Today in History
19 December
Lieutenant
Provo William Parry Wallis, R.N.
Robert Field
1888 Stanley's expedition reaches Fort Bodo, East-Africa
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19 December |
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1055 Seldjuken under Toghril Beg occupy Baghdad | |
| 1154 Henry II crowned as King of England; his great achievement was to strengthen the administration of the country and to establish the Exchequer. | ||
| 1551 Dutch west coast hit by hurricane | ||
| 1562 Battle at Dreux: Anne de Montmorency & huguenots under Cond‚ captured | ||
| 1564 The Battle of Dreux took place when Catholics defeated the Huguenots in the first French Religious War. | ||
| 1686 Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Defoe) | ||
| 1688 King James II's wife & son flee to France | ||
Lieutenant
Provo William Parry Wallis, R.N. |
1777 Washington settles his troops at Valley Forge, Pa for winter | |
| 1783 English govt of Pitt Jr forms | ||
| 1788 Chinese troops occupy capital Thang Long Vietnam | ||
| 1790 William Parry, England, Arctic explorer was born | ||
| 1793 In the French Revolutionary wars, French forces under General Dugommier and Napoleon Bonaparte recaptured the city of Toulon from the English. | ||
| 1823 Georgia passes 1st US state birth registration law | ||
| 1828 South Carolina declares right of states to nullify federal laws |
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| 1842 US recognizes independence of Hawaii | ||
| 1843 Charles Dickens publishes "A Christmas Carol," in England | ||
| 1854 Allen Wilson of Conn patents sewing machine to sew curving seams | ||
| 1864 Adolf Sandberger, composer was born | ||
| 1871 Albert L Jones (NYC), patents corrugated paper | ||
| 1884 Italy recognizes King Leopold II's Congo Free State | ||
| 1888 Stanley's expedition reaches Fort Bodo, East-Africa | ||
| 1889 Bishop Museum founded in Hawaii | ||
| 1903 Williamsburg suspension bridge opens between Brooklyn & Manhattan | ||
| 1907 Gas explosion at Jacobs Creek Pa, coal mine kills 239 | ||
| 1916 Suriname Bauxite Company forms in Paramaribo | ||
| 1916 The 10-month Battle of Verdun in France ended. Among the dead in the World War I battle: 543,000 French and 434,000 German troops. | ||
| 1928 1st autogiro (predecessor of helicopter) flight in US | ||
| 1931 Joseph A Lyons (C) becomes premier of Australia | ||
| 1932 British Broadcasting Corp begins transmitting overseas | ||
| 1934 Japan agress to fleet treaty of 1922 & 1930 | ||
| 1939 The German cruise liner Columbus was scuttled by its crew in the Atlantic after being followed by a U.S. cruiser; 577 survivors were picked up. |
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| 1941 Adolph Hitler took over as commander-in-chief of the army after sacking Field Marshal von Brauchitsch. | ||
| 1941 US Office of Censorship created to control info pertaining to WW II | ||
| 1943 Military coup in Bolivia | ||
| 1945 Austrian Republic re-establishes | ||
| 1946 War breaks out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi | ||
| 1949 Luxury passenger ship Aquitania demolished in Garelock Scotland | ||
| 1950 Gen Eisenhower named NATO commander | ||
| 1950 Tibet's Dalai Lama flees Chinese invasion | ||
| 1957 An agreement was signed to start a regular air service between Moscow and London. | ||
| 1960 Fire aboard USS Constellation, under construction at Bkln (50 die) | 1888 Stanley's expedition reaches Fort Bodo, East-Africa |
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| 1961 British govt begins decimal coin system | ||
| 1961 Indonesian President Sukarno proclaims general mobilization | ||
| 1962 Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia & Nyasaland | ||
| 1963 Zanzibar becomes independent from UK | ||
| 1965 Charles de Gaulle won 54.5 percent of the vote in the French presidential election, defeating Francois Mitterrand. | ||
| 1972 Apollo 17 (last of Apollo Moon landing series) returns to Earth | ||
| 1973 Grenada adopts constitution | ||
| 1976 Pres Brezhnev receives his 5th Lenin order | ||
| 1978 Indira Gandhi ambushed in India | ||
| 1980 Anguilla becomes a British dependency separate from St Kitts | ||
| 1980 Iran requests $24 billion in US guarantees to free hostages | ||
| 1981 Eight crewmen on the Penlee lifeboat drowned as they battled in vain to save the crew of the coaster Union Star off Cornwall, England. | ||
| 1984 China PR Premier Zhao Ziyang & Margaret Thatcher sign Hong Kong Treaty | ||
| 1984 Britain and China signed an agreement for the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 | ||
| 1989 American Airlines purchases Eastern Airline's Latin American route | ||
| 1991 Boris Yeltsin takes control of Kremlin | ||
| 1992 South African President F.W. de Klerk said he had sacked or suspended 23 military officers, including two generals, for illegal and unauthorized activities and malpractices. | ||
| 1993 Two years after he was charged, a Pakistani court acquitted Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, of kidnapping. | ||
| 1995 Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky and his government, threatened by a looming budget row, tendered their resignations to President Thomas Klestil |