Category: On This Day

Historical Events

352 – 1st definite date Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th
1066 – William the Conqueror is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, completing the Norman conquest of England
1862 – 40,000 watch Union army men play baseball at Hilton Head, South Carolina
1957 – Richard Starkey (later better known as Ringo Starr) receives his first drum set
1969 – India all out for 163 at Madras v Aust, Ashley Mallett 5-91
1973 – “The Sting” directed by George Roy Hill, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford and music inspired by Scott Joplin premieres in Los Angeles and New York (Best Picture 1974)

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Famous Birthdays

1757 – Benjamin Pierce, U.S. politician (d. 1839)
1908 – Helen Twelvetrees, American actress (State’s Attorney, Painted Desert), born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 1958)
1942 – Barry Goldberg, American blues musician (The Rides), born in Chicago, Illinois
1949 – Sissy Spacek, American Actress (Carrie, Badlands, Coal Miner’s Daughter), born in Quitman, Texas
1961 – Ingrid Betancourt, Colombian senator
1964 – Peter Hanson, English/Sierra Leone/Dutch actor (Darling How Could You)

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Famous Deaths

1513 – Johannes Amerbach, Swiss publisher/printer, dies at about 70
1953 – Lee Shubert, American theatre producer (theatres in NY and LA named after him), dies at about 80
1979 – Joan Blondell, American actress (Real McCoys), dies of leukemia at 73
1985 – George Rhodes, American pianist, composer, arranger, and music director (Sammy Davis, Jr. Show), dies of a heart attack at 66
1992 – Garrison H Davidson, US lt-gen commandant (West Point), dies
2009 – Vic Chesnutt, American singer-songwriter, dies of an overdose of muscle relaxants at 46

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Historical Events

1715 – Swedish troops occupy Norway
1851 – Fire devastates US Library of Congress in Washington, destroys 35,000 volumes
1951 – 1st opera commissioned for television – “Amahl and the Night Visitors” by Gian Carlo Menotti premieres on NBC with the NBC Opera Theater
1996 – Ballon d’Or: Borussia Dortmund’s German sweeper Matthias Sammer is named best football player in Europe ahead of PSV/Barcelona striker Ronaldo and Newcastle United striker Alan Shearer
2000 – The Texas 7 hold up a sports store in Irving, Texas. Police officer Aubrey Hawkins is shot during the robbery
2001 – “Time Magazine” names New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani ‘Person of the Year’, for leadership after 9/11 attacks

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Famous Birthdays

1945 – Lemmy [Ian Fraser Kilmister], British heavy metal musician (Motörhead), born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire (d. 2015)
1950 – Peter te Bos, Dutch singer (Claw Boys Claw), born in Amsterdam, Netherlands
1958 – Munetaka Higuchi, Japanese drummer, born in Nara Prefecture, Japan
1959 – Lee Daniels, American director (“Precious”, “Empire”), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1978 – Yıldıray Baştürk, Turkish footballer, born in Herne, Germany
1982 – Aiba Masaki, Japanese singer and actor, born in Chiba, Japan

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Famous Deaths

1907 – Isidor Feinstein “Izzy” Stone, journalist (IF Stone’s Weekly), dies
1979 – Dirk Uipko Stikker, Dutch politician, diplomat (Ambassador to Great Britain, 1952-58; Secretary General of NATO, 1961-64), and CEO (Heineken), dies at 82
1993 – Alexander Mackendrick, American-born Scottish director (Lady Killers), dies at 81
1994 – John Osborne, English playwright (Entertainer, Look Back in Anger, Luther, dies at 65
1999 – Zeke Carey, American RandB singer (The Flamingos – “Goodnight Sweetheart”; “I Only Have Eyes For You”), dies of a heart attack at 66
2011 – Cheetah [Cheeta, Cheta, Chita], chimpanzee actor (1930s Tarzan franchise), dies of kidney failure at 80

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Historical Events

1862 – Union General Ben “Beast” Butler is proclaimed a “felon, outlaw and common enemy of mankind” by Jefferson Davis
1939 – South Australia score 7-821 against Queensland
1941 – British troops overrun Benghazi, Libya
1948 – “Cinderella” the first full-length ballet by Frederick Ashton with music by Sergei Prokofiev is first presented by Sadler’s Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, London
1953 – Dodgers 2nd baseman Jim Gilliam wins NL Rookie of Year
1990 – Slovenians vote to secede from Yugoslavia

