December 19 is the 353rd day of the year (354th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 12 days remaining until the end of the year. You have 5 days left to shop….. Get with it!
Holidays
- Christian feast day:
- Liberation day (Goa)
- Opalia (Roman Empire)
History
In 211, Publius Septimius Geta, co-emperor of Rome, is lured to come without his bodyguards to meet his brother Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla), to discuss a possible reconciliation. When he arrives, the Praetorian Guard murders him and he dies in the arms of his mother, Julia Domna.
In 1154, Henry II of England is crowned at Westminster Abbey.
In 1490, Anne, Duchess of Brittany, is married to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor by proxy.
In 1562, The Battle of Dreux takes place during the French Wars of Religion.
In 1606, The Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery depart England carrying settlers who found, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.
In 1675, The Great Swamp Fight, a pivotal battle in King Philip’s War, gives the English settlers a bitterly won victory.
In 1741, Vitus Bering, Danish-Russian navy officer and explorer (b. 1681) died on the uninhabited island near the Kamchatka Peninsula, which was later given the name Bering Island in his honour. Like 28 men of his company, Bering’s death was commonly assumed to have been the result of scurvy. He also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering was a Danish explorer and officer in the Russian Navy. He is known for his two explorations of the north-eastern coast of the Asian continent and from there the western coast on the North American continent. The Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, the Bering Glacier and the Bering Land Bridge have since all been (posthumously) named in his honor.
In 1776, Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in The Pennsylvania Journal entitled “The American Crisis“.
In 1777, American Revolutionary War: George Washington‘s Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
In 1796, French Revolutionary Wars: Two British frigates under Commodore Horatio Nelson and two Spanish frigates under Commodore Don Jacobo Stuart engage in battle off the coast of Murcia.
In 1828, Nullification Crisis: Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun pens the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828.
In 1899, Henry Ware Lawton, American general (b. 1843) died during the Battle of Paye, Lawton, as usual, was in the midst of the fighting and was killed by a Filipino sharpshooter, ironically under the command of a general named Licerio Gerónimo. He was the highest ranking American officer to fall in battle in either the Spanish-American or Philippine-American wars. He was a highly respected U.S. Army officer who served with distinction in the Civil War, the Apache Wars, the Spanish–American War and was the only U.S. general officer to be killed during the Philippine–American War. The city of Lawton, Oklahoma, takes its name from General Lawton, and also a borough in the city of Havana, Cuba.
In 1900, Hopetoun Blunder: The first Governor-General of Australia John Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun, appoints Sir William Lyne premier of the new state of New South Wales, but he is unable to persuade other colonial politicians to join his government and is forced to resign.
In 1907, Two hundred thirty-nine coal miners die in a mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.
In 1912, William Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum which caught fire and killed over 1,000 people, is pardoned by U.S. President William Howard Taft after three-and-a-half-years in Sing Sing prison.
In 1916, World War I: Battle of Verdun – On the Western Front, the French Army successfully holds off the German Army and drives it back to its starting position.
In 1920, King Constantine I is restored as King of the Hellenes after the death of his son Alexander of Greece and a plebiscite.
In 1924, The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.
In 1927, Three Indian revolutionaries, Ram Prasad Bismil, Roshan Singh and Ashfaqulla Khan are executed by the British Empire.
In 1932, BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service.
In 1939, Hans Langsdorff, German captain (b. 1894) dies of a self inflicted gun shot. He was a German naval officer, most famous for his command of the Panzerschiff (pocket battleship) Admiral Graf Spee during the Battle of the River Plate. He held the rank of Kapitän zur See (naval captain). Hans Langsdorff was buried in the German section of the La Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and was honoured by both sides in the battle for his honourable conduct.
On orders, 21 August 1939, Admiral Graf Spee left port with orders to raid enemy commercial shipping in the South Atlantic following the outbreak of the Second World War. For the first three weeks of the war, the ship hid in the open ocean east of Brazil while the German government determined how serious Britain was about the war. On 20 September 1939, Admiral Graf Spee was released to carry out its orders.
