1119 Saint Thomas Becket was born in Cheapside, London on December 21, 1119 (or 1120 according to later tradition.) He came from relatively humble origins, his father, Gilbert Beckett, meaning "Little Beak", was part of a Norman family of knights, who originally came from Rouen in France. He was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170.
1295 Margaret of Provence, Queen of France by marriage to King Louis IX, died on December 21, 1295. She was the sister of Eleanor of Provence, the wife of King Henry III of England. Louis remained faithful to Eleanor and she bore him 11 children. Margaret died in Paris, at the Poor Clares monastery she had founded, at the age of 74.
1375 The Italian author and poet Giovanni Boccaccio died in Certaldo, a town in the province of Florence on December 21, 1375. Boccaccio completed his great collection of tales, the Decameron, in 1353. A huge fresco of life in the late Middle Ages, the book is structured around seven ladies and three gentlemen who had fled the Black Death in Florence for a country villa and over a period of ten days told one hundred stories.
1620 96 days after the Mayflower Pilgrims set sail from Plymouth, England, they landed on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts on December 21, 1620. The Pilgrims established there the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, after the Jamestown Colony. It's now thought that 12 per cent of all modern day Americans are descended from the Mayflower Pilgrims.
1804 UK Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was born on December 21, 1804 at 22 Theobalds Road, London. His family was a prosperous Sephardic family connected in the London literary world.
Though Jewish, his parents had Benjamin baptized and raised in the Church of England. In the holidays young Benjamin formed his own “government” with his three brothers and friends where he was prime minister and the government never fell to the opposition.
1891 Basketball was invented on December 21, 1891 by Canadian YMCA trainer James Naismith. He set out to invent a game to occupy students between the football and baseball seasons. Naismith nailed two peach baskets on opposite ends of the YMCA International Training School (later named Springfield College) in Massachusetts and instructed his students to toss soccer balls into them. Half-bushel peach baskets were used at first, thus providing the name "basketball."
1898 Radium was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie on December 21, 1898, in a uraninite sample. The Curies announced their discovery to the French Academy of Sciences five days later.
Pierre and Marie Curie could have made a fortune by patenting their method for isolating radium, which fast became an industry, but instead they freely gave the patentable information away, so that the scientific community could do research unhindered.
1906 The first human voice to be transmitted by radio is generally accepted to be that of Quebec physicist Reginald Aubrey Fessenden. He gave the world’s first public demonstration of radiotelephony broadcasting on December 21, 1906 at Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Speech was transmitted 18 kilometers (11 miles) to a listening site at Plymouth, Massachusetts. This led to the broadcasting of news, music and entertainment that we have today.
1907 Adolf Hitler's mother Klara died of breast cancer on December 21, 1907, leaving the 18-year-old Adolf an orphan. Adolf was overcome with grief at the loss of his mother, but owing to their mother's pension and money from her modest estate, Hitler and his sister Paula were left with some financial support.
1911 The first armed robbery using a "getaway car" took place in Paris on December 21, 1911 when four members of the Bonnot Gang used a Delaunay-Belleville automobile they had stolen a week before to escape after robbing a courier who was bringing cash to the Société Générale Bank. They got booty equal to 5,126 francs, but the rest of it was composed of securities.
1913 The crossword puzzle was invented by journalist Arthur Wynne and published for the first time in the Sunday edition of the New York World on December 21, 1913. The new puzzle in the supplement, known as a "word-cross", was welcomed so enthusiastically that it was retained as a weekly feature.
1920 The first radio broadcast license by the U.S. Commerce Department was given in 1920 to Westinghouse for station KDKA in Pittsburgh. Starting with the US presidential election returns on November 2, semi-weekly broadcasts were made, until December 21, 1920 when KDKA embarked on an ambitious daily schedule, initially for about an hour each evening. It was the first ever broadcasting daily schedule transmitted on the radio.
1923 The Nepal-Britain Treaty of 1923 was signed on December 21, 1923, in Singha Durbar, the official seat of government in Kathmandu, Nepal. This treaty is significant in the history of Nepal as it was the first to define the international status of Nepal as an independent and a sovereign nation.
