December 29 is the 363rd day of the year (364th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; Two days remain until the end of the year.
Contents
1 Events
2 Births
3 Deaths
4 Holidays and observances
5 References
6 External links
Events[edit]
875 – Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, is crowned as Holy Roman Emperor Charles II.
1170 – Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church.
1503 – The Battle of Garigliano (1503) was fought between a Spanish army under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba and a French army commanded by Ludovico II, Marquess of Saluzzo.
1508 – Portuguese forces under the command of Francisco de Almeida attack Khambhat at the Battle of Dabul.
1778 – American Revolutionary War: Three thousand British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell capture Savannah, Georgia.
1812 – USS Constitution, under the command of Captain William Bainbridge, captures HMS Java off the coast of Brazil after a three-hour battle.
1835 – The Treaty of New Echota is signed, ceding all the lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States.
1845 – The United States annexes the Republic of Texas.[1]
1860 – The launch of HMS Warrior, with her combination of screw propeller, iron hull and iron armour, renders all previous warships obsolete.
1874 – The military coup of Gen. Martinez Campos in Sagunto ends the failed First Spanish Republic and the monarchy is restored as Prince Alfonso is proclaimed King of Spain.
1876 – The Ashtabula River railroad disaster occurs, leaving 64 injured and 92 dead at Ashtabula, Ohio.
1890 – Wounded Knee Massacre on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 300 Lakota are killed by the United States 7th Cavalry Regiment.
1911 – Mongolia gains independence from the Qing dynasty, enthroning 8th Jebtsundamba Khutughtu as Khagan of Mongolia.
1911 – Sun Yat-sen becomes the provisional President of the Republic of China; he formally takes office on January 1, 1912.
1913 – Cecil B. DeMille starts filming Hollywood's first feature film, The Squaw Man.
1916 – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the first novel by James Joyce, was first published as a book by an American publishing house B. W. Huebschis after it had been serialized in The Egoist (1914–15).
1930 – Sir Muhammad Iqbal's presidential address in Allahabad introduces the two-nation theory and outlines a vision for the creation of Pakistan.
1934 – Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930.
1937 – The Irish Free State is replaced by a new state called Ireland with the adoption of a new constitution.
1940 – World War II: In the Second Great Fire of London, the Luftwaffe fire-bombs London, England, killing almost 200 civilians.
1949 – KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.
1972 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 (a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar) crashes in the Florida Everglades on approach to Miami International Airport, Florida, killing 101 of the 176 people on board.
1975 – A bomb explodes at LaGuardia Airport in New York City, killing 11 people and injuring 74.
1989 – Czech writer, philosopher and dissident Václav Havel is elected the first post-communist President of Czechoslovakia.
1989 – The Nikkei 225 for the Tokyo Stock Exchange hits its all-time intra-day high of 38,957.44 and closing high at 38,915.87, serving as the apex of the Japanese asset price bubble.[2]
1992 – Fernando Collor de Mello, president of Brazil, tries to resign amidst corruption charges, but is then impeached.
1994 – Turkish Airlines Flight 278 (a Boeing 737-400) crashes on approach to Van Ferit Melen Airport in Van, Turkey, killing 57 of the 76 people on board.[3]
1996 – Guatemala and leaders of Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity sign a peace accord ending a 36-year civil war.
1997 – Hong Kong begins to kill all the city's 1.25 million chickens to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.
1998 – Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the 1970s genocide in Cambodia that claimed over one million lives.
2003 – The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct.
2006 – The UK settles its Anglo-American loan, post-WWII loan debt.
2012 – A Tupolev Tu-204 airliner crashes in a ditch between the airport fence and the M3 highway after overshooting a runway at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia, killing five people and leaving three others critically injured.
2013 – A suicide bomb attack at the Volgograd-1 railway station in the southern Russian city of Volgograd kills at least 18 people and wounds 40 others.
