On this day in History - Dec. 21

• 69 - Vespasian becomes the fourth Roman Emperor in the Year of the four emperors.
• 1117 - Thomas Becket (d. 1170), archbishop of Canterbury, was born. He became a close friend to Henry II of England, who later ordered his martyrdom.
• 1375 - Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian poet (Vita di Dante), died at his home in Certaldo (b. 1313).
• 1401 - Masaccio 'Florentine' painter, was born.
• 1620 - 103 Mayflower pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock Mass. after a 63 day voyage
• 1804 - Benjamin Disraeli, (d.1881), Prime Minister of Great Britain (1868, 1874-80), was born. He instituted reforms in housing, public health and factory regulations.
• 1805 -Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage morre em Lisboa, poeta português (n. 1765)
• 1846 - A primeira cirurgia com o uso de anestesia é realizada na Grã-Bretanha no University College por Robert Liston.
• 1866 - Indians led by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse killed Captain William J. Fetterman and 79 other men - Fetterman Massacre or Battle of a Hundred Slain .
• 1879 - Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, aka Joseph Stalin, was born. Joseph Stalin, Communist leader of the Soviet Union .
• 1880 - Isle of Man becomes first political entity that allows women to vote.
• 1889 - Com o objetivo de eliminar resíduos do regime monárquico, a família imperial é banida de todo território brasileiro.
• 1891 - The first basketball game, invented at Springfield College in Massachusetts by James E. Naismith, was played.
• 1898 - Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium.
• 1898 - In Germany Emil and Joseph Berliner founded Deutsche Grammophon, dedicated to manufacturing the gramophone record and player invented by Emil.
• 1901 - Mulheres votam pela primeira vez numa eleição na Noruega.
• 1910 - 2.5 million plague victims were reported in the An-Hul province of China.
• 1910 - Explosion in coal mine in Hulton, England killed 344 mine workers.
• 1913 - The first crossword puzzle was printed in the New York World.
• 1917 - Andre Eglevsky, ballet dancer and choreographer (Limelight), was born in Moscow (d. 1977)
• 1918 - Donald Regan, White House staffer and US Secretary of Treasury (1981-85), was born.
• 1918 - Kurt Waldheim, 4th Secretary General of the United Nations, was born.
• 1923 - Nepal changes from British protectorate to independent state
• 1932 - Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made their 1st movie together, “Flying Down to Rio.”
• 1933 - Dried human blood serum was 1st prepared at the Univ. of Pennsylvania.
• 1937 - Jane Fonda, actress (Barbarella, Klute), physical fitness fanatic, Vietnam Protestor, was born in NYC.
• 1937 - “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” ( Walt Disney) premiered as the 1st feature-length color & sound cartoon.
• 1937 - Frank Kellog dies (80), US foreign minister (Nobel Peace Prize 1929.
• 1940 - Frank Zappa, was born in Baltimore (d. 1993) ; musician, rocker (Mothers of Invention, Catholic Girls).
• 1940 - F. Scott Fitzgerald,F. Scott Fitzgerald (44), author (Zelda, The Great Gatsby), died of a heart attack.
• 1945 - Gen. George S. Patton, George S. Patton died at the age of 60 in Heidelberg, Germany, of injuries from a car accident.
• 1946 -Frank Capra's : "It's a Wonderful Life," premiered.
• 1946 - An earthquake and tidal wave killed 1,086 in Japan.
• 1947 - Paco de Lucia, musician , was born.
• 1948 - The state of Eire (formerly the Irish Free State) declared its independence.
• 1948 - Seishiro Itagaki, Japanese General and minister of War, was hanged.
• 1948 - Samuel L. Jackson, was born , American actor.
• 1951 - Joe DiMaggio announced his retirement, baseball player [Hall of fame 1955]
• 1951 - Inauguração da Ponte Marechal Carmona, sobre o Tejo, em Vila Franca de Xira (Portugal).
• 1954 - Dr. Sam Sheppard's wife, Marilyn, was murdered. Sheppard was accused of the crime.
• 1954 - Chris Evert, was born , tennis player
• 1958 - Charles de Gaulle is elected as the first President of the Fifth Republic .