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| Stained glass image of Thomas Becket by Renaud Camus from Plieux, France |
1295 Margaret of Provence, Queen of France by marriage to King Louis IX, died on December 21, 1295. She was the sister of Eleanor of Provence, the wife of King Henry III of England. Louis remained faithful to Eleanor and she bore him 11 children. Margaret died in Paris, at the Poor Clares monastery she had founded, at the age of 74.
1375 The Italian author and poet Giovanni Boccaccio died in Certaldo, a town in the province of Florence on December 21, 1375. Boccaccio completed his great collection of tales, the Decameron, in 1353. A huge fresco of life in the late Middle Ages, the book is structured around seven ladies and three gentlemen who had fled the Black Death in Florence for a country villa and over a period of ten days told one hundred stories.
1620 96 days after the Mayflower Pilgrims set sail from Plymouth, England, they landed on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts on December 21, 1620. The Pilgrims established there the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, after the Jamestown Colony. It's now thought that 12 per cent of all modern day Americans are descended from the Mayflower Pilgrims.
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| Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall 1882 |
1804 UK Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was born on December 21, 1804 at 22 Theobalds Road, London. His family was a prosperous Sephardic family connected in the London literary world.
Though Jewish, his parents had Benjamin baptized and raised in the Church of England. In the holidays young Benjamin formed his own “government” with his three brothers and friends where he was prime minister and the government never fell to the opposition.
1891 Basketball was invented on December 21, 1891 by Canadian YMCA trainer James Naismith. He set out to invent a game to occupy students between the football and baseball seasons. Naismith nailed two peach baskets on opposite ends of the YMCA International Training School (later named Springfield College) in Massachusetts and instructed his students to toss soccer balls into them. Half-bushel peach baskets were used at first, thus providing the name "basketball."
1898 Radium was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie on December 21, 1898, in a uraninite sample. The Curies announced their discovery to the French Academy of Sciences five days later.
Pierre and Marie Curie could have made a fortune by patenting their method for isolating radium, which fast became an industry, but instead they freely gave the patentable information away, so that the scientific community could do research unhindered.
 |
| The Curies experimenting with radium, a drawing by André Castaigne |
1906 The first human voice to be transmitted by radio is generally accepted to be that of Quebec physicist Reginald Aubrey Fessenden. He gave the world’s first public demonstration of radiotelephony broadcasting on December 21, 1906 at Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Speech was transmitted 18 kilometers (11 miles) to a listening site at Plymouth, Massachusetts. This led to the broadcasting of news, music and entertainment that we have today.
1907 Adolf Hitler's mother Klara died of breast cancer on December 21, 1907, leaving the 18-year-old Adolf an orphan. Adolf was overcome with grief at the loss of his mother, but owing to their mother's pension and money from her modest estate, Hitler and his sister Paula were left with some financial support.
1911 The first armed robbery using a "getaway car" took place in Paris on December 21, 1911 when four members of the Bonnot Gang used a Delaunay-Belleville automobile they had stolen a week before to escape after robbing a courier who was bringing cash to the Société Générale Bank. They got booty equal to 5,126 francs, but the rest of it was composed of securities.
 |
| The first robbery by Bonnot's Gang on December 21, 1911 |
1913 The crossword puzzle was invented by journalist Arthur Wynne and published for the first time in the Sunday edition of the New York World on December 21, 1913. The new puzzle in the supplement, known as a "word-cross", was welcomed so enthusiastically that it was retained as a weekly feature.
1920 The first radio broadcast license by the U.S. Commerce Department was given in 1920 to Westinghouse for station KDKA in Pittsburgh. Starting with the US presidential election returns on November 2, semi-weekly broadcasts were made, until December 21, 1920 when KDKA embarked on an ambitious daily schedule, initially for about an hour each evening. It was the first ever broadcasting daily schedule transmitted on the radio.
1923 The Nepal-Britain Treaty of 1923 was signed on December 21, 1923, in Singha Durbar, the official seat of government in Kathmandu, Nepal. This treaty is significant in the history of Nepal as it was the first to define the international status of Nepal as an independent and a sovereign nation.
1937 The first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, was released by Disney Studios and premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles on December 21, 1937. Snow White was animated entirely by hand and took Walt Disney and his studio three years to complete. Disney eventually had to mortgage his house to help finance the project, which was derisively nicknamed "Disney's Folly" by those in the film industry.
