December 19

December 19 is the 353rd day of the year (354th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 12 days remaining.

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, that killed over 1,000 people on June 15, 1904, the worst disaster in New York City before 9/11, was pardoned after 3 1/2 years in Sing Sing prison by President Taft.
• 1916 – The Battle of Verdun ended.
• 1928 – First autogiro flight in the United States
• 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) comprising of Goa, Damão, Diu (Dadrá and Nagar-Avelí previously invaded in 1954). Later the Constitution of India is ammended to include the ex-Portuguese territory acquired by act of conquest by the Indian Union from Portugal.
• 1962 – Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia and Nyasaland
• 1963 – Zanzibar received its independence from the United Kingdom to become a constitutional monarchy under the sultan.
• 1972 – Apollo 17, the last manned lunar flight, returns to Earth.
• 1974 – Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt is pronounced dead.
• 1974 – The Altair 8800, the first personal computer, goes on sale
• 1974 – Portuguese Democratic Revolution. (Revolucao de Abril)
• 1978 – John Wayne Gacy is arrested for the killings of 33 boys and young men
• 1979 – Kramer vs. Kramer opens in theaters, starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.
• 1980 – Anguilla is made a dependency of the United Kingdom separate from St. Kitt's
• 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
• 1998 – The U.S. House of Representatives pass articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.
• 2001 – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the first Lord of the Rings movie to open in theaters.
• 2001 – A new world-record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 mb (32.06 inches Hg) is set at Tosontsengel, Hövsgöl Aymag, Mongolia.

Births

• 1683 – King Philip V of Spain
• 1699 – William Bowyer, printer
• 1813 – Thomas Andrews, chemist (d. 1885)
• 1820 – Mary Ashton Livermore, women's rights activist (d. 1905)
• 1865 – Minnie Maddern Fiske, stage actress (d. 1932)
• 1885 – Joe "King" Oliver, jazz musician (d. 1938)
• 1888 – Fritz Reiner, Hungarian conductor (d. 1963)
• 1894 – Ford Frick, commissioner of baseball
• 1900 – Géza von Cziffra, film director (d. 1989)
• 1901 – Rudolf Hell, inventor (d. 2002)
• 1906 – Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet politician (d. 1982)
• 1910 – Jean Genet, French writer (d. 1986)
• 1915 – Edith Piaf, French singer and actress (d. 1963)
• 1916 – Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, publicist
• 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, dramatist
• 1933 – Cicely Tyson, actress
• 1934 – Al Kaline, Baseball Hall of Famer
• 1935 – Bobby Timmons, jazz pianist (d. 1974)
• 1939 – Gwynn Dowell, teacher
• 1940 – Phil Ochs, singer, songwriter (d. 1976)
• 1941 – Maurice White, musician
• 1944 – Richard Leakey, anthropologist
• 1944  – Alvin Lee, musician
• 1946 – Stan Smith, tennis player
• 1946  – Robert Urich, actor (d. 2002)
• 1949 – Claudia Kolb, swimmer
• 1960 – Mike Lookinland, actor
• 1961 – Reggie White, American football player (d. 2004)
• 1964 – Arvydas Sabonis, Lithuanian basketball star
• 1965 – Chito Martinez, Belizean baseball player
• 1969 – Kristy Swanson, actress
• 1971 – Tiffany Towers, actress
• 1972 – Alyssa Milano, actress
• 1972  – Warren Sapp, American football player
• 1974 – Jake Plummer, American football player
• 1980 – Jake Gyllenhaal, actor
• 1980  – Marla Sokoloff, actress

Deaths

• 401 – Pope Anastasius I
• 1370 – Pope Urban V (b. 1310)
• 1737 – James Sobieski, Crown Prince of Poland (b. 1667)
• 1741 – Vitus Bering, explorer
• 1749 – Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (b. 1672)
• 1848 – Emily Brontë, English author (b. 1818)
• 1939 – Hans Langsdorff, German naval officer (b. 1894)
• 1967 – Harold Holt, seventeenth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)
• 1968 – Norman Thomas, American socialist (b. 1884)
• 1989 – Stella Gibbons, English author (b. 1902)
• 1996 – Marcello Mastroianni, Italian actor (b. 1924)
• 1999 – Desmond Llewelyn, actor (b. 1914)
• 2003 – Hope Lange, American actress
• 2003 – Peter Carter-Ruck, British libel lawyer
• 2004 – Renata Tebaldi, Italian soprano

Holidays and observances

• Feast of Saint Boniface

Fictional Events

• 2003 – the events of the fictional docu-drama The Day Britain Stopped take place.

December 18 – December 20 – November 19 – January 19 — listing of all days

External links

• BBC: On This Day