• 1959 - Florence Griffith Joyner ,track and field runner (Olympic-3 gold-1988), was born in LA, California.
• 1960 - Rei Saud assume o governo da Arábia Saudita após a renúncia do primeiro-ministro, o Príncipe Faisal.
• 1962 - Argentina: creación de la AAcademia Porteña del Lunfardo.
• 1962 - A US and Cuba accord released Bay of Pigs captives.
• 1962 - Rondane National Park, the first national park in Norway, was established.
• 1964 - Britain’s House of Commons voted to ban the death penalty. Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty. The vote was in part due to the country’s unease over the 1953 Bentley hanging
• 1965 - Four pacifists were indicted in New York for burning draft cards.
• 1966 - USSR launched Luna 13. It soft-landed on the Moon’s Oceanus Procellarum.
• 1967 -Louis Washkansky, the world's first heart transplant patient dies. The heart was obtained from a 24-year-old motor-accident victim, Denise Darvall, and was transplanted by Dr Christiaan Barnard only 18 days 1968 -David Crosby, Stephen Stills & Graham Nash premiered together in Calif.
• 1968 - Apollo 8 with astronauts Borman, Lovell & Anders was launched on the 1st mission to orbit the moon.
• 1969 -Diana Ross made her final TV appearance as a Supreme on the Ed Sullivan Show.
• 1970 -Elvis Presley met with president Richard Nixon in the White House.
• 1971 - UN Security Council chooses Kurt Waldheim as 4th secretary general (on his 53rd birthday)
• 1973 - Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, US and USSR leaders met in Geneva.
• 1975 - In Austria there was a terrorist kidnapping of Saudi oil minister Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani and other ministers at the OPEC gathering in Vienna, Austria. Three people were killed and 11 taken hostage. The oil ministers were taken to North Africa in a hijacked plane in a $1 billion ransom drama. Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, later admitted to planning the attack. In 2001 Germany sentenced Hans-Joachim Klein to 9 years for his role in the attack.
• 1976 - The Liberian-registered tanker Argo Merchant ran aground near Nantucket Island, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the North Atlantic.
• 1980 - Falece na cidade do Rio de Janeiro o dramaturgo e escritor Nelson Rodrigues de peças teatrais como “Vestido de noiva”, "Dorotéia" e "O Casamento".
• 1986 - Presidente José Sarney anuncia o Plano Cruzado II.
• 1986 - Over 50,000 students demonstrate in Shanghai's Peoples Square, for democracy and freedom in China .
• 1988 - A terrorist bomb exploded aboard a Pan Am Boeing 747 (Flight 103) over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. Libya was accused of responsibility for the bombing,
• 1988 - Drexel pleaded guilty to security felonies and paid a $650 million fine.
• 1988 - Bob Steele(60), [Robert Bradbury], radio broadcaster, died after short illness.
• 1988 - After a record 365 days in space, two Russian and one French cosmonaut return to Earth
• 1989 - Kentuckian Larry Mahoney was convicted on 27 counts of manslaughter for a 1988 collision with a church bus. It was the nation's most deadly drunken-driving accident.
• 1989 - Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu delivered what turned out to be his final public speech. The hard-line Communist ruler was visibly stunned as his listeners began booing. Ceausescu fled from power and was executed four days later.
• 1990 - In Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis participated in an evacuation drill to test war readiness.
• 1991 - Cable TV and sports magnate Ted Turner married actress Jane Fonda near Capps, Fla. They divorced in May 2001.
• 1991 - In Bosnia-Herzegovina a Serb minority held an unofficial referendum opposing separation from Yugoslavia. Local Serb leaders proclaimed a new republic separate from Bosnia.
• 1991 - Eleven of the former Soviet republics form the Commonwealth of Independent States.
• 1991 - Primeras elecciones legislativas en Taiwán en 40 años, con amplia victoria del gubernamental Kuomitang (Partido Nacionalista), que reformará la Constitución.
• 1992 - A Dutch DC-10 burst into fire at landing on Faro Portugal and 56 died.
• 1992 - Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic won re-election. He defeated the American entrepreneur Milan Panic in elections that were “decidedly unfair.”
