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418 - St. Boniface I becomes Pope.

1065 - Westminster Abbey is consecrated.

1308 - The reign of Emperor Hanazono, emperor of Japan, begins.

1612 - Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune when it was in conjunction with Jupiter, yet he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star because of its extremely slow motion along the ecliptic at that time. Neptune was not truly discovered until 1846, about 234 years after Galileo first sighted it with his telescope.

1832 - John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign.

1835 - Osceola led his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the U.S. Army.

1836 - South Australia and Adelaide are founded.

1836 - Spain recognizes independence of Mexico.

1846 - Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state.

1869 - William E. Semple of Mt. Vernon, Ohio patents chewing gum.

1879 - The Tay Bridge Disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses as a train passed over it, killing 75.

1895 - The Lumière brothers have their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines marking the debut of the cinema.

1897 - The play Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, premieres in Paris.

1902 - The first indoor professional American football game is played in New York City at Madison Square Garden.

1908 - An earthquake rocks Messina, Sicily killing over 75,000.

1912 - The first municipally owned streetcars take to the streets in San Francisco.

1945 - The U.S. Congress officially recognizes the Pledge of Allegiance.

1948 - The DC-3 airliner NC16002 disappears without trace fifty miles south of Miami, Florida.

1950 - The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's first National Park.

1968 - Israeli commando troops destroy 13 civilian aircraft at Beirut International Airport.

1974 - Senegalese marxist group Reenu-Rew founds the political movement And-Jëf at a clandestine congress.

1981 - The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born in Norfolk, Virginia.

1981 - The HBO pay cable television service expanded its schedule offering to 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

1989 - A magnitude 5.6 earthquake hits Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, killing 13 people.

1992 - NFL Hall Of Fame quarterback Joe Montana played in his final game as a San Francisco 49er in a victory over the Detroit Lions.

1995 - CompuServe sets a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups after being pressured by German prosecutors.

1999 - Saparmurat Niyazov is proclaimed President for Life in Turkmenistan.

2000 - U.S. retail giant Montgomery Ward announces it is going out of business after 128 years.

2005 - A U.S. immigration judge orders John Demjanjuk deported to the Ukraine for crimes against humanity committed during World War II.

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1164 - Emperor Rokujo of Japan (d. 1176)

1522 - Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands (d. 1583)

1619 - Antoine Furetière, French writer (d. 1688)

1655 - Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, First Lord of the British Admiralty (d. 1698)

1665 - George FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, British general (d. 1716)

1778 - Franciszek Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki, Polish politician (d. 1846)

1856 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1924)

1866 - Szymon Askenazy, Polish historian, diplomat and politician (d. 1935)

1879 - Billy Mitchell, American military aviation pioneer (d. 1936)

1882 - Arthur Eddington, British astronomer and physicist (d. 1944)

1888 - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, German film director (d. 1931)

1898 - Carl-Gustaf Rossby, Swedish meteorologist (b. 1957)

1899 - Eugeniusz Bodo, Polish actor (d. 1943)

1902 - Mortimer Adler, American philosopher (d. 2001)

1902 - Shen Congwen, Chinese writer (d. 1988)

1903 - Earl "Fatha" Hines, American musician (d. 1983)

1903 - John von Neumann, Hungarian-born mathematician (d. 1957)

1905 - Cliff Arquette, American actor and comedian (d. 1974)

1908 - Lew Ayres, American actor (d. 1996)

1922 - Stan Lee, American comic book writer

1924 - Milton Obote, President of Uganda (d. 2005)

1925 - Hildegard Knef, German actress, singer and writer (d. 2002)

1929 - Brian Redhead, British journalist and broadcaster (d. 1994)

1929 - Terry Sawchuk, Canadian hockey player (d. 1970)

1931 - Guy Debord, French writer and filmmaker (d. 1994)

1932 - Dhirubhai Ambani, Indian businessman (d. 2002)

1932 - Manuel Puig, Argentine writer (d. 1990)

1932 - Roy Hattersley, British politician

1933 - Nichelle Nichols, American actress and singer

1934 - Maggie Smith, British actress

1934 - Yujiro Ishihara, Japanese actor (d. 1987)

1937 - Ratan Tata, Indian industrialist

1938 - Charles Neville, American musician (Neville Brothers)

1940 - Don Francisco, Chilean television host

1943 - Richard Whiteley, British television presenter (d. 2005)

1944 - Kary Mullis, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate

1946 - Edgar Winter, American musician

1947 - Aurelio Rodríguez, Mexican Major League Baseball player (d. 2000)

