Christmas Eve
Birthdays:
1971 ~ Ricky
Martin, Puerto Rican singer.
1962 ~ Kate
Spade, American fashion designer.
1957 ~ Hamid
Karzai, President of Afghanistan.
1955 ~ Scott Fischer (d. May 11, 1996), American
mountaineer and guide. He was best known
for his ascents of the world’s highest mountains. In 1996, he was leading a group of hikers up
Mt. Everest when a sudden blizzard arose.
He did not survive the storm. He
was the subject of the book, Into Thin Air: Death on Everest. He was 40 at the time of his death.
1946 ~ Jeff Sessions (né Jefferson
Beauregard Sessions, III), American politician and 84th United
States Attorney General. He assumed that
Office in February 2017 and served under the Trump administration.
1930 ~ Robert Joffrey (né Abdullah
Jaffa Bey Khan, d. Mar. 25, 1988), American choreographer and founder of the
Joffrey Ballet. He died at age 57.
1928 ~ Manfred Rommel (d. Nov.
7, 2013), German politician and Wehrmacht general’s son who made amends. His father was Field Marshall Erwin
Rommel. He died at age 84.
1927 ~ Mary
Higgins Clark, American mystery writer.
1925 ~ Yafa Yakoni (d. Jan. 1, 2012),
Israeli singer. She died 8 days after
her 86th birthday.
1923 ~ General George Patton, IV (d.
June 27, 2004), American general. He
served in Korea and Vietnam. He was the
son of World War II General George S. Patton, Jr. He died at age 80.
1922 ~ Ava Gardner (d. Jan. 25, 1990),
American actress. She died of pneumonia a
month after her 67th birthday.
1921 ~ William McGarvey “Bill” Dudley (d.
Feb. 4, 2010), American NFL halfback who was known as “Bullet Bill.” He died at age 88.
1910 ~ Max Mideinger (d. Mar. 8, 1980),
Swiss typeface designer best known for creating the Helvetica typeface in
1957. He died at age 69.
1907 ~ I.F. Stone, (né Isidor Feinstein
Stone, d. June 18, 1989), American journalist and writer. He died of myocardial infarction at age 81 in
Boston, Massachusetts.
1905 ~ Howard Hughes (d. Apr. 5, 1976),
American hermit and aviator. He died at
age 70.
1903 ~ Ava Helen Miller Pauling (d. Dec.
7, 1981), American humanitarian and social activist. She was also the wife of scientist Linus
Pauling. She died 17 days before her 78th
birthday.
1880 ~ Johnny Gruelle (d. Jan. 9, 1938),
American cartoonist, children’s author and creator of the Raggedy Ann and Andy
dolls. He died 15 days after his 57th
birthday of a heart attack.
1879 ~ Queen Alexandrine of Denmark (d. Dec.
28, 1952), Queen Consort to King Christian X.
She died 4 days after her 73rd birthday.
1869 ~ Edwin Stanton (b. Dec. 19, 1814),
25th US Attorney General. He
served in this position under President James Buchanan. He also served as the 27th
Secretary of the Navy under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. He died 5 days after his 55th
birthday.
1868 ~ Emanuel Lasker (d. Jan. 11, 1941),
German mathematician. He died of a
kidney infection 17 days after his 72nd birthday.
1845 ~ King George I of Greece (d. Mar.
18, 1913). He was assassinated at age
67.
1822 ~ Charles Hermite (d. Jan. 14, 1901),
French mathematician who studied number theory.
He died 3 weeks after his 78th birthday.
1818 ~ James Joule (d. Oct. 11, 1889),
British physicist. He is best known for
studying law of conservation of energy and the first law of
thermodynamics. He died at age 70.
1809 ~ Kit Carson (né Christopher Houston
Carson, d. May 23, 1868), American general, frontiersman, scout and Indian
agent. He died at age 58.
1747 ~ William Paterson (d. Sept. 9,
1806), Irish-born American Associate Justice of the United State Supreme Court. He was appointed to the High Court by
President George Washington. He served
on the High Court from March 1793 until his death at age 60 on this date 13
years later. Prior to serving on the
Supreme Court, he served as the 2nd Governor of New Jersey, from
October 1790 until March 1793. The town
of Paterson, New Jersey is named in his honor.
1597 ~ Honoré II, Prince of Monaco (d. Jan.
10, 1662). He was the first to be called
the Prince of Monaco. He died 16 days
after his 64th birthday.
1166 ~ King John of England (d. Oct. 19,
1216). He was also known as John
Lackland. He was the youngest of five
sons of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
He was never expected to become king, however, his brothers all died, so
he ascended to the throne. He is best
known for his association with the Magna
Carta. He was succeeded by his
9-year-old son, Henry, who would become King Henry III. King John died at age 49.
Events that Changed the World:
2016 ~ The
first night of Chanakkah.