• 1993 - Boris Nikolaievich Yeltsin, político e ingeniero ruso, firma un decreto por el que desaparece el legendario servicio del KGB [Komisariat Gosudarstvennoye Bezopasnosti] crea en su lugar el Servicio Federal de Contraespionaje de Rusia (SFCR )
• 1994 - Firma de un histórico acuerdo de paz en Liberia, que incluye un alto el fuego, creación de instituciones de transición y celebración de elecciones libres.
• 1994 - A firebomb on the #4 train at Fulton St. New York City subway injured 48 people; unemployed computer programmer Edward Leary was later convicted of attempted murder.
• 1995 - A train collision outside Cairo, Egypt, claimed 75 lives.
• 1995 - The city of Bethlehem passed from Israeli to Palestinian control.
• 1996 - Dr. David Ho, AIDS researcher, was named ‘Man of the Year” by Time Magazine.
• 1996 - China’s rulers named 60 pro-Beijing stalwarts to a new interim legislature of Hong Kong to replace the panel elected in 1995.
• 1997 - It was reported that Andrew S. Grove, chairman and CEO of Intel Corp., was named time magazine’s “Man of the Year.”
• 1997 - Johnny Coles (71), jazz trumpeter, died in Philadelphia. His records included “The Warm Sound of Johnny Coles” and “Little Johnny C.”
• 1997 - In Serbia Milan Milutinovic of the ruling Socialists claimed victory in the runoff election against Vojislav Seselj, but it wasn’t clear if the turnout exceeded 50%.
• 1998 - In China 3 dissidents were sentenced to prison terms of 11-13 years. Xu Wenli received 13 years, Wang Youcai 11 years and Qin Yongmin 12 years for subversion, i.e. trying to organize an opposition party.
• 1998 - Israel's parliament voted 81-30 for early elections, signaling the demise of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ailing hard-line government. Peace policies were rejected 56-48.
• 1998 - In Turkey Prime Minister-designate Bulent Ecevit abandoned efforts to form a new government.
• 1999 - In Guatemala City a Cubana de Aviacion DC-10 skidded and crashed on landing. At least 26 people were killed.
• 1999 - In Sri Lanka presidential elections were held. At least 7 people were killed in poll violence. Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga won 51% of the vote. Ranil Wickremesinghe, the nearest rival, won 43%.
• 1999 - The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts near Calatayud (Zaragoza) a Madrid-bound van driven by ETA and loaded with 950 kg of explosives. The next day, another van loaded with 750 kg is found not far from there. The incident is known as "la caravana de la muerte" (the caravan of death).
• 2000 - El que fuera miembro de la directiva de ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) en los años ochenta, Santiago Arrózpide Sarasola, "Santi Potros", es entregado por las autoridades francesas a la justicia española.
• 2000 - President-elect Bush resigned as governor of Texas; Lt. Gov. Rick Perry was sworn in to replace him.
• 2000 - Final US election results showed Al Gore with 50,996,116 votes vs. Gov. Bush with 50,456,169. Gore led by over 500,000 votes but lost to bush by one electoral college vote.
  2000 - Christine Todd Whitman, governor of New Jersey, agreed to serve as director of the EPA for Pres.-elect Bush.
• 2000 - A UN report accused Jonas Savimbi and UNITA rebels in Angola of trading diamonds for arms.
• 2000 - In Israel the legislature blocked an attempt by Shimon Peres to run for prime minister. The Feb 6 election pits Ariel Sharon against Ehud Barak.
• 2000 - In Sri Lanka Tamil rebels announced a unilateral month-long cease-fire with hopes of resuming peace talks. Sri Lanka launched a new offensive just hours following the rebel cease-fire.
• 2001 - US warplanes attacked a convoy of trucks heading for the Pakistan border and 65 people were reported killed. 12 were killed in the convoy and 15 in nearby villages. The convoy was said to be heading for Kabul.
• 2001 - In Kabul, Afghanistan, power was officially transferred from Pres. Rabbani to Hamid Karzai.
• 2001 - In Argentina Ramon Puerta head of the Senate, became president following an extraordinary session of both houses.
• 2001 - In Bulgaria at least 7 young people were killed when they rushed the entrance of a Sofia downtown disco.