flight at night.
1923 - Yankee Stadium opened in the Bronx, NY. The Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox 4-1. John Phillip Sousa's band played the National Anthem.
1924 - Simon and Schuster, Inc. published the first "Crossword Puzzle Book."
1934 - The first Laundromat opened in Fort Worth, TX.
1937 - Leon Trotsky called for the overthrow of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
1938 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt threw out the first ball preceding the season opener between the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics.
1942 - James H. Doolittle and his squadron, from the USS Hornet, raided Tokyo and other Japanese cities.
1942 - The Vichy government capitulated to Adolf Hitler and invited Pierre Laval to form a new government in France.
1943 - Traveling in a bomber, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, was shot down by American P-38 fighters.
1945 - American war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed by Japanese gunfire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima, off Okinawa. He was 44 years old.
1946 - The League of Nations was dissolved.
1949 - The Republic of Ireland was established.
1950 - The first transatlantic jet passenger trip was completed.
1954 - Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power in Egypt.
1955 - Albert Einstein died.
1956 - Actress Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco were married. The religious ceremony took place April 19.
1960 - The Mutual Broadcasting System was sold to the 3M Company of Minnesota for $1.25 million.
1978 - The U.S. Senate approved the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama on December 31, 1999.
1979 - The TV show "Real People" premiered.
1980 - Rhodesia became in independent nation of Zimbabwe.
1983 - The U.S. Embassy in Beirut was blown up by a suicide car-bomber. 63 people were killed including 17 Americans.
1984 - Daredevils Mike MacCarthy and Amanda Tucker made a sky dive from the Eiffel Tower. The jump ended safely.
1984 - In London, demonstrators outside the Libyan Embassy were fired upon from someone inside. Eleven people were injured and an English Police woman was killed.
1985 - Ted Turner filed for a hostile takeover of CBS.
1985 - Tulane University abolished its 72-year-old basketball program. The reason was charges of fixed games, drug abuse, and payments to players.
1989 - Thousands of Chinese students demanding democracy tried to storm Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.
1999 - Wayne Gretzky (New York Rangers) played his final game in the NHL. He retired as the NHL's all-time leading scorer and holder of 61 individual records.
2000 - The Nasdaq had the biggest one-day point gain in its history.
2000 - Joan Lunden and Jeff Konigsberg were married.
2002 - Actor Robert Blake and his bodyguard were arrested in connection with the shooting death of Blake's wife about a year before.
2002 - The Amtrack Auto Train derailed in a remote area of north Florida. Four people were killed and 133 were injured.
2002 - The city legislature of Berlin decided to make Marlene Dietrich an honorary citizen. Dietrich had gone to the United States in 1930. She refused to return to Germany after Adolf Hitler came to power
1139 - The Second Lateran Council opened in Rome.
1534 - Jacques Cartier, a French explorer, set sail from St. Malo to explore the North American coastline.
1653 - In England, Oliver Cromwell expelled the Long Parliament for trying to pass the Perpetuation Bill that would have kept Parliament in the hands of only a few members.
1657 - English Admiral Robert Blake fought his last battle when he destroyed the Spanish fleet in Santa Cruz Bay.
1689 - The siege of Londonderry began. Supporters of James II attacked the city.
1769 - Ottawa Chief Pontiac was murdered by an Illinois Indian in Cahokia.
1775 - American troops began the siege of British-held Boston.
1792 - France declared war on Austria, Prussia, and Sardinia. It was the start of the French Revolutionary wars.
1809 - Napoleon defeated Austria at Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria.
1832 - Hot Springs National Park was established by an act of the U.S. Congress. It was the first national park in the U.S.
1836 - The U.S. territory of Wisconsin was created by the U.S. Congress.
1841 - In Philadelphia, PA, Edgar Allen Poe's first detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," was published in Graham's Magazine.
1861 - Robert E. Lee resigned from U.S. Army.
1865 - Safety matches were first advertised.
1879 - First mobile home (horse drawn) was used in a journey from London to Cyprus.
1902 - Scientists Marie and Pierre Curie isolated the radioactive element radium.
1912 - Fenway Park opened as the home of the Boston Red Sox.
1916 - Sir Roger Casement landed in Ireland to incite rebellion against the British. Casement, a British diplomat, was captured within hours and was hanged for high treason on August 3.
1916 - Chicago's Wrigley Field held its first Cubs game with the first National League game at the ballpark. The Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds 7-6 in 11 innings.
1919 - The Polish Army captured Vilno, Lithuania from the Soviets.
1934 - The movie "Stand Up And Cheer" opened. It was Shirley Temple's debut.
1940 - The First electron microscope was demonstrated by RCA.
1942 - Pierre Laval, the premier of Vichy France, in a radio broadcast, establishes a policy of "true reconciliation with Germany."
1945 - Soviet troops began their attack on Berlin.
1945 - During World War II, Allied forces took control of the German cities of Nuremberg and Stuttgart.