1973 ~ The residents of Washington, D.C.,
were finally granted the legal authority to elect their own local government,
following the passage of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act.
1968 ~ Apollo
8 became the first manned crew to orbit the Moon.
1955 ~ The
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) began the annual tradition of
tracking Santa Clause.
1951 ~ Libya gained its independence from
Italy. In 1969, Colonel Mu’ammar
Muhammad al-Qadhafi led a revolution and became the head of the Libyan
government until he was ousted and killed in 2011.
1943 ~ General Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890
~ 1969) became the Supreme Allied Commander during World War II.
1914 ~ The World War I Christmas truce
began. It was a series of unofficial
ceasefires that occurred along the Western Front. British and German soldiers began to exchange
Christmas greetings on occasionally entered into the “no-man’s land” to mingle,
to exchange food and tokes and sing Christmas songs.
1906 ~
Reginald Fessenden (1866 ~ 1932), a radio pioneer, transmitted the first radio
broadcast. It consisted of a poetry
reading, a violin solo, and a speech.
1871 ~ Verdi’s opera, Aida, was
first performed in Cairo, Egypt.
1865 ~ The Ku Klux Klan was formed.
1851 ~ The United States Library of
Congress burned.
1818 ~ The first performance of Silent
Night was held at St. Nikolaus Church in Oberndorf, Austria.
1814 ~ The Treaty of Ghent was signed by
the United States and the United Kingdom, thereby ending the War of 1812.
1777 ~ Kiritimati, also known as
Christmas Island, was discovered by James Cook (1728 ~ 1779).
1294 ~ Pope Boniface VIII (1230 ~ 1303)
was elected Pope, replacing Pope Celestine V (1215 ~ 1296), who had resigned
after serving only a few months.
Good-byes:
2016 ~ Richard Adams (b. May 9, 1920),
British author best known for his novel Watership
Down. He died at age 96.
2012 ~ Charles Durning (b. Feb. 28,
1923), American actor. He died at age
89.
2012 ~ Jack Klugman (né Jacob Joachim
Klugman, b. Apr. 27, 1922), American actor.
He died at age 90.
2008 ~ Harold Pinter (b. Oct. 10, 1930),
British playwright and recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature. He died at age 78.
2008 ~ Samuel
Huntington (b. Apr. 18, 1927), American scholar who predicted a class of
cultures. He was best known for arguing
that religion and culture, particularly Christianity and Islam, would fuel the
conflicts of the 21st century.
He died at age 81.
1999 ~ William Jay “Bill” Bowerman (b. Feb.
19, 1911), American sports coach and businessman. He was a co-founder of Nike, Inc. He died at age 88.
1993 ~ Norman Vincent Peale (b. May 31,
1898), American clergyman and author. He
is best known for his book, The Power of Positive Thinking. He died at age 95.
1984 ~ Peter Lawford (né Peter Sydney
Ernest Alyen, b. Sept. 7, 1923), English-American actor. He was the former brother-in-law to President
John F. Kennedy during his marriage to the President’s sister, Patricia. He died at age 61 of cardiac arrest, complicated
by renal and liver failure.
1977 ~ Juan Velasco Alvarado (b. June 16,
1910), Peruvian general and President of Peru.
He ruled Peru as the President of the Revolutionary Government of the
Armed Forces of Peru from October 1968 through August 30, 1975. He died at age 67.
1972 ~ Charles Atlas (né Angelo
Siciliano, b. Oct. 30, 1893), Italian-born bodybuilder. He died at age 80.
1967 ~ Burt Baskin (b. Dec. 17, 1913),
American entrepreneur and co-founder of the Basking and Robbins ice cream
franchise. He died of a heart attack 7
days after his 54th birthday.
1962 ~ Wilhelm Ackermann (b. Mar. 29,
1896), German mathematician. He died at
age 66.
1914 ~ John Muir (b. Apr. 21, 1838),
Scottish-American environmentalist. He
was the founder of the Sierra Club. He
died of pneumonia at age 76.
1873 ~ Johns Hopkins (b. May 19, 1795),
American businessman, abolitionist and philanthropist. Johns Hopkins University was one of the
beneficiaries of his will. He died at
age 78.
1872 ~ William John Macquorn Rankine (b.
July 5, 1820), Scottish mathematician and engineer. He died at age 52.
1869 ~ Edwin
Stanton (b. Dec. 19, 1814), 25th US Attorney General. He served in this position under President
James Buchanan. He also served as the 27th
Secretary of the Navy under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. He died 5 days after his 55th birthday.
1863 ~ William Makepeace Thackerary (b.
July 18, 1811), British author. He is
best known for his satirical novel Vanity Fair. He died at age 52.
1660 ~ Mary, Princess Royal and Princess
of Orange (b. Nov. 4, 1631). She died of
smallpox at age 29.
1524 ~ Vasco
da Gama (b. 1469), Portuguese explorer.
The exact date of his birth is not known.
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