December 21

December 21 is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 10 days remaining.

Table of contents

1 Events
2 Births
3 Deaths
4 Holidays and observances

Events

1620 - The Pilgrims leave the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock.
1719 - The first U.S. newspaper (the Boston Gazette) was published.
1861 - The Congressional Medal of Honor first authorized
1861 - Lord Lyons, the British minister to the United States, meets with United States Secretary of State William Seward concerning Confederate envoys James Mason and John Slidell, arrested by the United States Navy aboard the British mail steamer Trent in order to prevent war between the United States and the United Kingdom.
1872 - HMS Challenger sails from Portsmouth on the 4 year scientific expedition that would lay the foundation for the science of oceanography
1880 - Isle of Man becomes first political body that allows women to vote.
1891 - First basketball game played
1898 - Marie and Pierre Curie discover radium.
1913 - First crossword puzzle published
1914 First feature-length silent film comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance, starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin, is released
1923 - Nepal becomes independent
1933 - Newfoundland becomes a crown colony
1935 - First screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
1958 - Charles De Gaulle is elected as the first President of the Fifth Republic
1968 - Apollo 8 launched
1979 - The United States government bails out the Chrysler Corporation
1988 - A terrorist bomb brings down Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland
1991 - The Commonwealth of Independent States is formed

1118 - Thomas Becket, lord chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1170)
1804 - Benjamin Disraeli, British politician, writer (d. 1881)
1815 - Thomas Couture French painter & teacher (d. 1879)
1879 - Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader (d. 1953)
1878 - Jan Łukasiewicz, philosopher, mathematician
1889 - Sewall Wright, biologist
1892 - Walter Hagen, golf champion (d. 1969)
1892 - Rebecca West, writer (d. 1983)
1908 - Pat Weaver, television pioneer (d. 2002)
1917 - Heinrich Böll, author and recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature 1972 (d. 1985)
1918 - Donald Regan, Chief of Staff and U.S. Treasury Secretary (d. 2003)
1918 - Kurt Waldheim, United Nations Secretary-General
1921 - Vampira, actress
1922 - Paul Winchell, ventriloquist
1926 - Joe Paterno, American football coach
1935 - Jane Fonda, actress, activist, exercise guru
1935 - Phil Donahue, talk show host
1935 - John G. Avildsen, director, editor
1940 - Frank Zappa, musician (d. 1993)
1942 - Reinhard Mey, singer
1946 - Carl Wilson, musician (The Beach Boys)
1948 - Samuel L. Jackson, actor
1950 - Jeffrey Katzenberg, producer
1954 - Chris Evert, tennis player
1957 - Ray Romano, comedian, actor
1959 - Florence Griffith Joyner, track and field champion (d. 1998)
1966 - Kiefer Sutherland, actor
1969 - Julie Delpy, actress
1974 - Karrie Webb, golf champion

The winter solstice, sometimes known as Yule, occurs on or very close to this date.

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