0816 Frankish emperor Louis grants archbishop Salzburg immunity
1428 King Alfonso V, orders Sicily’s Jews to attend conversion sermons
1488 Roman catholic German emperor Maximilian I caught in Belgium
1512 French troops under Gaston de Foix rescues Bologna
1556 Kings Henri I & Philip II sign Treaty of Vaucelles
1572 Beggars assault Oisterwijk Netherlands, drive nuns out
1576 Henry of Navarre abjures Catholicism at Tours
1631 Rhode Island, founder, Roger Williams arrives in Boston from England
1644 1st US livestock branding law passed, by Connecticut
1649 Prince of Wales becomes king Charles II
1663 Earthquake in Canada
1679 German emperor Leopold I signs peace with France
1736 Methodists John & Charles Wesley arrive in Savannah GA
1777 Georgia becomes 1st US state to abolish both entail & primogeniture
1778 Articles of Confederation ratified by 1st state, South Carolina
1782 Spanish take Minorca (western Mediterranean) from the English
1783 Sweden recognizes US independence
1783 Earthquakes ravage Calabria, killing 30,000
1795 Zealand Netherlands surrenders to French General Michaud
1816 Rossini’s Opera “Barber of Seville” premieres in Rome
1817 1st US gas company incorporated, Baltimore (coal gas for street lights)
1825 Hannah Lord Montague of New York creates 1st detachable shirt collar
1831 Jan van Speijk blows up his gunboat in Antwerp, killing about 30
1846 “Oregon Spectator” is 1st newspaper to be published on the West Coast
1850 Adding machine employing depressible keys patented, New Paltz NY
1855 British government of Palmerston forms
1861 Kinematoscope patented by Coleman Sellers, Philadelphia PA
1861 Louisiana delegation except Mr Bouligny withdraws from Congress
1861 1st moving picture peep show machine is patented by Samuel Goodale of Cincinnati
1864 Federals occupy Jackson MS
1865 Battle of Hatcher’s Run, VA (Armstrong’s Mill, Dabney’s Mill)
1870 1st motion picture shown to a theater audience, Philadelphia
1879 Joseph Swan demonstrates light bulb using carbon glow
1881 Phoenix AZ incorporates
1885 News of fall of Khartoum reaches London
1887 Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Otello” premieres at La Scala in Italy
1887 Snow falls on San Francisco
1893 Alfred Naess skates world record 500 meter (49.4 seconds)
1894 Female suffrage organization in Amsterdam forms
1897 Marcel Proust meets Jean Lorrain in a pistol duel
1900 British troops under General Buller occupy Vaal Krantz, Natal
1901 Loop-the-loop centrifugal RR (roller coaster) patented by Ed Prescot
1901 Pierpont Morgan forms US Steel Corp
1904 American occupation of Cuba ends
1907 Arnold Schönberg’s 1st string quartet premieres in Vienna
1911 Society of Dutch Composers forms in Amsterdam
1916 Enrico Caruso recorded “O Sole Mio” for the Victor Talking Machine Company
1917 Congress overrides Wilson’s veto, curtailing Asian immigration
1917 Present Mexican constitution adopted
1917 Morosco Theater opens at 217 W 45th St NYC (demolished 1982)
1918 1st US pilot to down an enemy airplane, Stephen W Thompson
1918 Separation of church & state begins in USSR
1919 NL president John Heydler dismisses charges that Hal Chase bet against his team & threw games in collusion with gamblers
1921 Yankees purchase 20 acres in the Bronx for Yankee Stadium
1922 Reader’s Digest magazine 1st published
1923 General mine strike against wage cuts in Saar
1923 Mass arrests of socialists & communists in Italy
1927 Buster Keaton’s movie “The General” released & bombed
1929 Jimmy Hatlo’s “They’ll Do It Every Time” cartoon debuts in San Francisco
1930 5th Aliyah to Israel begins
1931 Maxine Dunlap becomes 1st US women to earn a glider pilot license
1933 Marinus van der Lubbe passes Dutch/German boundary
1936 National Wildlife Federation forms
1937 FDR proposes enlarging Supreme Court, “court packing” plan failed