1951 - General MacArthur addressed the joint session of Congress after being relieved by U.S. President Truman.
1953 - Operation Little Switch began in Korea. It was the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners of war. Thirty Americans were freed.
1953 - The Boston marathon was won by Keizo Yamada with a record time of 2:18:51.
1959 - "Desilu Playhouse" on CBS-TV presented a two-part show titled "The Untouchables."
1961 - FM stereo broadcasting was approved by the FCC.
1962 - The New Orleans Citizens' Council offered a free one-way ride for blacks to move to northern states.
1967 - U.S. planes bombed Haiphong for first time during the Vietnam War.
1971 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.
1972 - The manned lunar module from Apollo 16 landed on the moon.
1977 - Woody Allen's film "Annie Hall" premiered.
1978 - The Korean Airliner Flight 902 was shot down while in Russian airspace. Two passengers were killed when the plane landed on a frozen lake.
1981 - A spokesman for the U.S. Nave announced that the U.S. was accepting full responsibility for the sinking of the Nissho Maru on April 9.
1984 - In Washington, terrorists bombed an officers club at a Navy yard.
1984 - Britain announced that its administration of Hong Kong would cease in 1997.
1985 - In Madrid, Santiago Carillo was purged from the Communist Party. Carillo was a founder of Eurocommunism.
1987 - In Argentina, President Raul Alfonsin quelled a military revolt.
1988 - The U.S. Air Forces' Stealth (B-2 bomber) was officially unveiled.
1989 - Scientist announced the successful testing of high-definition TV.
1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev became the first Soviet head of state to visit South Korea.
1992 - The worlds largest fair, Expo '92, opened in Seville, Spain.
1998 - Kenyan runner Moses Tanui, 32, won the Boston Marathon for the second time. He also registered the third fast time with 2 hours 7 minutes and 34 seconds.
1999 - 13 people were killed at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, when two teenagers opened fire on them with shotguns and pipebombs. The two gunmen then killed themselves.
1999 - Jane Seymour received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
December 21
Today's: Famous Birthdays - Music history
1620 - The "Mayflower", and its passengers, pilgrims from England, landed at Plymouth Rock, MA.
1849 - The first ice-skating club in America was formed in Philadelphia, PA.
1879 - Ibsen's "A Doll's House" was first performed in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a revised happy ending.
1898 - Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium.
1909 - McKinley and Washington schools of Berkeley, CA, became the first authorized, junior-high schools in the U.S.
1913 - The "New York World" Sunday edition included a crossword puzzle as an added feature of the "Fun" supplement. It was the first crossword puzzle to be published.
1914 - Marie Dressler, Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand and Mack Swain appeared in the first six-reel, feature-length comedy. The film was entitled "Tillie’s Punctured Romance".
1925 - Eisenstein's film "Battleship Potemkin" was first shown in Moscow.
1937 - Walt Disney debuted the first, full-length, animated feature in Hollywood, CA. The movie was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Disney movies, music and books
1944 - Horse racing was banned in the United States until after the end of World War II.
1945 - U.S. Gen. George S. Patton died in Heidelberg, Germany, of injuries from a car accident.
1948 - The state of Eire (formerly the Irish Free State) declared its independence.
1951 - Joe DiMaggio announced his retirement from major league baseball.
1958 - Charles de Gaulle was elected to a seven-year term as the first president of the Fifth Republic of France.
1968 - Apollo 8 was launched on a mission to orbit the moon. The craft landed safely in the Pacific Ocean on December 27.
1971 - The U.N. Security Council chose Kurt Waldheim to succeed U Thant as secretary-general.
1978 - Police in Des Plaines, IL, arrested John W. Gacy Jr. and began unearthing the remains of 33 men and boys that Gacy was later convicted of killing.
1981 - Cincinnati defeated Bradley 75-73 in seven overtimes. The game was the longest collegiate basketball game in the history of NCAA Division I competition.
1988 - 270 people were killed when Pan Am Boeing 747 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, due to a terrorist attack.
1990 - In a German television interview, Saddam Hussein declared that he would not withdraw from Kuwait by the UN deadline.
1991 - Eleven of the 12 former Soviet republics proclaimed the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
1995 - The city of Bethlehem passed from Israeli to Palestinian control.
1996 - After two years of denials, U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted violating House ethics rules.
1998 - Israel's parliament voted overwhelmingly for early elections. It was the signal to the demise of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government.
1998 - A Chinese court sentenced two dissidents to long prison terms for attempting to organize an opposition party. A third man was sentenced to 12 years in prison on December 22, 1998.
1998 - The first vaccine for Lyme disease was approved.
2001 - The Islamic militant group Hamas released a statement that said it was suspending suicide bombings and mortar attacks in Israel.
2002 - Larry Mayes was released after spending 21 years in prison for a rape that maintained that he never committed. He was the 100th person in the U.S. to be released after DNA tests were performed.