1953 - Richard Clayderman, French pianist

1954 - Denzel Washington, American actor

1956 - Nigel Kennedy, British violinist

1960 - Raymond Bourque, Canadian hockey player

1962 - Rachel Z, American jazz pianist

1967 - Chris Ware, American cartoonist

1969 - Linus Torvalds, Finnish computer programmer

1971 - Frank Sepe, American bodybuilder and model

1971 - Benny Agbayani, Hawaiian baseball player

1972 - Patrick Rafter, Australian tennis player

1972 - Adam Vinatieri, American Football player

1978 - John Legend, American singer, songwriter, and pianist

1981 - Sienna Miller, British actress

1982 - Cedric Benson, American football player

1982 - Kevin Pereira, American television host

1989 - Mackenzie Rosman, American actress

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300 - Theonas, Patriarch of Alexandria

1367 - Ashikaga Yoshiakira, Japanese shogun (b. 1330)

1446 - Antipope Clement VIII

1503 - Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence (b. 1471)

1558 - Hermann Finck, German composer (b. 1527)

1622 - Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva and saint (b. 1567)

1663 - Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Italian mathematician and physicist (b. 1618)

1671 - Johann Friedrich Gronovius, German classical scholar (b. 1611)

1694 - Queen Mary II of England (b. 1662)

1703 - Mustafa II, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1664)

1706 - Pierre Bayle, French philosopher (b. 1647)

1708 - Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, French botanist (b. 1656)

1715 - William Carstares, Scottish minister (b. 1649)

1734 - Robert Roy MacGregor, Scottish folk hero (b. 1671)

1736 - Antonio Caldara, Italian composer (b. 1670)

1795 - Eugenio Espejo, Ecuadorian scientist (b. 1747)

1829 - Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, French scientist (b. 1744)

1859 - Thomas Macaulay, British poet, historian, and politician (b. 1800)

1872 - James Van Ness, Mayor of San Francisco (1855-1856) (b. 1808)

1877 - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Russian poet (b. 1821)

1900 - Alexandre Alberto da Rocha de Serpa Pinto, Portuguese explorer (b. 1846)

1916 - Eduard Strauss, Austrian composer (b. 1835)

1918 - Olavo Bilac, Brazilian poet (b. 1865)

1919 - Johannes Rydberg, Swedish physicist (b. 1854)

1924 - Léon Bakst, Russian artist (b. 1866)

1937 - Maurice Ravel, French composer (b. 1875)

1938 - Florence Lawrence, American actress (b. 1886)

1943 - Steve Evans, baseball player (b. 1885)

1945 - Theodore Dreiser, American author (b. 1871)

1947 - King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (b. 1869)

1949 - Jack Lovelock, New Zealand athlete (b. 1910)

1952 - Fletcher Henderson, American musician (b. 1897)

1963 - Paul Hindemith, German composer (b. 1895)

1967 - Katharine McCormick, American women's rights activist (b. 1875)

1976 - Katharine Byron, U.S. Congresswoman (b. 1903)

1981 - Allan Dwan, Canadian-born film director (b. 1885)

1983 - William Demarest, American actor (b. 1892)

1983 - Jimmy Demaret, American golfer (b. 1910)

1983 - Dennis Wilson, American musician (The Beach Boys) (b. 1944)

1984 - Sam Peckinpah, American film director (b. 1925)

1986 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian film director (b. 1932)

1989 - Hermann Oberth, German physicist (b. 1894)

1991 - Cassandra Harris, Australian actress (b. 1952)

1992 - Sal Maglie, baseball player (b. 1917)

1998 - Claudia Benton, Peruvian child psychologist (b. 1959)

1999 - Clayton Moore, American actor (b. 1914)

2001 - William X. Kienzle, American novelist (b. 1928)

2003 - Benjamin Hacker, U.S. admiral (b. 1935)

2004 - Jerry Orbach, American actor (b. 1935)

2004 - Susan Sontag, American writer and activist (b. 1933)

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Calendar of Saints - Feast of the Holy Innocents, also known as Childermas, commemorating the Massacre of the Innocents on order of king Herod the Great. In Spain and Latin American countries the festival is celebrated in a manner similar to April Fool's Day.

The third day of Christmas in Western Christianity.

If on a Monday, normally proclaimed as a bank holiday in Britain and other former British colonies as a substitute holiday in lieu of Christmas Day.

If on a Sunday, normally proclaimed as a bank holiday in Britain and other former British colonies as a substitute holiday in lieu of Boxing Day.

Proclamation Day in South Australia