December 29

December 29 is the 363rd day of the year (364th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 2 days remaining.

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Events

• 1170 – Thomas Becket, is slain in his own cathedral on orders from Henry II of England.
• 1813 – War of 1812: British soldiers burn Buffalo, New York
• 1845 – Texas is admitted as the 28th U.S. state.
• 1851 – The first American-based YMCA opens, in Boston, Massachusetts
• 1860 – The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, the HMS Warrior is launched.
• 1876 – The Ashtabula River Railroad bridge disaster, 64 injured, 92 dead at Ashtabula, Ohio.
• 1890 – Wounded Knee Massacre: The United States soldiers massacred over 400 men, women and children of the Great Sioux Nation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
• 1891 – Thomas Edison patents the radio.
• 1911 – Sun Yat-sen becomes the first President of the Republic of China
• 1913 – The first serial motion picture, The Unwelcome Throne is released by Seligs Polyscope Company.
• 1921 – William Lyon Mackenzie King becomes Prime Minister of Canada
• 1934 – The first college basketball game at Madison Square Garden in New York City is played, between the University of Notre Dame and New York University
• 1934 – Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930.
• 1937 – The Irish Free State was replaced by a new state called Ireland when a new constitution was adopted.
• 1940 – Battle of Britain: Luftwaffe firebombs London, killing almost 3000 civilians
• 1949 – KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.
• 1972 – An Eastern Airlines Lockheed Tristar crashed on approach to Miami International Airport, Florida, killing 101
• 1975 – A bomb explodes at New York City's LaGuardia Airport killing 11.
• 1989 – Václav Havel becomes President of Czechoslovakia
• 1989 – Riots break-out after Hong Kong decides to forcibly repatriate Vietnamese refugees.
• 1989 – On the final day of trading for the year and decade, the Japanese Nikkei 225 Average closes at an all-time high of 38,915.87.
• 1992 – Fernando Collor de Mello, president of Brazil, resigned.
• 1993 – Construction of the Tian Tan Buddha, the world's tallest outdoor bronze statue of the seated Buddha, was completed.
• 1996 – Guatemala and leaders of Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union sign a peace accord that ends a 36 year civil war.
• 1997 – Hong Kong begins to kill all the nation's chickens (1.25 million) to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.
• 1998 – Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the genocide in Cambodia that claimed over 1 million in the 1970s.

Births

• 1800 – Charles Goodyear, inventor of the vulcanization of rubber (d. 1860)
• 1808 – Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the United States (d. 1875)
• 1809 – William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1897)
• 1840 – Anton Dohrn, zoologist (d. 1909)
• 1876 – Pablo Casals, cellist and conductor (d. 1973)
• 1879 – Billy Mitchell, United States Army officer, United States Air Force pioneer (d. 1936)
• 1881 – Jess Willard, boxing champion (d. 1968)
• 1890 – Käthe Dorsch, actress (d. 1957)
• 1908 – Helmut Gollwitzer, theologian (d. 1993)
• 1910 – Ronald Coase, British economist
• 1914 – Billy Tipton, jazz musician (d. 1989)
• 1914 – Albert Tucker, Australian artist (d 1999)
• 1917 – Tom Bradley, mayor of Los Angeles, California (d. 1998)
• 1927 – Andy Stanfield, American athlete d. (1985)
• 1936 – Mary Tyler Moore, actress (The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore)
• 1936  – Ray Nitschke, American football star (d. 1998)
• 1937 – Barbara Steele, actress
• 1938 – Jon Voight, actor
• 1942 – Rick Danko, musician ("The Band") (d. 1999)
• 1946 – Marianne Faithfull, singer
• 1947 – Ted Danson, actor
• 1952 – Gelsey Kirkland, dancer
• 1954 – Roger Voudouris, American singer-songwriter
• 1967 – Andy Wachowski, director (The Matrix)
• 1970 – Kevin Weisman, actor
• 1970 – Frankie Dettori, jockey
• 1972 – Jason Kreis, American soccer star
• 1972  – Jude Law, actor
• 1974 – Richie Sexson, Major League Baseball All-Star
• 1981 – Angela Via, singer

Deaths

• 1170 – Thomas Becket, English bishop (assassinated) (b. 1115)
• 1785 – Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian poet
• 1825 – Jacques-Louis David, French painter (b. 1748)
• 1891 – Leopold Kronecker, mathematician (b. 1823)
• 1894 – Christina Rossetti, English poet
• 1916 – Grigori Rasputin, Russian monk (b. 1869)
• 1926 – Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian writer (b. 1875)
• 1937 – Don Marquis, author (b. 1878)
• 1960 – Eden Phillpotts, British writer
• 1967 – Paul Whiteman, American musician and conductor (b. 1890)
• 1980 – Tim Hardin, musician (b. 1941)
• 1986 – Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1894)
• 1999 – Jerzy Waldorff, Polish film and music critic
• 2003 – Earl Hindman, American actor (b. 1942)
• 2003 – Bob Monkhouse, comedian (b. 1928)
• 2004 – Julius Axelrod, American biochemist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine recipient (b. 1912)
• 2004 – Liddy Holloway, New Zealand actress

Holidays and observances

• The fourth day of Christmas in Western Christianity

External links

• BBC: On This Day

December 28 – December 30 – November 29 – January 29 — listing of all days