1937 1st Charlie Chaplin talkie, “Modern Times”, is released
1938 Hans Engnestangen skates world record 500 meter (41.8 seconds)
1940 Glenn Miller & his Orchestra record “Tuxedo Junction”
1940 General Winckelman replaces General Reijnders as Dutch supreme commander
1941 Dutch Premier De Geer returns from Lisbon to Netherlands
1942 “Woman of the Year”, starring Hepburn & Tracy, opens at Radio City
1942 Braves get Tommy Holmes from Yanks for Buddy Hassett & Gene Moore
1943 Clandestine Radio Atlantiksender, Germany, 1st transmission
1943 Amsterdam resistance group CS-6 shoots Nazi General Seyffardt
1944 358 RAF-bombers attack Stettin
1945 Big Racket becomes fastest race horse at 69.6 kph (440 yards/20.8 seconds)
1945 British premier Churchill arrives in Yalta, the Krim
1945 US troops under General Douglas MacArthur enter Manilla
1947 Bolewet Beirut becomes President of Poland
1948 “The Nature of Things” science show premieres on NBC prime time
1948 Dick Button becomes 1st US figure skating Olympics champion
1948 Gretchen Fraser becomes 1st US woman Olympics slalom champion
1949 Huaso sets official world equestrian high-jump record, 2.47 m, Chicago
1953 “Peter Pan” by Walt Disney opens at Roxy Theater, NYC
1953 5th Emmy Awards I Love Lucy, Thomas Mitchell & Helen Hayes win
1954 WCDC TV channel 19 in Adams MA (ABC) begins broadcasting
1956 7th Winter Olympics games close at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
1956 Louise Suggs win LPGA Havana Golf Open
1956 New York Mayor Robert Wagner & Brooklyn Boro President Frank Cashmore sponsor a bill to create a $30 million Brooklyn Sports Center Authority to build
1957 Dmitri Shostakovich completes his 2nd Piano Concert
1958 Clifton R Wharton confirmed as 1st US black foreign minister (Romania)
1958 Gamel Abdel Nasser nominated 1st President of United Arab Republic
1958 Vanguard TV-3 back-up launches into Earth orbit; reaches 6 km
1958 Test Cricket debut of Lance Gibbs, West Indies vs Pakistan, Port-of-Spain
1959 “Redhead” opens at 46th St Theater NYC for 455 performances
1959 Australia regain the Ashes with a 10 wicket victory at Adelaide
1962 French President de Gaulle calls for Algeria’s independence
1962 Suit to bar Englewood NJ from “racial segregated” schools is filed
1962 Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter & Saturn within 16º
1963 Maarten Schmidt discovers enormous red shifts in quasars
1963 Soviet lunar probe failure
1965 Beursschouwburg opens in Brussels
1966 BBC opens a relay radio station on Ascension Island
1967 “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” premieres on CBS (later ABC, NBC)
1967 Anastasio Somoza elected President of Nicaragua
1967 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Robert Penn Warren
1968 KDTV TV channel 39 in Dallas-Fort Worth TX (IND) begins broadcasting
1968 Skater Kees Verkerk win Olympics gold in the 1500m
1969 US population reaches 200 million
1969 Vince Lombardi, becomes part owner, vice president, general manager & head coach of Redskins
1969 “Turn-On”, debuts & is cancelled by ABC after flopping so badly
1970 1st Test Cricket ton of Barry Richards, 126, 164 balls, 20 fours 1 six
1970 Test Cricket debut of John Traicos, South Africa vs Australia, Durban
1970 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1970 WSCV TV channel 51 in Ft Lauderdale FL (IND) suspends broadcasting
1971 Apollo 14, 3rd US manned Moon expedition, lands near Fra Mauro; Alan Shepard & Edward Mitchell (Apollo 14) walk on Moon for 4 hours
1972 US airlines begin mandatory inspection of passengers & baggage
1972 “Another Puff” by Jerry Reed peaks at #65
1972 Bob Douglas is 1st black elected to Basketball Hall of Fame
1973 Funeral for LC William Nolde, last US soldier killed in Vietnam War
1973 Juan Corona sentenced to 25 consecutive life terms for 25 murders