Over the next 10 weeks, Langsdorff and Admiral Graf Spee were extremely successful, stopping and sinking nine British merchant ships, totalling over 50,000 tons. Langsdorff adhered to the Hague Conventions and avoided killing anyone; his humane treatment won the respect of the ships’ officers detained as his prisoners.
In 1941, World War II: Adolf Hitler becomes Supreme Commander-in-chief of the German Army.
In 1941, World War II: Limpet mines placed by Italian divers heavily damage the HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth in Alexandria harbour.
In 1946, Start of the First Indochina War.
In 1956, Irish-born physician John Bodkin Adams is arrested in connection with the suspicious deaths of more than 160 patients. Eventually he is convicted only of minor charges.
In 1961, India annexes Daman and Diu, part of Portuguese India.
In 1964, The South Vietnamese military junta of Nguyễn Khánh dissolve the High National Council and arrest some of the members.
In 1967, Harold Holt, the Prime Minister of Australia, is officially presumed dead.
In 1972, Apollo program: The last manned lunar flight, Apollo 17, crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth.
In 1974, Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford under the provisions of the twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
In 1975, John Paul Stevens is appointed a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
In 1979, Geoffrey Boycott became the first cricketer to be stranded at 99 not out against Australia at Perth.
In 1981, Sixteen lives are lost when the Penlee lifeboat goes to the aid of the stricken coaster Union Star in heavy seas.
In 1983, The original FIFA World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In 1984 – The Sino-British Joint Declaration, stating that China would resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and the United Kingdom would restore Hong Kong to China with effect from July 1, 1997 is signed in Beijing, China by Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher.
In 1986 – Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, releases Andrei Sakharov and his wife from exile in Gorky.
In 1995 – The United States Government restores federal recognition to the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indian tribe.
In 1997 – SilkAir Flight 185 crashes into the Musi River, near Palembang in Indonesia, killing 104.
In 1998 – President Bill Clinton is impeached by the United States House of Representatives, becoming the second President of the United States to be impeached.
In 2000 – The Leninist Guerrilla Units wing of the Communist Labour Party of Turkey/Leninist attack a Nationalist Movement Party office in Istanbul, Turkey, killing one person and injuring three.
In 2001 – A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Khövsgöl, Mongolia.
In 2001 – Argentine economic crisis: December 2001 riots – Riots erupt in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In 2007, Colorado’s primary and presidential elections were thrown into turmoil when electronic-voting machines used in 53 counties were deemed unreliable and unsecure by Secretary of State Mike Coffman. It’s not yet clear if Coffman’s decision to “decertify” machines made by three of four manufacturers means the counties would need to purchase new equipment.
In 2012, Park Geun-hye is elected the first female president of South Korea.
In 2013, Spacecraft Gaia is launched by European Space Agency. Gaia is a space observatory of the European Space Agency (ESA) designed for astrometry. The mission aims to construct the largest and most precise 3D space catalog ever made and totalling approximately 1 billion astronomical objects, mainly stars but also planets, comets, asteroids and quasars among others. The spacecraft will monitor each of its target stars about 70 times over a period of five years to study the precise motion of each star relative to the Milky Way galaxy. This will involve approximately 1% of the Milky Way population with all stars brighter than magnitude 20 in a broad photometric band that covers most of the visual range. Additionally, Gaia is expected to detect thousands to tens of thousands of Jupiter-sized exoplanets beyond the Solar System, 500,000 quasars and tens of thousands of new asteroids and comets within the Solar System.
In 2014, Nebraska and Oklahoma on Thursday filed the first major court challenge against Colorado’s law legalizing marijuana sales. The attorneys general of the two neighboring states said that Colorado’s shops selling state-regulated recreational marijuana were aiding in the trafficking of drugs into states where the drug remains illegal. “Marijuana flows from this gap into neighboring states,” the suit says, “draining their treasuries, and placing stress on their criminal justice systems.” [The New York Times]
In 2016, Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov is assassinated while at an art exhibition in Ankara. The assassin, Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, is shot and killed by Turkish guards.
In 2016, A vehicular attack in Berlin, Germany, kills and injures multiple people at a Christmas market.
