1935 Woody Allen was born in The Bronx, New York.
1955 Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a municipal bus.
1960 Paul McCartney and Pete Best were arrested, then deported from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson.
1697 St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, consecrated.
1804 Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor of France. Pope Pius VII was in attendance.
1805 Napoleon defeated Russia and Austria at the Battle of Austerlitz.
1859 Painter Georges Seurat was born in Paris.
1942 The world’s first nuclear chain reaction took place at the University of Chicago.
1894 Robert Louis Stevenson died in Vailima, Samoa at age 44.
1919 Pierre-
1927 Putting Pants on Philip, the first Laurel and Hardy film, was released.
1976 Assassination attempt on Bob Marley. Shot twice, he played live two days later.
1984 A deadly gas leak (of methyl isocyanate) at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India killed more than 3,800 people outright and injured 150,000 to 600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom died later of their injuries).
1998 Earthquake at 4:16 AM measuring 4.1 beneath El Cerrito, California.
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771 Charlemagne became King of the Franks.
1791 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died a pauper at age 35 in Vienna.
1901 Walt Disney was born in Chicago.
1933 U.S. Alcohol Prohibition was repealed.
1945 Flight 19 lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
1998 Small tornado in Richmond, California.
2013 Nelson Mandela died in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa at age 95.
1534 Quito, Ecuador was founded by Spaniards.
1886 American poet Alfred Joyce Kilmer was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
1964 Rudolph the Red-
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1941 Pearl Harbor Day. U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii attacked by Japanese aircraft.
1969 Francis Joseph “Lefty” O’Doul died in San Francisco.
1975 Indonesia invaded East Timor.
1886 Diego Rivera was born in Guanajuato, Mexico.
1980 John Lennon was killed in New York City.
1984 Captain Kangaroo went off the air after 29 years.
1995 The Grateful Dead officially disbanded.
1998 Power outage shuts down San Francisco for many hours.
1608 Poet John Milton was born in London.
1958 The John Birch Society was founded in the U.S. by Robert H. W. Welch, Jr.
1965 A Charlie Brown Christmas TV debut.
220 Emperor Xian abdicated Han Dynasty throne. Cao Wei empire was established. Three Kingdoms period began.
1851 American librarian Melvil Dewey was born in Adams Center, New York.
1906 U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1948 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed by the United Nations.
1965 The Grateful Dead’s first concert performance under that name (formerly The Warlocks).
1999 Rick Danko of The Band died in Marbletown, New York at age 56.
1999 Poet Edward Dorn died in Denver at age 70.
630 Muhammad and army conquered Mecca.
1845 First Anglo-
1408 The Order of the Dragon was created by Sigismund of Luxembourg.
1821 Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen, France.
1889 Robert Browning died in Venice, Italy at age 77.
1903 Robert Hugh Wilson was born in Denver.
1999 Joseph Heller, Catch-
2000 US Supreme Court decided Bush v. Gore.
2001 After nearly 3 years of struggle, a settlement was reached with majority board members to return the Pacifica Radio Network to community control.
1577 Francis Drake departed Plymouth, England in the Golden Hind on his voyage around the world.
1962 Relay 1, first active repeater communications satellite, launched in orbit by NASA.
December 14 -
557 Constantinople damaged by earthquake.
1503 Nostradamus was born in France.
1799 George Washington died at Mount Vernon, Virginia at age 67.
1962 The Mariner 2 space probe sent back information from the planet Venus, the first information ever received from another planet (unless you believe certain myths).
2013 Peter O’Toole died in London at age 81.
37 Nero, Emperor of Rome, was born in Antium, Italy.
1791 The Bill of Rights became effective.
1832 Gustave Eiffel was born.
1966 Walt Disney died in Burbank, California at age 65.
1993 The GATT Treaty was approved by delegations from 117 countries.
2011 Christopher Hitchens died in Houston at age 62
1770 Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany.
1835 A massive fire erupted in New York City, destroying more than 600 buildings.
1901 Margaret Mead was born in Philadelphia.
1969 The British House of Commons voted 343-
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1790 Aztec calendar stone was discovered at El Zócalo, Mexico City.
1903 The Wright Brothers flew the first controlled power aircraft at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1936 First TV appearance by Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.
1958 The world’s first communications satellite, Project SCORE, was launched.
1997 HTML 4.0 was published by the World Wide Web Consortium.
2011 United States forces withdraw from Iraq after a 9-
2011 Václav Havel died in Vlčice, Czech Republic at age 75.
2011 Warren Hellman died in San Francisco at age 77.
1732 Benjamin Franklin first published Poor Richard’s Almanack.
1998 President William Jefferson Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives, the second President of the U.S.A. To be impeached.
1968 John Steinbeck died in New York City at age 66.
1998 Snow fell in San Francisco.
69 The Roman Senate declared Vespasian Roman emperor, last in the Year of Four Emperors.
1620 Mayflower Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in what is now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts.
1909 The first junior high school was established in Berkeley, California.
1940 F. Scott Fitzgerald died in Hollywood, California at the age of 44.
1858 Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Tuscany.
1938 Matty Alou was born in Haina, Dominican Republic.
558 Chlothar I crowned King of the Franks.
679 King Dagobert II murdered on a hunt.
1823 A Visit from St. Nicholas (The Night Before Christmas) published anonymously.
1888 Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear during a fit of depression.
1983 R. A. Wilson’s “Mama Vibe” (see the Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy).
2002 Walter S. Roessler died in Oakland, California at age 98.
1809 “Kit” Carson was born in Madison County, Kentucky.
1910 Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. was born in Chicago.
1997 First Hours of a Rainy Day by D. A. Wilson was published in San Francisco.
1998 Toshiro Mifune died in Japan at age 77.
1946 W. C. Fields died in Pasadena, California at age 66.
1961 Nicole Marie Hills was born in Oakland, California.
1977 Charlie Chaplain died in Switzerland at age 88.
1993 Elizabeth Barbara Wilson was born in San Francisco.
2003 Juliette Liana Carstensen was born in Vallejo, California.
December 26 -
1893 Mao Tse-
1831 Charles Darwin embarked on his famous journey aboard the HMS Beagle.
1945 The International Monetary Fund was established in Washington, D.C.
2008 Israel launched a 3-
1895 The Lumière brothers performed for their first paying audience, in Paris, marking the debut of the cinema.
1921 Johnny Otis was born in Vallejo, California.
1973 The Endangered Species Act was passed in the United States.
1170 Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II.
1914 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the first novel by James Joyce, was published as a book by B. W. Huebsch of New York. (The novel was first serialized in the London literary magazine The Egoist in 25 installments, from February 2, 1914 to September 1, 1915.)
1916 In Russia, Rasputin (Grigory Yefimovich Novykh) was assassinated.
1922 The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was established.
1945 Davy Jones was born in Manchester, England.
1947 King Michael of Romania was forced to abdicate after the Communists seized power.
406 Vandals, Alans and Suebians crossed the Rhine, beginning the invasion of Gaul.
1948 Donna Summer was born in Boston.
1956 First meeting of Helga E. Roessler and John O. Wilson in Richmond, California.
1966 The Grateful Dead’s first New Year’s Concert at The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.
1978 Closing of Winterland, San Francisco.
1983 AT&T Bell System was broken up by the United States Government.
1991 The Grateful Dead’s last New Year’s Concert at the Oakland Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California.
2000 The Other Ones play Oakland Arena.
2000 Phil Lesh and Friends play Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium, Oakland, California.
2013 John Ogden Wilson died in Martinez, California at age 75.
Santa Claus by Betsy Wilson