2020 – A large explosion at the airport in the southern Yemeni city of Aden kills at least 22 people and wounds 50.[4]
Births[edit]
765 – Ali al-Ridha, Arab scholar and imam (d. 818)
1019 – Munjong, Korean ruler (d. 1083)
1536 – Henry VI, German nobleman (d. 1572)
1550 – García de Silva Figueroa, Spanish diplomat and traveller (d. 1624)
1633 – Johannes Zollikofer, Swiss vicar (d. 1692)
1709 – Elizabeth Petrovna, Russian empress (d. 1762)
1746 – Saverio Cassar, Maltese priest and rebel leader (d. 1805)
1766 – Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist and the inventor of waterproof fabric (d. 1843)
1796 – Johann Christian Poggendorff, German physicist and journalist (d. 1877)
1800 – Charles Goodyear, American chemist and engineer (d. 1860)
1808 – Andrew Johnson, American general and politician, 17th President of the United States (d. 1875)
1809 – William Ewart Gladstone, English lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1898)
1816 – Carl Ludwig, German physician and physiologist (d. 1895)
1844 – Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee, Indian barrister and first president of Indian National Congress (d. 1906)
1855 – August Kitzberg, Estonian author and poet (d. 1927)
1856 – Thomas Joannes Stieltjes, Dutch-French mathematician and academic (d. 1894)
1859 – Venustiano Carranza, Mexican soldier and politician, 37th President of Mexico (d. 1920)
1874 – François Brandt, Dutch rower and bishop (d. 1949)
1876 – Pablo Casals, Catalan cellist and conductor (d. 1973)
1876 – Lionel Tertis, English violist (d. 1975)[5]
1879 – Billy Mitchell, American general and pilot (d. 1936)
1881 – Jess Willard, American boxer (d. 1968)
1885 – Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, Austrian-Russian general (d. 1921)
1886 – Norman Hallows, English runner and captain (d. 1968)
1895 – Oswald Freisler, German lawyer and author (d. 1939)
1896 – David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican painter (d. 1974)
1899 – Nie Rongzhen, Chinese general and politician, Mayor of Beijing (d. 1992)
1902 – Nels Stewart, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1957)
1903 – Candido Portinari, Brazilian painter (d. 1962)
1904 – Kuvempu, Indian author and poet (d. 1994)
1908 – Helmut Gollwitzer, German theologian and author (d. 1993)
1908 – Magnus Pyke, English scientist and author (d. 1992)
1910 – Ronald Coase, English-American economist, author, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2013)
1911 – Klaus Fuchs, German physicist and spy (d. 1988)
1914 – Zainul Abedin, Bangladeshi painter and academic (d. 1976)
1914 – Billy Tipton, American pianist and saxophonist (d. 1989)
1914 – Albert Tucker, Australian painter and illustrator (d. 1999)
1915 – Bill Osmanski, American football player and coach (d. 1996)
1915 – Robert Ruark, American hunter and author (d. 1965)
1915 – Jo Van Fleet, American actress (d. 1996)
1917 – Tom Bradley, American lieutenant, lawyer, and politician, 38th Mayor of Los Angeles (d. 1998)
1917 – Ramanand Sagar, Indian director and producer (d. 2005)
1919 – Alfred de Grazia, American political scientist and author (d. 2014)
1919 – Roman Vlad, Italian pianist and composer (d. 2013)
1920 – Viveca Lindfors, Swedish-American actress, singer and poet (d. 1995)
1921 – Dobrica Ćosić, Serbian politician, 1st President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (d. 2014)
1922 – Little Joe Cook, American singer-songwriter (d. 2014)
1922 – William Gaddis, American author and academic (d. 1998)
1923 – Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegalese historian, anthropologist, and physicist (d. 1986)
1923 – Morton Estrin, American pianist and educator (d. 2017)
1923 – Dina Merrill, American actress, game show panelist, socialite, heiress, and businesswoman (d. 2017)
1923 – Shlomo Venezia, Greek-Italian author and Holocaust survivor (d. 2012)
1923 – Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, French mathematician and physicist
1924 – Joe Allbritton, American businessman and publisher, founded the Allbritton Communications Company (d. 2012)
1924 – Kim Song-ae, Korean politician (d. 2014)
1925 – Pete Dye, American golfer and architect (d. 2020)
1927 – Andy Stanfield, American sprinter (d. 1985)
1929 – Matt Murphy, American guitarist (d. 2018)
1931 – Stasys Stonkus, Lithuanian basketball player and coach (d. 2012)
1932 – Inga Swenson, American actress and singer
1933 – Samuel Brittan, English journalist and author
1934 – Ed Flanders, American actor (d. 1995)
1934 – Forough Farrokhzad, Iranian poet and filmmaker (d. 1967)
1936 – Mary Tyler Moore, American actress and producer (d. 2017)
1936 – Ray Nitschke, American football player (d. 1998)
1937 – Wayne Huizenga, American businessman, founded AutoNation (d. 2018)
1938 – Harvey Smith, English horse rider and sportscaster
1938 – Jon Voight, American actor and producer
1939 – Ed Bruce, American country music singer-songwriter
1941 – Ray Thomas, English singer-songwriter and flute player (d. 2018)