1973 Comic strip “Hagar The Horrible” debuts
1974 Mats Wermelin, Sweden, scores all points in 272-0 basketball win
1974 US Mariner 10 returns 1st close-up photos of Venus’ cloud structure
1974 British mine strike
1974 Maximum speed on Autobahn reduced to 100 kph
1976 Australia complete 5-1 series drubbing of West Indies
1976 Last day of Test Cricket for Lance Gibbs & Ian Redpath
1977 Sugar Ray Leonard beats Luis Vega in 6 rounds in his 1st pro fight
1977 “CB Savage” by Rod Hart peaks at #67
1977 “Dis-Gorilla (part 1)” by Rick Dees peaks at #56
1977 “In The Mood” by Henhouse 5 Plus Too (Ray Stevens) peaks at #40
1977 “Turn Loose On My Leg” by Jim Stafford peaks at #98
1977 “Up Your Nose” by Gabriel Kaplan peaks at #91
1977 General Mills Adventure Theater premieres on CBS radio
1977 US female Figure Skating championship won by Linda Fratianne
1977 US male Figure Skating championship won by Charles Tickner
1978 Fred Newman makes 88 consecutive basketball free throws blindfolded
1979 Costliest single periodical ad, $3.2 million, Gulf + Western in Time
1979 Sears Radio Theater premieres on CBS
1980 32nd NHL All-Star Game Wales beat Campbell 6-3 at Detroit
1980 Egyptian parliament votes to end boycott of Israel
1981 Military jury in North Carolina convicts Robert Garwood of collaborating with enemy
1981 “Piaf” opens at Plymouth Theater NYC for 165 performances
1981 Largest Jell-O made (9,246 gallons of watermelon-flavor) in Brisbane
1982 DEA announces seizure of 3,192 tons of marijuana, 495 people
1982 Laker Airways collapse owing £270 million ($351 million)
1982 Suriname President Chin A Sen resigns & flees to Netherlands
1983 Former Nazi Gestapo official Klaus Barbie brought to trial
1984 New Zealand beat England (82 & 93) by an innings in 3 days
1984 Patty Sheehan win LPGA Elizabeth Arden Golf Classic
1986 Corazon Aquino & Ferdinand Marcos appear on “Nightline”
1987 Dow Jones average closes above 2,200 for 1st time
1987 Soyuz TM-2 launches
1988 1st prime-time wrestling match in 30 years-Andre beats Hulk Hogan
1988 Panamanian General Manuel Noriega indicted by US grand jury for drugs
1988 Arizona House of Representatives vote to impeach Republican Governor Evan Mecham
1989 Kareem Abdul-Jabar becomes 1st NBA player to score 38,000 points
1990 Notre Dame becomes 1st team to sell its game to a major network (NBC)
1991 A Michigan court bars Dr Jack Kevorkian from assisting in suicides
1991 All American Bowl ends after 14 years
1991 Big East Football conference forms
1991 Howard Stern kisses New York Giant Leonard Marshall’s ass over bet, Stern lost claiming the Giants would lose the Superbowl
1991 Joni Mitchel inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame
1991 Los Angeles King Dave Taylor becomes 29th NHLer to score 1000 points
1992 Jury selection begins in the Los Angeles cops beating Rodney King case
1992 Last day of Test Cricket cricket for Dilip Vengsarkar
1992 Mike Whitney career-best 7-27 at WACA in Test Cricket win vs India
1993 Grenade explodes in Sarajevo, killing 63 & injuring 160
1993 R James Woolsey, becomes 16th director of CIA
1994 “Where On Earth Is Carmen San Diego” debuts on Fox TV
1994 Medgar Evers’ murderer Byron De La Beckwith sentenced to life, in Jackson MS, 30 years after the crime
1995 Japan’s Shinshinto Party win local elections
1995 NFL Pro Bowl AFC beats NFC 41-13
1995 Sandra Völker swims female European record 50 meter backstroke 27.77
1997 3 Swiss banks create $70 million Holocaust fund
1997 Brook Lee, Hawaii, crowned 46th Miss USA (en route to Miss Universe)
1998 Alberto Acciarito convicted of harassing his ex-wife Ingrid Rossellini
1998 Author Tom Clancy confirms he signed agreement to purchase Minnesota Vikings for slightly more than $200 million, an NFL franchise record
1998 Nancy Kerrigan & Tonya Harding talk on FOX (Taped Dec 22nd)