On this day - December 22
2004-12-22 07:19
Today is Tuesday, December 22, the 356th day of 2009. There are 9 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1636 - Archduke Ferdinand, son of the Emperor, is elected leader of the Romans.
1790 - Russian troops capture Ismail, Russia from the Turks.
1793 - Napoleon Bonaparte, aged 24, is promoted to brigadier general in recognition of his decisive part in the capture of Toulon from British forces.
1807 - US Congress passes the Embargo Act, designed to force peace between Britain and France by cutting off all trade with Europe.
1905 - Insurrection of Moscow workers; Revolution in Persia begins.
1922 - The Royal Mint is established in Pretoria.
1929 - Round table conference opens between British Viceroy and Indian party leaders on dominion status for India.
1941 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Washington for a wartime conference with US President Franklin Roosevelt.
1942 - US heavy bombers raid Japanese-occupied Rangoon, Burma - now Myanmar, in World War 2.
1944 - During the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans demand the surrender of American troops at Bastogne, Belgium, and Brigadier Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe reportedly replies, "Nuts!"
1956 - The last Anglo-French forces leave Port Said, Egypt, following the Suez War.
1963 - Greek liner Laconia catches fire and sinks in North Atlantic; 150 people die.
1975 - Pro-Palestinian terrorists end 20-hour siege of Vienna headquarters of OPEC, take hostages and airliner provided by Austria, and begin flight to several Middle East capitals.
1984 - New York City resident Bernhard Goetz shoots four black youths on a Manhattan subway, claiming they were about to rob him.
1985 - Winnie Mandela, defying expulsion order, is arrested by police who drag her from her home in Soweto, South Africa.
1987 - The US Congress enacts the Rangel Amendment, repealing tax credits for US companies in South Africa.
1987 - A unity accord is signed between the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu), led by Robert Mugabe, and the Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu), led by Joshua Nkomo.
1988 - The foreign ministers of Angola, Cuba and South Africa sign a treaty at a United Nations ceremony in New York paving the way for the independence of Namibia and the withdrawal of foreign troops from Namibia and Angola.
1988 - South Africa signs accord at United Nations granting independence to Africa's last colony, which will become black-ruled nation of Namibia; rubber tapper and renowned rain forest defender Chico Mendes is murdered by cattle ranchers in the western Amazon of Brazil.
1989 - Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu is toppled in an uprising. He and his wife Elena flee Bucharest, Romania.
1990 - Lech Walesa is sworn in as Poland's first popularly elected president.
1991 - Twenty-one US sailors drown when an Israeli ferry taking them from shore capsizes; the body of Lt Col William R Higgins, an American hostage murdered by his captors, is found dumped along a highway in Lebanon.
1992 - A Libyan Boeing 727 on a domestic flight crashes, killing all 157 people aboard.
1993 - Alina Fernandez Revuelta, daughter of Cuban President Fidel Castro, leaves Cuba and is granted political asylum in the United States.
1994 - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi resigns over a bribery scandal after seven months at head of conservative coalition.
1995 - As thousands cheer, Yasser Arafat's wife lights the Christmas tree in Manger Square, ushering in Bethlehem's first Christmas under Palestinian rule.
1996 - In a "Christmas gesture," Tupac Amaru rebels free 225 hostages from the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru, but keep 140.
1997 - Hong Kong authorities decide to slaughter all chickens brought from mainland China, after three people die of what is thought to be a strain of influenza transferred from the fowl.
1998 - Israel's Parliament votes overwhelmingly for early elections, signaling the demise of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ailing hard-line government and effectively freezing the already-troubled peace process with the Palestinians.
1999 - A Korean Air 747 cargo plane crashes shortly after takeoff from Stansted Airport north of London, setting off a fire and killing four people aboard. It is the second fatal accident for Korean Air in the year.
2000 - Three armed robbers storm into Stockholm's waterfront National Museum and make off with a Rembrandt self-portrait and two masterpieces by Renoir and flee by boat.
2001 - Hamid Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun who leads one of the largest tribes in southern Afghanistan, is sworn in as chairman of a six-month interim government; passengers and crew aboard an American Airlines jet en route to Miami, Florida subdue Briton Richard Reid as he tries to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes.
2002 - North Korea confirm it removed and disabled monitoring devices that had been placed at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor to ensure compliance with a 1994 international agreement.
2003 - The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts pays the 542 plaintiffs who agreed to a sexual abuse settlement with the archdiocese. The archdiocese will sell church property to fund the part of the $85 million settlement not covered by insurers.
2004 - Saudi Arabia announces it is withdrawing its ambassador to Libya in what the kingdom called a measured response to reports Tripoli had plotted to assassinate its crown prince.
2005 - An Istanbul court separately fines an author and a journalist for insulting the state, the latest convictions in Turkey under a law that European Union officials say limits freedom of expression and must be changed.
2006 - The Roman Catholic Church denies a religious funeral for paralyzed Italian author Piergiorgio Welby, who died after a doctor disconnected his respirator to respect his public wish to "end his life." The Vatican calls the controversial case an apparent suicide.
2007 - Guatemalan congressman-elect Marco Antonio Xicay of the conservative Patriotic Party is shot to death by unidentified attackers outside a popular resort in the country.
2008 - Thailand's revered monarch urges the new government to make peace its priority, breaking months of silence about the political turmoil that shut down Bangkok's airports and sparked deadly violence in the streets.
Today's Birthdays:
Jean Racine, French dramatist (1639-1699); Thomas Higginson, U.S. abolitionist (1823-1911); Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer (1858-1924); Dame Peggy Ashcroft, English actress (1907-1991); Barbara Billingsley, U.S. actress (1922--); Robin and Maurice Gibb, English-born pop singers (1949--); Vanessa Paradis, French singer and model (1972--).
Thought For Today:
Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor - attributed to Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533-1603).
- SAPA