On this day in History - Dec. 19

• 401 - St. Anastasius I, Pope (309-401), dies
• 1154 -Henrique II is crowned King of England.
• 1732 - Benjamin Franklin under the name of Richard Saunders began publishing Poor Richard's Almanac.
• 1749 - Francesco Antonio Bonporti, composer, dies at 76
• 1776 -Thomas Paine published his first American Crisis essay, in which he wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls."
• 1777 - George Washington's army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
• 1790 - William Edward Parry, was born, British naval officer, explorer - Born at Bath, England [d. 1885]
• 1795 - 1st state appropriation of money for road building, Kentucky
• 1813 - Thomas Andrews, was born, chemist (d. 1885)
• 1842 - United States recognizes the independence of Hawaii
• 1843 - Charles Dickens published "A Christmas Carol" .
• 1861 - The Battle of Black Water took place.
• 1894 -Yoshida Isoya, was born in Tokyo Japan, Architect (modern sukiya style)
• 1897 - El presidente estadounidense, William MacKinley, anuncia la intervención de su país en la guerra de Cuba contra España.
• 1901 -Vitorino Nemésio was born in Praia da Vitória, Ilha Terceira, Açores, Portuguese teacher and writer [d. 20-Feb-1978].
• 1902 - Sir Ralph Richardson , was born , actor
• 1906 - Leonid Brezhnev was born, political leader - 1st Secretary of USSR (1964-82)
• 1907 - Gas explosion at Jacobs Creek Pa, coal mine kills 239.
• 1910 - Jean Genet was born, playwright.
• 1912 - William H. Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum, that killed over 1,000 people on June 15, 1904, the worst disaster in New York City before 9/11, was pardoned after 3 1/2 years in Sing Sing prison by President Taft.
• 1915 - Edith Piaf (Edith Giovanna Gassion) was born, cabaret singer, actress [d. 1963]
• 1915 -Alvis Alzheimer, German neurologist (Alzheimer Disease), dies at 51
• 1933 - Cicely Tyson was born ,actress 1944 - Richard Leakey was born; Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and government official.
• 1845 - Austria becomes a republic for the second time, the first having been interupted by the Nazi invasion of Austria in the mid 1930s.
• 1940 - Tomás Carrasquilla, fallecimiento de; escritor colombiano.
• 1941 - II Guerra Mundial, Hitler takes complete command of German Army
• 1943- Military coup in Bolivia.
• 1946 - Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi
• 1946 - Marianne Faithfull, was born in Hampstead England, singer (Money, As Tears Go By)
• 1950 - Gen Eisenhower named NATO commander
• 1950 - Tibet's Dalai Lama flees Chinese invasion
• 1953 - Robert A Millikan, US physicist (Nobel 1923), dies at 85
• 1960 - Daryl Hannah, was born in Chicago IL, actress (Splash). see photo
• 1961 - British government begins decimal coin system
• 1961 - Indonesian President Sukarno proclaims general mobilization
• 1963 - Zanzibar received its independence from the United Kingdom to become a constitutional monarchy under the sultan.
• 1964 - Arvidas Sabonis, was born, in Kaunas, Lithuania. basketball player.
• 1965 - French, Charles de Gaulle is re-elected presidente (Mitterrand gets 45%).
• 1966 - Alberto Tomba, nasceu neste dia, esquiador italiano.
• 1967 - Harold Holt, dies ; seventeenth Prime Minister of Australia (b.1908)
• 1969 -Ugandan premier Apollo Milton Obote is shot in the head by a gunman.
• 1972 - Apollo 17, the last manned lunar flight, returns to Earth.
• 1972 - Alyssa Milano, was born in Brooklin NY, actress (see wallpaper)
• 1973 - Grenada adopts constitution
• 1974 - The Altair 8800, the first personal computer, goes on sale
• 1977 - Maria Joana Parizotto, nasceu neste dia, Miss Universe-Brazil (1996).
• 1978 - John Wayne Gacy is arrested for the killings of 33 boys and young men
• 1979 - Kramer vs. Kramer opens in theaters, starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.
• 1980 - Anguilla is made a dependency of the United Kingdom separate from St. Kitt's
• 1980 - Marla Sokoloff, was born, actress (Full House, The Practice)
• 1984 - The United Kingdom and People's Republic of China sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which handed Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
• 1982 -South Africa's only nuclear power plant, Koeberg, is bombed by the MK (Umkhonto we Sizwe, The Spear of the Nation) causing extensive damage.
• 1984 -Britain and China signed an accord returning Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997.
• 1986 USSR frees dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile
• 1987 - Gari Kasparov becomes world chess champ
• 1990 - Fútbol, Emilio Butragueño se convierte en el máximo goleador de la historia de la selección española, con 26 tantos (goals)
• 1990 - Xavier Benguerel, ( Daniel Rovira) Spanish writer dies
• 1991 - Boris Yeltsin takes control of Kremlin
• 1996 - Marcello Mastroianni, Italian actor (b. 1924)
• 1997 - El Gobierno irlandés libera a nueve presos del IRA, en un gesto de gracia del Gobierno de Dublín. Este indulto colectivo se interpreta como una muestra de apoyo al proceso de paz.
• 1997 - A Silkair Boeing 737-300 crashes into the Musi River, in Sumatra, Indonesia killing 104
• 1998 -President Bill Clinton impeached on two counts by the House of Representatives.
• 1998 - The U.S. House of Representatives pass articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.
• 1999 - China recupera el enclave de Macao tras 442 años en manos de Portugal, que de esta forma pierde su última colonia.
• 2001 - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the first Lord of the Rings movie to open in theaters.
• 2001 - A new world-record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 mb (32.06 inches Hg) is set at Tosontsengel, Hövsgöl Aymag, Mongolia
• 2001 - President Fernando de La Rua declares a state of siege in Argentina as riots and looting worsens in response to government austerity measures and worsening poverty.
• 2003 -Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya announced that his country would discontinue development of weapons of mass destruction.