Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1775

A Continental naval fleet was organized in the rebellious American colonies under the command of Ezek Hopkins.

1807

Congress passed the Embargo Act, designed to force peace between Britain and France by cutting off all trade with Europe.

1864

During the Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman sent a message to President Lincoln from Georgia, saying, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah."

1894

The United States Golf Association (USGA) was founded.

1894

French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggered worldwide charges of anti-Semitism. Dreyfus was sent to Devil's Island but was later vindicated.

1895

German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen made the first X-ray.

1938

The first coelacanth to be identified was caught in the Bay of Chalumna off South Africa. The fish, thought extinct for 50 million years, was later named Latimeria-Chalumnae.

1941

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington for a wartime conference with President Roosevelt.

1944

During the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans demanded the surrender of American troops at Bastogne, Belgium; Brigadier Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe reportedly replied: ''Nuts!''

1956

The first gorilla was born in captivity, "Colo" in Columbus Ohio.

1961

James Davis became the first U.S. soldier to die in Vietnam.

1972

The Chilean Air Force finds 14 survivors two months after their plane crashed in the Andes.

1974

Terrorists bomb the home of British Conservative leader and former Prime Minister Edward Heath.

1984

New York City resident Bernhard Goetz shot four black youths on a Manhattan subway, claiming they were about to rob him.

1989

Romania's hard-line Communist ruler, Nicolae Ceausescu, was toppled in a popular uprising.

1989

Berlin's most famous landmark, the Brandenburg Gate, opens for the first time in nearly 30 years.

1990

Lech Walesa took the oath of office as Poland's first popularly elected president.

1991

The body of Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, an American hostage murdered by his captors, was found dumped along a highway in Lebanon.

2000

The American superstar marries British film maker Guy Ritchie at an exclusive ceremony in a Scottish castle hours after their son is christened.

2001

Richard C. Reid, a passenger on a flight from Paris to Miami, tried to ignite explosives in his shoes, but was subdued by flight attendants and fellow passengers.

2003

Guerrillas in Colombia release the Briton Mark Henderson and four Israelis who were kidnapped in September.

2008

An ash dike ruptured at a solid waste containment area for a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-fired powerplant in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion US gallons of coal fly ash slurry in the largest industrial spill in U.S. history.

2010

The repeal of the Don't ask, don't tell policy, the 17-year-old policy banning homosexuals serving openly in the United States military, is signed into law by President Barack Obama.

2018

A tsunami caused by an eruption of Anak Krakatau in Indonesia kills at least 430 people and injures almost a thousand more.

1858

Giacomo Puccini, Italian musician, opera composer.

1862

Connie Mack (McGillicuddy), American baseball star.

1945

Diane Sawyer, American television journalist.

1949

Maurice Gibb, English musician and a member of the Bee Gees.

1880

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), English Victorian novelist.

1943

Beatrix Potter, English author and artist who created the character Peter Rabbit.

1989

Samuel Beckett, Irish author and playwright, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 died in Paris at age 83.

2002

Joe Strummer, lead singer of the British punk band The Clash.

2018

Simcha Rotem, last survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (b. 1924)