0401 - St Anastasius I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1055 - Seldjuken under Toghril Beg occupy Baghdad
1154 - King Henry II of England crowned
1562 - Battle at Dreux: Anne de Montmorency & huguenots under Condé captured
1686 - Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Defoe)
1688 - King James II's wife & son flee to France
1732 - Benjamin Franklin (under the name Richard Saunders) begins publication of "Poor Richard's Almanack"
1776 - Thomas Paine published his 1st "American Crisis" essay, in which he wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls"
1777 - Washington settles his troops at Valley Forge PA for the winter
1788 - Chinese troops occupy capital Thang Long Vietnam
1795 - 1st state appropriation of money for road building, Kentucky
1823 - Georgia passes 1st US state birth registration law
1828 - South Carolina declares the right of states to nullify federal laws
1835 - HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin approaches New Zealand
1842 - US recognizes independence of Hawaii
1843 - Charles Dickens publishes "A Christmas Carol" in England
1854 - Allen Wilson of Connecticut patents sewing machine to sew curving seams
1861 - Battle of Black Water
1862 - Skirmish at Jackson/Salem Church TN (80 casualties)
1867 - Victims of "Angola Horror" burned to death (Angola NY)
1871 - Albert L Jones (New York NY), patents corrugated paper
1884 - Italy recognizes King Leopold II's Congo Free State
1888 - Stanley's expedition reaches Fort Bodo, East-Africa
1907 - 239 workers die in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek PA
1910 - 1st city ordinance requiring white & black residential areas (Baltimore); Rayon 1st commercially produced, Marcus Hook PA
1918 - Robert Ripley began his "Believe It or Not" column (New York Globe)
1919 - American Meteorological Society found
1928 - 1st autogiro (predecessor of helicopter) flight in US
1934 - Japan agress to fleet treaty of 1922 & 1930
1939 - Russian air & ground attack against Finnish positions near Summa
1941 - German submarine U-574 sinks; Hitler takes complete command of German Army; US Office of Censorship created to control info pertaining to WWII
1943 - Military coup in Bolivia
1945 - Austrian Republic re-establishes
1946 - War breaks out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi
1948 - 2nd political action of Java/Sumatra
1950 - General Eisenhower named NATO commander; Tibet's Dalai Lama flees Chinese invasion
1951 - Nazi General Christiansen leaves Netherlands
1958 - 1st radio broadcast from space (recorded Christmas message by President Eisenhower: "To all mankind, America's wish for Peace on Earth & Good Will to Men Everywhere")
1960 - Fire aboard USS Constellation, under construction in Brooklyn (50 die); Mercury-Redstone 1A reaches 210 km in test flight
1961 - British government begins decimal coin system; Indonesian President Sukarno proclaims general mobilization
1962 - Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia & Nyasaland; Transit 5A1, 1st operational navigational satellite, launched
1963 - Zanzibar becomes independent from UK
1965 - French President De Gaulle re-elected (Mitterrand gets 45%)
1971 - NASA launches Intelsat 4 F-3 for COMSAT Corp
1972 - Grenada adopts constitution
1974 - Nelson A Rockefeller sworn-in as the 41st Vice-President
1975 - John Paul Stevens becomes a Supreme Court Justice
1976 - President Brezhnev receives his 5th Lenin order
1980 - Iran requests $24 billion in US guarantees to free hostages
1985 - STS 61-C scrubbed at T -13 seconds because of SRB auxiliary power problem
1986 - USSR frees dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile
1988 - NASA unveils plans for lunar colony & manned missions to Mars; Unexploded WWII bomb found in Frankfurt, Germany-5,000 evacuated
1991 - Boris Yeltsin takes control of Kremlin

Birthdays
1036 - Su Tung-p'o China, poet/essayist/painter/calligrapher
1683 - Philip V Versailles France, King of Spain (1700-24, 24-46)
1814 - Edwin M[cMasters] Stanton Ohio, US Secretary of War (1861-65)
1817 - James Jay Archer Brigadier-General (Confederate Army) died in 1864
1819 - James Clifford Veatch Brevet Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1895
1821 - Mary Ashton Livermore American reformer/women's suffrage leader
1824 - Hercules Robinson Ireland, South Africa Commissioner (1880-89, 1895-97)
1837 - John Carpenter Carter Brigadier-General (Confederate Army), died in 1864
1852 - A[lbert] A Michelson Strelno Prussia, US physicist (Nobel 1907)
1884 - Antonín Zápotocky premier/President of Czechoslovakia
1891 - Edward Bernard Andre Maria Raczynski Poland, president-in-exile (1979-86)
1906 - Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev Ukraine, 1st Secretary of the Community Party/President of the USSR (1964-82)
1926 - Jeanne Kirkpatrick US ambassador to UN
1943 - William De Vries Brooklyn NY, surgeon-inventor (Symbion artifical heart)
1951 - Fred W Leslie Ancon Panamá, PhD/astronaut (STS 73)

Passings
0401 - Anastasius I Bishop of Rome (399-401)
1370 - Urban V [Guillaume de Grimoard] 1st Avignon Pope (1362-70)
1804 - Mary Bright British PM Rockingham
1915 - Alois Alzheimer German neurologist (first described Alzheimer's Disease), dies at 51
1953 - Robert A Millikan US physicist (Nobel 1923), dies at 85
1968 - Norman Thomas founder (ACLU)/Socialist Party (1926-55), dies at 84
1977 - Nellie Taylor Ross 1st woman governor, dies at 101

Reported Missing in Action
1968
Payne, Norman, US Army SF (OH); disappeared after his unit was ambushed

1971
Forame, Peter C., US Army (VA); OH6A shot down (w/Skiles)

Johnson, Kenneth R., USAF (MN); F4D shot down (w/Vaughan)released by DRV March, 1973 – retired as a Lt. Colonel - alive as of 1998

Poynor, Daniel R., USAF (OK); F4D shot down (w/Thomas), remains ID’d June, 1995

Skiles, Thomas W., US Army (WY); OH6A shot down (w/Forame)

Thomas, Leo T., Jr., USAF (KY); F4D shot down (w/Poynor), remains ID’d June, 1995

Vaughan, Samuel R., USAF (SC); F4D shot down (w/Johnson), released by DRV March, 1973 – alive and well as of 1998

1972
The following USAF personnel reported MIA when their B52D was shot down:

Alexander, Fernando (TX); released by DRV March, 1973 – retired as a Lt. Colonel - alive and well as of 1998

Barrows, Henry C., (NJ); released by DRV March, 1973 – retired as a Lt. Colonel - alive and well as of 1998

Brown, Charles A., Jr. (MA); released by DRV March, 1973 – retired as a Lt. Colonel - alive as of 1998

Cooper, Richard W., Jr., (MD); navigator, presumed KIA

Poole, Charlie S., (LA); tailgunner, presumed KIA

Wilson, Hal K., (NY); released by DRV March, 1973 – retired as a Major - alive and well as of 1998