December 22 - Definition and Overview

December 22 is the 356th day of the year (357th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 9 days remaining.

Events

• 1603 - Mehmed III Sultan of the Ottoman Empire dies and is succeeded by his son Ahmed I.
• 1807 - The Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries, is passed by the U.S. Congress, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson
• 1809 - The Non-Intercourse Act, lifting the Embargo Act except for the United Kingdom and France, passes the U.S. Congress
• 1849 - The execution of Fyodor Dostoevsky is canceled at the last second
• 1864 - Savannah, Georgia falls to General William Tecumseh Sherman
• 1885 - Ito Hirobumi, a samurai, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.
• 1894 - The Dreyfus affair begins in France when Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted of treason.
• 1910 - Chicago Union Stock Yards Fire, 21 firemen were killed
• 1937 - The Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic
• 1944 - German troops demand the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium. See Battle of the Bulge
• 1944 - Vietnam People's Army is formed to resist Japanese occupation of Vietnam
• 1964 - Comedian Lenny Bruce is convicted of obscenity
• 1974 - Grande Comore, Anjouan and Mohéli vote to become the independent nation of Comoros. Mayotte remains under French administration.
• 1988 - Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber tapper, unionist and environmental activist, was assassinated.
• 1989 - After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceauşescu's Communist dictatorship.
• 1989 - Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.
• 1990 - Lech Wałęsa sworn in as President of Poland
• 1997 - Acteal massacre: Attendees at a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic activists for indigenous causes in the small village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas were massacred by paramilitary forces.
• 1999 - The Spanish Civil Guard finds near Calatayud (Zaragoza) another van loaded by ETA with 750 kg of explosives (see related event on December 21, 1999).
• 1999 - Tandja Mamadou became President of Niger.
• 2001 - Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Northern Alliance, handed over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by Hamid Karzai.
• 2001 - Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.
• 2001 - Cc the cat, the first cloned pet, was born.

Births

• 1639 - Jean Racine, dramatist (other sources report December 21st as his birth date) (d. 1699)
• 1666 - Guru Gobind Singh, (d. 1708)
• 1694 - Hermann Samuel Reimarus, German philosopher and writer (b. 1768)
• 1723 - Karl Friedrich Abel, German baroque composer (d. 1787)
• 1805 - John Obadiah Westwood, British entomologist
• 1858 - Giacomo Puccini, composer (d. 1924)
• 1860 - Austin Norman Palmer, populiser of handwriting style
• 1862 - Connie Mack, baseball executive, manager (d. 1956)
• 1866 - Käthe Paulus, Germany's first female parachutist (d. 1935)
• 1869 - Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet (d. 1935)
• 1874 - Franz Schmidt, composer (d. 1939)
• 1876 - Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, poet and editor (d. 1944)
• 1883 - Edgar Varèse composer (d. 1965)
• 1887 - Srinivasa Aaiyangar Ramanujan, Indian mathematician (d. 1920)
• 1888 - J. Arthur Rank, producer (d. 1972)
• 1899 - Gustav Gründgens, actor and film director (d. 1963)
• 1905 - Pierre Brasseur, actor (d. 1972)
• 1905 - Kenneth Rexroth, American poet (d. 1982)
• 1907 - Dame Peggy Ashcroft, actress (d. 1991)
• 1907 - Doris Miles Disney, writer
• 1912 - Lady Bird Johnson, First Lady of the United States
• 1917 - Gene Rayburn, game show host (d. 1999).
• 1922 - Barbara Billingsley, actress
• 1922 - Jack Brooks, American politician
• 1922 - Ruth Roman, actress (d. 1999)
• 1944 - Steve Carlton, Baseball Hall of Famer
• 1945 - Diane Sawyer, journalist
• 1946 - Rick Nielsen, musician (Cheap Trick)
• 1948 - Lynne Thigpen, actress (d. 2003)
• 1949 - Robin Gibb, musician (The Bee Gees)
• 1949 - Maurice Gibb, musician (The Bee Gees) (d. 2003)
• 1951 - Charles DeLint, writer
• 1951 - Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster
• 1962 - Ralph Fiennes, actor
• 1967 - Dan Petrescu, English Premiership club Chelsea and Romanian football (soccer) player.
• 1969 - Myriam Bédard, biathlon athlete

Deaths

• 1603 - Mehmed III, Ottoman Emperor (b. 1566)
• 1738 - Constantia Jones, British prostitute (executed)
• 1828 - William Hyde Wollaston, noted English chemist (b. 1766)
• 1880 - George Eliot, writer (b. 1819)
• 1884 - John Chisum, cattle baron
• 1899 - Dwight L. Moody, American evangelist (b. 1837)
• 1902 - Richard von Krafft-Ebing, sexologist (b. 1840)
• 1936 - Dragutin Gorjanovic-Kramberger, Croat paleontologist (b. 1856)
• 1939 - Ma Rainey, blues singer (b. 1886)
• 1940 - Nathanael West, writer (b. 1903)
• 1942 - Franz Boas, German cultural anthropologist (b. 1858)
• 1943 - Beatrix Potter, writer (b. 1866)
• 1965 - Richard Dimbleby, journalist and broadcaster (b. 1913)
• 1969 - Joseph von Sternberg, director
• 1979 - Darryl F. Zanuck, producer (b. 1902)
• 1980 - Karl Dönitz, politician and U-boat commander in Nazi Germany (b. 1891)
• 1988 - Chico Mendes, assassinated Brazilian rubber tapper, unionist and environmental activist (b. 1944)
• 1989 - Samuel Beckett, writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 1969 (b. 1906)
• 1995 - Butterfly McQueen, actress
• 2002 - Desmond Hoyte, President of Guyana 1985-1992
• 2002 - Joe Strummer, musician (b. 1952)
• 2003 - Dave Dudley, singer (b. 1928)
• 2004 - Doug Ault, Major League Baseball player (b. 1950)

Holidays and observances

• The winter solstice, sometimes known as Yule, occurs on or very close to this date. It is an important festival in the Chinese calendar. In the Southern Hemisphere the summer solstice occurs around this time.

December 21 - December 23 - November 22 - January 22 -- listing of all days