1937 The actress Jane Fonda was born December 21, 1937). She is the daughter of Henry Fonda, the sister of Peter Fonda and aunt of Bridget Fonda - all of whom were/are actors. Jane was sent to boarding school after her mother killed herself. Suffering nightmares, Jane wrote to her father, who returned the letters with her grammatical errors highlighted in red ink, refusing ever to discuss the
1938 Chinese opera singer and spy, Shi Pei Pu, was born on December 21, 1938. He masqueraded as a woman and used a 20 year long sexual affair with a French diplomat to steal intelligence. Pu even purchased a child and convinced the diplomat it was his.
1940 The author F. Scott Fitzgerald died after suffering a heart attack on December 21, 1940. At the time he was listening to Beethoven's "Eroica Symphony" whilst eating a chocolate Hershey bar in his mistress Sheilah Graham's Hollywood apartment. Scott Fitzgerald was originally buried in Rockville Union Cemetery but his and his wife Zelda's bodies were later moved to the family plot in Saint Mary's Cemetery, in Rockville, Maryland.
1938 Chinese opera singer and spy, Shi Pei Pu, was born on December 21, 1938. He masqueraded as a woman and used a 20 year long sexual affair with a French diplomat to steal intelligence. Pu even purchased a child and convinced the diplomat it was his.
1940 The author F. Scott Fitzgerald died after suffering a heart attack on December 21, 1940. At the time he was listening to Beethoven's "Eroica Symphony" whilst eating a chocolate Hershey bar in his mistress Sheilah Graham's Hollywood apartment. Scott Fitzgerald was originally buried in Rockville Union Cemetery but his and his wife Zelda's bodies were later moved to the family plot in Saint Mary's Cemetery, in Rockville, Maryland.
1945 Just before Christmas in 1945, General George S Patton broke his neck in a car crash near Mannheim in Germany. He died in his sleep of pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure 12 days later at about 18:00 on December 21, 1945. Patton was buried at the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial in the Hamm district of Luxembourg City, alongside wartime casualties of the Third Army, per his request to "be buried with [his] men."
1968 Launched on December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 was the second manned mission of the Apollo space program. Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders became the first humans to travel beyond Earth orbit and into an orbit around the Moon.
1968 Launched on December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 was the second manned mission of the Apollo space program. Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders became the first humans to travel beyond Earth orbit and into an orbit around the Moon.
1970 In his quest to become an honorary undercover agent for the DEA and do his bit for the never-ending war on drugs, Elvis Presley was invited to the White House on December 21, 1970 to offer his services to President Richard Nixon. Reportedly under the influence of heavy prescription barbiturates, the king gave the leader of the free world a chrome-plated Colt .45 pistol. In exchange, Nixon gave Presley a Narcotics Bureau badge.
1981 On December 21, 1981, a new noise pollution code of practice was introduced in the United Kingdom, limiting ice-cream vans to no longer than four seconds of chimes at a time. It also limited the volume of chimes to 85 decibels at a distance of 7 meters, and prevented the playing of chimes within 50 meters of a hospital or school and before 9 am and after 9 pm anywhere.
1984 Prince Harry was baptized on December 21, 1984 at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Harry is the younger son of Charles, Prince of Wales and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. He is the younger brother of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. His mother called Harry "My little Spencer" because his red hair comes from her family.
1988 The Antonov An-225 Mriya was the world's longest and heaviest airplane ever built, with a maximum take-off weight of 640 tonnes (710 short tons). It also had the largest wingspan of any aircraft in operational service (twice the wing area of a Boeing 747). It made its first flight on December 21, 1988 with a 74-minute flight from Kiev. The An-225 was destroyed in the Battle of Antonov Airport during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
1995 Bethlehem is a historically significant city, known for being the birthplace of Jesus Christ. It has been a focal point for religious pilgrimage and tourism for centuries. It was occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. The Oslo II Accord, signed in 1995, between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led to the transfer of administrative control of Bethlehem to the Palestinian Authority. It came under control of the Palestine National Authority on December 21, 1995.
2015 Falcon 9 Flight 20 (also known as Orbcomm OG2 M2), was a Falcon 9 space launch that occurred on December 21, 2015, the first time that the first stage of an orbital rocket made a successful return and vertical landing.
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