December 22

Events

• 1775 - The United States Navy is formed
• 1807 - The Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries, is passed by the United States Congress, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson
• 1809 - The Non-Intercourse Act, lifting the Embargo Act except for the United Kingdom and France, passes the United States Congress
• 1849 - The execution of Fyodor Dostoevsky is canceled at the last second
• 1864 - Savannah, Georgia falls to General William Tecumseh Sherman
• 1894 - The Dreyfus affair begins in France when Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted of treason.
• 1937 - The Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic
• 1944 - German troops demand the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium. See Battle of the Bulge
• 1964 - Comedian Lenny Bruce is convicted of obscenity
• 1974 - Grande Comore, Anjouan and Moheli vote to become the independent nation of Comoros. Mayotte remains under French administration.
• 1989 - After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceauşescu's Communist dictatorship.
• 1990 - Lech Walesa sworn in as President of Poland
• 2001 - Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes.

Births

• 1639 - Jean Racine, dramatist (other sources report december 21st as his birth date) (d. 1699)
• 1723 - Karl Friedrich Abel, German baroque composer (d. 1787)
• 1858 - Giacomo Puccini, composer (d. 1924)
• 1862 - Connie Mack, baseball executive (d. 1956)
• 1866 - Käthe Paulus, Germany's first female parachutist (d. 1935)
• 1869 - Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet (d. 1935)
• 1874 - Franz Schmidt, composer (d. 1939)
• 1876 - Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, poet and editor (d. 1944)
• 1887 - Srinivasa Aaiyangar Ramanujan, Indian mathematician (d. 1920)
• 1888 - J. Arthur Rank, producer (d. 1972)
• 1899 - Gustav Gründgens, actor and film director (d. 1963)
• 1905 - Pierre Brasseur, actor (d. 1972)
• 1905 - Kenneth Rexroth, American poet (d. 1982)
• 1907 - Dame Peggy Ashcroft, actress (d. 1991)
• 1907 - Doris Miles Disney, writer
• 1912 - Lady Bird Johnson, First Lady of the United States
• 1917 - Gene Rayburn, game show host (d. 1999).
• 1922 - Barbara Billingsley, actress
• 1922 - Ruth Roman, actress (d. 1999)
• 1945 - Diane Sawyer, journalist
• 1946 - Rick Nielsen, musician (Cheap Trick)
• 1948 - Lynne Thigpen, actress (d. 2003)
• 1949 - Robin Gibb, musician (The Bee Gees)
• 1949 - Maurice Gibb, musician (The Bee Gees) (d. 2003)
• 1951 - Charles DeLint, writer
• 1951 - Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster
• 1962 - Ralph Fiennes, actor
• 1969 - Myriam Bédard, biathlon athlete
• 1980 - Phil Johnson, philanthropist, musician
• 2001 - Cc the cat, first cloned pet

Deaths

• 1828 - William Hyde Wollaston, noted English chemist (b. 1766)
• 1880 - George Eliot, writer (b. 1819)
• 1884 - John Chisum, cattle baron
• 1902 - Richard von Krafft-Ebing, sexologist (b. 1840)
• 1940 - Nathanael West, writer (b. 1903)
• 1943 - Beatrix Potter, writer (b. 1866)
• 1969 - Joseph von Sternberg, director
• 1979 - Darryl F. Zanuck, producer (b. 1902)
• 1980 - Karl Dönitz, Nazi politician (b. 1891)
• 1989 - Samuel Beckett, writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 1969 (b. 1906)
• 1995 - Butterfly McQueen, actress
• 2002 - Joe Strummer, musician (b. 1952)
• 2003 - Dave Dudley, singer (b. 1928)

Holidays and observances

• The winter solstice, sometimes known as Yule, occurs on or very close to this date. It is an important festival in the Chinese calendar. In the Southern Hemisphere the summer solstice occurs around this time.

December 21 - December 23 - November 22 - January 22 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Referenced By