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Famous Birthdays

1699 – Joseph Gibbs, English composer and organist, born in Colchester (d. 1788)
1869 – Hugh Allen, British organist, conductor (Bach Choir; Leeds Festival), and educator (Oxford, 1918-46-; Royal College of Music, 1918-37), born in Reading, Berkshire, England (d. 1946)
1903 – Fredericka “Fredi” Washington, American actress (Black and Tan), born in Savannah, Georgia (d. 1994)
1918 – Kumar Pallana, Indian character actor and vaudevillian (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore), born in Indore, India (d. 2013)
1946 – Edita Gruberova, Slovak operatic soprano, born in Bratislava, Slovakia (d. 2021)
1970 – Shannon Bream [DePuy], American Journalist (Fox News) Miss Virginia (1991), born in Lynchburg, Virginia

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Famous Deaths

1575 – Akiyama Nobutomo, Japanese warrior (hanged) (b. 1531)
1789 – Charles-Michel de l’Épée, French philanthropist and developer of ‘Signed French’, dies at 77
1805 – Pehr Osbeck, Swedish explorer and naturalist (b. 1723)
1925 – A S C Wallis [Adele von Antal-Opzoomer], Dutch writer (Vorstengunst), dies at 69
1967 – Ruth Fuller Sasaki, American Zen teacher (1st Zen Institute of America), dies at 75
1973 – Gerard Kuiper, Dutch-American astronomer after whom the Kuiper belt is named, dies at 68

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Historical Events

1135 – Norman nobles recognize Stefanus van Blois as English king
1688 – Earl of Danby occupies York for King William III, Prince of Orange
1935 – Yaeko Iwasaki, student of D S Harada Roshi, 1st awakening in Kamakura
1967 – “The Graduate”, American comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols, starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, premieres (Best Director, 1968)
1971 – UN General Assembly ratifies former Austrian President Kurt Waldheim as Secretary-General
1977 – 36 die as grain elevator at Continental Grain Company plant explodes

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Famous Birthdays

1546 – Kuroda Yoshitaka, Japanese daimyō, born in Himeji, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan (d. 1604)
1929 – Leonard “Red” Balaban, American jazz tuba and sousaphone player, born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 2013)
1945 – Joris J. C. Voorhoeve, Dutch Defense minister (1994-, VVD), born in the Hague, Netherlands
1948 – Steve Garvey, American baseball player (LA Dodgers, San Diego Padres), born in Tampa, Florida
1963 – Giuseppe Bergomi, Italian footballer, born in Milan, Italy
1972 – Mike Thompson, NFL defensive tackle (Jacksonville Jaguars), born in Portage, Wisconsin

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Famous Deaths

1660 – André Tacquet, Flemish mathematician (b. 1612)
1809 – William Cooper, American judge and developer (founded Cooperstown, New York), dies at 55
1986 – Celius Dougherty, American pianist and composer, dies at 84
1987 – Leonidas Zoras, Greek conductor and composer, dies at 82
2002 – Kenneth Tobey, American actor (The Thing from Another World, Innerspace, Whirlybirds), dies of natural causes at 85
2006 – Galina Ustvolskaya, Russian composer, dies at 87

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Historical Events

1933 – Newfoundland reverts to being a crown colony of Great Britain
1976 – US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1980 – Harold Carmichael ends NFL streak of 127 consecutive game receptions
1983 – NCAA rules rescinded last 2-minute men’s basketball free throw rule
1988 – Lockerbie disaster: A terrorist bomb destroys Pan Am Flight 103 mid-air, over Scotland; kills all 259 passengers and crew on board, and 11 people on the ground
1997 – Detroit Lions linebacker Reggie Brown, knocked unconscious in game

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Famous Birthdays

1928 – Thomas Rajna, British-Hungarian pianist, and composer (Amarantha; Stop All The Clocks), born in Budapest, Hungary (d. 2021)
1935 – Edward Schreyer, Canadian politician (Premier of Manitoba), born in Beausejour, Canada
1937 – Jane Fonda, American stage and screen Academy and Emmy Award-winning actress (Barbarella; Klute, 9 to 5), exercist (Jane Fonda’s Workout), and political activist, born in NYC, New York
1940 – Paul [Ray Hildebrand], American singer (Paul and Paula), born in Joshua, Texas
1944 – Hwang Jang Lee, Korean martial artist and film actor, born in Aomori, Japan
1969 – Mihails Zemļinskis, Latvian footballer, born in Riga, Latvia

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Famous Deaths

1824 – James Parkinson, English physician (First description of Parkinson’s disease) and political activist, dies at 69
1979 – Mac Anderson, New Zealand cricketer (Test for NZ 1946, scored five and one), dies at 60
1997 – Juzo Itami, film director/actor (Lord Jim, Yuuguremade), dies at 64
2006 – Sydney Wooderson, English athlete dubbed “The Mighty Atom” (world record 1937), dies at 92
2017 – Roswell Rudd ,American free-jazz trombonist (Archie Shepp), and avant-garde composer (New York Art Quartet), dies of prostate cancer at 82
2020 – K. T. Oslin, American country singer (80’s Ladies), dies at 78

