On December 8th...

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1542 Mary, Queen of Scots, was born.

1626 Poet John Davies died.

1643 English statesman John Pym died.

1659 Fray Garcia de San Francisco founded Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

1765 Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, was born.

1776 George Washington's army retreated from New Jersey across the Delaware River.

1813 Ludwig von Beethoven's 7th Symphony in A premiered.

1831 James Hoban, architect of the White House, died.

1854 Pope Pius IX proclaimed Immaculate Conception, making Mary free of Original Sin.
1854 Inventor George Cayley died.

1861 General Motors founder William C. Durant was born.
1861 Pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès was born.

1863 More than 2,000 people were killed when fire destroyed the Church de la Campana in Santiago, Chile.
1863 President Abraham Lincoln announced his plan for Reconstruction of the South.

1864 Mathematician George Boole died.

1865 Composer Jan Sibelius was born.

1874 The Jesse James gang took a train at Muncie, Kansas.

1886 The American Federation of Labor was organized.

1894 Author James Thurber was born.

1907 King Oscar II Frederick of Sweden/Norway died.

1915 The poem "In Flanders Fields," by John McCrae, was first published.

1923 Germany and the United States signed a friendship treaty.

1925 Entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. was born.

1927 Stearman delivered its first Wichita-built airplane to Varney Airlines.

1930 Actor Maximilian Schnell was born.

1931 Coaxial cable was patented.

1933 Comedian Flip Wilson was born.

1936 Anastasio Somoza Garcia was elected President of Nicaragua.
1936 Actor David Carradine was born.

1939 Flute virtuoso James Galway was born.

1940 The Chicago Bears defeated the Washington Redskins 73-0 in the most lopsided NFL Championship game ever.

1941 The United States and Great Britain declared war on Japan.

1943 Singer Jim Morrison was born.

1946 The U. S. Army's XS-1 rocket plane made its first powered flight.

1947 Musician Gregg Allman was born.

1948 Jordan annexed Arabic Palestine.

1949 The Chinese Nationalist government moved from the mainland to Formosa.

1952 Isaak Ben-Zwi was elected President of Israel.
1952 "I Love Lucy" became the first television series to feature a pregnancy.

1953 U. S. President Dwight Eisenhower gave his "Atoms for Peace" speech at the United Nations.
1953 Actress Kim Basinger was born.

1957 Guitarist Phil Collen was born.

1958 Baseball player Tris Speaker died.

1961 Larry Costello scored 32 consecutive points without a miss to set a new NBA record.

1962 A revolt for independence broke out in the British Protectorate of Brunei.
1962 Workers at all nine major newspapers in New York City, New York, went on strike.

1963 Pan Am Flight 214 crashed outside Elkton, Maryland, killing 81 persons.
1963 Frank Sinatra, Jr., was kidnapped.

1964 Actress Teri Hatcher was born.

1965 Nikolai Podgorny became President of the U. S. S. R.

1966 The United States and the Soviet Union signed a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons in outer space.
1966 Singer Sinead O'Connor was born.

1967 The Beatles released Magical Mystery Tour.
1967 Astronaut Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., was killed when his F-104A Starfighter crashed during a training mission.
1967 Singer John Mills, Sr., died.

1969 Olympic Airways DC-6B crashed into Mount Pan, near Athens, Greece, during a storm, killing all 90 persons aboard.

1972 A United Airlines passenger jet crashed at Chicago, Illinois', Midway Airport, killing 45 persons.

1974 Greek voters rejected a referendum to restore the monarchy.

1975 Auto racer Kevin Harvick was born.

1978 Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir died.

1980 Former Beatle John Lennon was shot and killed outside his New York City apartment building.

1982 Norman Mayer held the Washington Monument hostage by claiming he had a bomb.
1982 Singer Marty Robbins died.

1983 Keith Holyoake, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, died.
1983 Singer-actor Slim Pickens died.

1984 Singer Nicki Minaj was born.

1987 U. S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed a treaty eliminating medium-range nuclear missiles.
1987 Philadelphia Flyers' Ron Hextall became the first goalie in the NHL to score a goal.

1988 Actress Anne Seymour died.

1991 Russia, Belorussia, and Ukraine formed the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1994 Fire in a cinema in Karamay, China, killed 310 persons.

1996 Actor Howard E. Rollins, Jr. died.

1997 Bob Bell, the original "Bozo the Clown," died.

1998 Armed groups killed 81 persons in Tadjena, Algeria.

2004 The South American Community of Nations was established.
2004 Pantera guitarist Darrell "Dimebag" Abbott was shot and killed by Nathan Gamble while performing on stage.

2009 Bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, killed 127 persons and injured 448 others.

2010 SpaceX became the first privately held company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft.

2016 John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, died.

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This page was last updated on December 08, 2018.