December 29

1170 After being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by King Henry II, Thomas Becket fell out with the king as the interests of the Roman Catholic medieval church conflicted with those of the crown. Four knights believing  their King wanted the Archbishop killed, assassinated him on December 29, 1170 at Canterbury Cathedral. Becket's death caused a scandal in all of western Christendom and he was immediately seen as a martyr.

Illumination from an English Book of Hours 

1380 Queen of Hungary, Elisabeth of Poland, died on December 29, 1380. Hungary water, one of the first alcohol-based perfumes in Europe, was first prepared for Elisabeth of Poland  to " ... renovate vitality of paralyzed limbs ... " and to treat gout. The oldest surviving recipes call for distilling fresh rosemary (and possibly thyme) with strong brandy.

1503 The French knight Pierre Terrail, generally known as the Chevalier de Bayard, single-handedly defended a bridge against 200 Spaniards during the December 29, 1503 Battle of Garigliano. The exploit brought Terrail such renown that Pope Julius II tried unsuccessfully to entice him into his service.

1519 Seventeen years after returning to Portugal after discovering the sea route to India, Vasco da Gama was appointed the first Count of Vidigueira, by a royal decree on December 29, 1519. The agreement ceded him the towns of Vidigueira and Vila de Frades, granting Da Gama and his heirs and successors all the revenues and privileges related.

Vasco de Gama

1766 Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh was born on December 29, 1766. In 1823 he came up with a method of producing waterproof cloth by binding together two layers of fabric with india rubber dissolved in naphtha. He used the waterproof cloth to make the first ever raincoats.

1808 Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, was born in a log cabin in Raleigh, North Carolina, on December 29, 1808, to town constable Jacob Johnson and Polly McDonough. The only US president never to have gone to school, Andrew Johnson was later taught to read by his wife, Eliza McCardle Johnson. As president, the Democrat Johnson was continually conflicting with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1868. 

1809 William Gladstone was born on December 29, 1809 at 62 Rodney Street, Liverpool. He served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four terms beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894. Although Gladstone was born and brought up in Liverpool, and always retained a touch of Lancashire accent, he was of Scottish descent on both of his parents' sides.

1845 The Republic of Texas lasted nine years, eleven months, and seventeen days before being annexed by the United States in 1845.  It was admitted to the Union as the 28th state on December 29, 1845. The transfer of power from the Republic to the new state of Texas formally took place on February 19, 1846.

1848 Gas lighting was installed in the White House during James K Polk's presidency. Polk turned on the White House's first gas light on December 29, 1848. Prior to this, the White House relied on candles and oil lamps for lighting. 

Earliest known photograph of the White House, taken c. 1846 

1851 The first YMCA in the US opened in Boston on December 29, 1851. It was founded by Captain Thomas Valentine Sullivan (1800–59), an American seaman and missionary. By 1853, the Boston YMCA had 1,500 members, most of whom were merchants and artisans.

1880 Edmond Audran (1840-1901) was a church organist in the French city of Marseilles who also wrote comic operas. He penned a popular comic operetta about a country girl whose extraordinary good fortune could not be due to mere chance but must have been caused by some supernatural agent. Titled La Mascotte, it premiered on December 29, 1880. Translated into English as The Mascot, it introduced into the English language a word for any animal, person, or object that brings good luck.

1890 The last major conflict between U.S. military forces and Native Americans took place at Wounded Knee, South Dakota on December 29, 1890. More than 200 Lakota Indians were killed, for the loss of 31 cavalry.

"The opening of the fight at Wounded Knee," Harper's Weekly, 1891

1916 James Joyce's novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published by American publishing house B. W. Huebschis on December 29, 1916. Originally published in serial form in The Egoist from 1914 to 1915, Portrait of the Artist established Joyce's reputation as a writer of genius.

1922 Aloha Wanderwell set off from in Nice, France on her worldwide trip on December 29, 1922.  Travelling in a Ford Model T as driver, translator and film maker for the Wanderwell Expeditions, she became the first woman to drive around the world, when she arrived back in Nice in January 1927.

1940 On December 29, 1940, the Luftwaffe fire-bombed the British capital, London, dropping more than 124,000 high explosive and incendiary bombs. It was the largest continuous area of Blitz destruction anywhere in Britain. Almost 200 people were killed in what became known as the Second Great Fire of London.

1959 The Lisbon Metro,  also known as Metropolitano de Lisboa, begun operation on December 29, 1959. It is now Lisbon's main artery, connecting the city center with the upper and eastern districts and reaching the suburbs.

1975 The Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Act came into force in the United Kingdom on December 29, 1975. It meant companies could not advertise jobs as being exclusively for men or women — with firemen renamed as firefighters.

1991 Islam Karimov won Uzbekistan's first presidential election on December 29, 1991, with 86% of the vote. Foreign observers and the opposition party cited voting irregularities. Karimov was widely held to be responsible for severe breaches of basic human rights including tortures and executions. He was re-elected in 2000, 2007 and 2015, each time receiving over 90% of the vote, before dying in office at the age of 78 in 2016.

Islam Karimov. By Kremlin.ru,

1997 Authorities began to kill, disinfect and bury every chicken in Hong Kong on December 29, 1997 — an estimated 1.25 million — to prevent the spread of deadly bird flu. The H5N1 bird flu virus is known for its high mortality rate in both birds and, in some cases, humans. The culling of chickens was a crucial step to eliminate the source of the virus and protect public health. 

1998 The Khmer Rouge were a Stalinist, Maoist militant group who took over the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, on April 17, 1975. Over the next four years between 1.7 million and 2 million people were killed (20–30% of the population) in a genocide comparable to the Holocaust. On December 29, 1998 leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologized for the deaths of nearly a quarter of the country's then population, during the "Killing Fields" era between 1975-1979.

Photos of the victims of the Khmer Rouge

2011 The nation of Samoa observed the same time as the Samoa Time Zone until it moved across the International Date Line at the end of December 29, 2011 making it 24 hours (25 hours in summer) ahead of American Samoa. As a result, the date of December 30, 2011 was omitted in Samoa.

2013 German Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher had a terrible skiing accident in the French Alps that left him with traumatic brain injuries on December 29, 2013. After recovering from a coma, the former Grand Prix champion was moved to his residence in Lake Geneva where he is undergoing rehabilitation.