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Historical Events

1900 – Giacobini discovers a comet (will be 1st comet visited by spacecraft)
1939 – Radio Australia begins overseas shortwave service
1985 – Sportscaster Howard Cosell retires from television sports after 20 years with ABC
1992 – Northwest and KLM introduce a new joint logo “Worldwide Reliability”
1995 – Revival of Phillip Hayes Dean’s drama “Paul Robeson” opens at Longacre Theater, NYC; runs for 14 performances
2019 – United States Space Force founded, an armed forces branch dedicated to space warfare

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Famous Birthdays

1906 – Irving Krick, American meteorologist and inventor, born in San Francisco, California (d. 1996)
1922 – Charita Bauer, American actress (The Guiding Light, Aldrich Family), born in Newark, New Jersey (d. 1985)
1944 – Jean Fergusson, English actress, born in Wakefield, United Kingdom
1961 – Mohammad Fouad, Arab singer and actor, born in Ismailia Governorate, Egypt
1972 – Jonathan Wyatt, New Zealand 5000m runner (Olympics 1996), born in Wellington, New Zealand
1998 – Dylan Wang [Wang Hedi], Chinese actor and singer (Meteor Garden), born in Chengdu, Sichuan

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Famous Deaths

1494 – Matteo Maria Boiardo, Italian poet
1749 – Pakubuwono II, susuhunan of Mataram Java, dies
1876 – Hannah Omish, at 12 is youngest ever hanged in US
1986 – Joe DeSa, American baseball player (b. 1959)
2012 – Eagle Keys, American Canadian Football Hall of Fame linebacker and coach (Grey Cup champion 1949, 54-56, 66; Edmonton Eskimos, Saskatchewan R’riders), dies at 89
2015 – Patricia Elliott, American actress (Renee-Empire, One Life to Live), dies at 77

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Historical Events

1835 – HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin aboard arrives in New Zealand
1917 – 1st NHL game played on artificial ice in Toronto
1926 – National Football League Championship: Frankford Yellow Jackets (14-1-2) win first past the post title
1976 – Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev receives his 5th Order of Lenin
1980 – Anguilla becomes a British dependency separate from St Kitts
2016 – At least 48 people die after drinking bath lotion in Irkutsk, Siberia, thinking it contained alcohol

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Famous Birthdays

1819 – James Clifford Veatch, American Brevet Major General (Union Army), born in Elizabeth, Indiana (d. 1895)
1837 – John Carpenter Carter, Brigadier General (Confederate Army), (d. 1864)
1861 – Italo Svevo, Italian writer (La Coscienza di Zeno), born in Trieste Austria (d. 1928)
1916 – Hal Hastings, American orchestra leader (Chevrolet on Broadway), born in NYC, New York (d. 1973)
1925 – Robert Sherman, songwriter (Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book), born in NYC, New York (d. 2012)
1957 – Doug Johnson, Canadian rock keyboardist (Loverboy – “Working For The Weekend”), born in Surrey, British Columbia

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Famous Deaths

1815 – Robert Hudson, British tenor, organist, and composer, dies at 83
1933 – George Jackson Churchward, British mechanical engineer (Chief of Great Western Railway Chief, 1902-22), truck and killed by a Paddington to Fishguard express train at 76
1951 – Barton Yarbrough, actor (Dragnet), dies at 51
1998 – Antonio Ordóñez, Spanish bullfighter (b. 1932)
2002 – Will Hoy, English auto racer (British Touring Car C’ship 1991), dies from a brain tumour at 50
2017 – Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, American professional baseball player at 1st female pitcher to play in the Negro Leagues, dies from heart complications at 82

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Historical Events

1869 – Canada’s Hamilton Football Club plays its 1st game
1962 – Ballon d’Or: Dukler Prague midfielder Josef Masopust wins award for best European football player; beats Benfica striker Eusébio and FC Köln defender Karl-Heinz Schnellinger
1969 – House of Lords votes to abolish the death penalty in England, Wales and Scotland (Northern Ireland 25 July 1973)
1989 – “I Love Lucy” Christmas episode, shown for 1st time in over 30 years
1996 – The Oakland, California school board passes a resolution officially declaring “Ebonics” a language or dialect.
2020 – US Vice President Mike Pence receives the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine live on TV

