EVENTS
- 1545 – The Council of Trent, summoned by Pope Paul III, met to discuss doctrinal matters including the rise of Protestantism.
- 1577 – Sir Francis Drake sets out from England on his round-the-world voyage.
- 1642 – New Zealand was discovered by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman of the Dutch East India Company.
- 1769 – Dartmouth College is founded
- 1795 – Meteorite crashes into Wold Newton in Yorkshire, England. Major Edward Topham owned the land where the meteorite crashed. He exhibited it later, and today it is in the Natural History Museum in London.
- 1862 – At the Battle of Fredericksburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeats the Union Major General Burnside.
- 1937 – The beginning of one of the worst atrocities of World War II as the Chinese city of Nanking (Nanjing) was captured by the Japanese. Over the next six weeks, the Rape of Nanking occurred in which Japanese soldiers randomly attacked, raped and indiscriminately killed an estimated 200,000 Chinese people.
- 1949 – The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.
- 1972 – Last human landing on the Moon. Apollo 17 was the last mission of the United States’ Apollo lunar landing program. It was also the sixth and the last time humans landed on the Moon.
- 1978 – The first Susan B. Anthony dollar enters circulation.
- 1981 – In its struggle to maintain Communism, the Polish government imposed martial law and took steps to stifle the growing power of the pro-democratic trade union Solidarity.
- 1991 – North and South Korea signed a treaty of reconciliation and nonaggression which also formally ended the Korean War, although actual fighting had ceased in 1953.
- 2001 – Attack on Indian parliament. The Indian parliament, the Sansad, was attacked by terrorists. 15 people, including the terrorists were killed during the attack.
- 2003 – Saddam Hussein captured. Saddam Hussein, the fifth president of Iraq, was found hiding in a camouflaged hole in the ground and was captured by American forces near Tikrit, Iraq. The military operation that led to his capture was called Operation Red Dawn. He was subsequently handed over to the interim Iraqi government. After a trial where he was found guilty of crimes against humanity, he was executed 3 years after his capture in December 2006.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1797 – German writer Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) was born in Dusseldorf .Best known for his statement made a hundred years before the advent of book-burning Nazis in Germany – “Where books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too.”
- 1818 – Mary Todd Lincoln (Wife of Abraham Lincoln)
- 1835 – American clergyman and composer Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He wrote the lyrics for the popular Christmas Carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem.
- 1902 – Talcott Parsons (American sociologist)
- 1925 – Dick van Dyke (Actor)
- 1936 – Aga Khan IV (Swiss/French 49th Nizari Ismaili Imam)
- 1948 – Ted Nugent (Guitarist)
- 1967 – Jamie Foxx (Actor)
- 1989 – Taylor Swift (Singer)
DEATHS
- 1204 – Maimonides (Spanish rabbi, philosopher)
- 1784 – Samuel Johnson (English author, lexicographer)
- 1944 – Wassily Kandinsky (Russian/French painter)
- 2005 – Stanley Williams (American gang leader, co-founded the Crips)
- 2010 – Richard Holbrooke (American journalist, banker, diplomat, 22nd United States Ambassador to the United Nations)