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Famous Birthdays

1837 – Adolf Daens, Flemish priest, politician and founder of the Daensist movement, born in Aalst, Belgium (d. 1907)
1907 – Bill Holland, American auto racer (d. 1984)
1946 – Steven Spielberg, American director (ET, Close Encounters, Jaws), born in Cincinnati, Ohio
1966 – Mille Petrozza, German singer (Kreator)
1983 – Ady Barkan, American lawyer and activist (Medicare for all)
1995 – Barbora Krejčíková, Czech tennis player (French Open singles 2021; French Open doubles 2018, 21; Wimbledon 2018, 22; US Open and Australian Open 2022; 3 x Australian Open mixed doubles), born in Brno, Czech Republic

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Famous Deaths

1577 – Anna, Duchess of Saxony, German born 2nd wife of Prince William of Orange (divorced and imprisoned for adultery), dies at 32
1894 – Erastus Flaval Beadle, American publisher (Beadle’s Dime Novels), dies at 73
1911 – Alberto Randegger, Italian composer, dies at 79
1980 – Alexei N Kosygin, Soviet PM (1964-80), suffers heart attack at 76
1994 – Peter Hebblethwaite, English editor-in-chief (The Month), dies at 64
2020 – Tim Severin, British author and explorer who replicated historic voyages, dies at 80

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Historical Events

1819 – Congress of Angostura establishes Colombia’s independence from Spain
1961 – India seizes Goa and 2 other Portuguese colonies
1963 – West and East Berlin sign accord about travel rules
1971 – Cease fire between India and Pakistan in Kashmir
2012 – 10 girls collecting firewood are killed by a mine blast in east Afghanistan
2013 – Angela Merkel is elected Chancellor of Germany for a third term

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Famous Birthdays

1900 – Mary Cartwright, English mathematician, born in Aynho, United Kingdom (d. 1998)
1933 – Stefan Florenski, Polish soccer defender (11 caps; Górnik Zabrze), born in Gleiwitz, Poland (d. 2020)
1944 – Jack L[aurence] Chalker, American sci-fi author (Saga of Well World)
1969 – Chuck Liddell, American mixed martial artist
1971 – Antoine Rigaudeau, French basketball player
1974 – Jeffrey “Duff” Goldman, American cake designer, TV personality (Ace of Cakes) and chef, born in Detroit, Michigan

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Famous Deaths

1891 – Msiri, ruler of the Garanganze Kingdom, Congo (Katanga), dies in battle against Belgian funded expedition
1990 – Don Draper, American actor (Pepper Agent 00X), dies of AIDS at 61
1996 – Irving Caesar, American lyricist and theater composer (Tea for Two; Just A Gigilo; Sometimes I’m Happy; Animal Crackers In My Soup), dies at 101
2010 – Captain Beefheart [Don Van Vliet], American rock musician, complications from multiple sclerosis at 69
2013 – Leland Smith, American composer, bassoonist and computer coder who led music publishing into the digital age (SCORE), dies at 88
2020 – Stanley Cowell American jazz pianist (Heath Brothers), record label co-founder (Strata-East), and educator, dies from hypovolemic shock at 79

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Historical Events

1826 – Benjamin W. Edwards rides into Mexican controlled Nacogdoches, Texas and declares himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.
1938 – State of California executes Ed Davis (38), leader of Folsom Prison escape attempt resulting in murder of warden and guard (San Quentin State Prison, Marin County)
1944 – US 2nd Infantry division occupies “Heartbreak Crossroads” Wahlerscheid
1950 – “Let’s Make an Opera” closes at John Golden Theater NYC after 5 performances
1991 – UN reverses ruling that Zionism is racism by 111-25 (13 abstain) vote
2016 – US State Department increases reward for information on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to $25 million

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Famous Birthdays

1742 – Gebhard Fürst Blücher von Wahlstatt, German Field Marshal (d. 1819)
1907 – Barbara Kent, Canadian actress (Lonesome, Flesh and the Devil), born in Gadsby, Alberta, Canada (d. 2011)
1916 – Udom Patpongsiri, Thai property developer (Father of the Thai sex industry), (d. 1996)
1945 – Bobby George, English darts player (BDO World C’ship 1980, 84 runner-up), born in Manor Park, Essex, England
1965 – Chris Jones, outfielder (NY Mets), born in Utica, New York
1988 – Anna Popplewell, English actress

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Famous Deaths

714 – Pepin/Pippin II, of Herstal/Héristal, Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia and Duke and Prince of the Franks, dies
1670 – Dorothy, 1st English marquis of Halifax, dies
1993 – Charizma [Charles Hicks], American rapper, killed in a mugging at 20
1996 – Joe Coral [Joseph Kagarlitski], British bookmaker (Gala Coral Group), dies at 92
1997 – Richard Warwick, English actor (Johnny Dangerously, Sebastine, If), dies of AIDS complications at 52
2018 – John Ford Noonan, American playwright (A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking), dies at 77

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