On this day

1542 - Princess Mary Stuart becomes Mary, Queen of Scots.

1861 - Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria died, at the early age of 42 of typhoid fever. His death plunged the Queen into a deep mourning that lasted for the rest of her life.

1896 - The Glasgow Underground Railway was opened by the Glasgow District Subway Company.

1900 – Quantum Mechanics: Max Planck presents a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law.

1911 - Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, 34 days ahead of British explorer Captain Scott.

1946 – The United Nations General Assembly votes to establish its headquarters in New York City.

1947 – The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is founded in Daytona Beach, Florida.

1962 - U.S. Mariner II sent the first close-up pictures of the planet Venus back to Earth.

1972 – Apollo program: Eugene Cernan is the last person to walk on the moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) of the Apollo 17 mission. This is the last manned mission to the moon of the 20th century.

1993 – Construction begins on the Three Gorges Dam in the Yangtze River.

2003 – President of Pakistan Pervez Musharaf narrowly escapes an assassination attempt.

2008 – President George W. Bush makes his fourth and final (planned) trip to Iraq as president and is almost struck by two shoes thrown at him by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi during a news conference in Baghdad.

1890 - Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull and 11 other tribe members were killed in Grand River, South Dakota, in a fight with Indian police.

1906 - The opening of the Piccadilly tube line on London's Underground. It was the longest underground line at the time, running from Finsbury Park to Hammersmith.

1916 - The Battle of Verdun ended, with 364,000 Allied soldiers and 338,000 Germans dead.

1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially becomes effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol.

1939 – Gone with the Wind receives its première at Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

1958 - The last steam locomotive was made at Crewe. Engine number 92250 was the 7,331st locomotive built since the works opened.

1970 – Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 successfully land on Venus. It is the first successful soft landing on another planet

1974 - New speed limits were introduced. Speed limits on motorways would remain at 70mph , but on dual carriageways they would become 60mph and on all other roads 50mph as the government tried to curb fuel use.

1982 - Reputed to be Robin Hood's tree, the 'Major Oak' in Sherwood Forest, was fitted with a fire alarm.

1984 - 'Do They Know It's Christmas' by Band Aid entered the chart at No.1 and stayed at the top for 5 weeks. At the time it was the biggest selling single ever in the UK, with sales of over three and a half million.

1986 - Carnegie Hall reopened after its $50 million renovation.

2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 to fortify it, without fixing its famous lean.

2009 – Boeing's new Boeing 787 Dreamliner makes its maiden flight from Seattle, Washington.

1653 - Following the execution of Charles I, Oliver Cromwell failed to get the Parliament he wanted and became Lord Protector, turning himself into an uncrowned king for the next four years.

1773 - Taxes by Britain on tea and other commodities led Samuel Adams and 150 ‘Sons of Liberty’ disguised as Mohawk Indians to hold what became known as the Boston Tea Party. 342 tea chests worth £18,000 were tossed off Griffin’s Wharf into Boston Harbour. The War of Independence had begun.

1809 - Napoleon was granted a divorce from his wife Josephine; he divorced her because she had not produced children.

1925 - One of the deadliest earthquakes in history hit the Gansu province of midwestern China, and caused massive landslides and the deaths of over 200,000 people. It measured 8.5 on the Richter scale.

1930 – Bank robber Herman Lamm and members of his crew are killed by a posse of 200, following a botched bank robbery in Clinton, Indiana.

1944 - The Battle of the Bulge began in the Ardennes. By 21st January, the Germans had been pushed back to their original line, having lost some 120,000 men in the offensive.

1969 - MPs voted by for the permanent abolition of the death penalty for murder.

1977 - The Queen unveiled the new underground link from central London to Heathrow; the first from a capital city to its major airport.

1979 – Libya joins four other OPEC nations in raising crude oil prices, having an immediate dramatic effect on the United States.

1985 – Mafia: In New York City, Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti are shot dead on the orders of John Gotti, who assumes leadership of the Gambino family.

1996 - Britain's agriculture minister announced the slaughter of an additional 100,000 cows thought to be at risk of contracting BSE (mad cow disease) in an effort to persuade the EU to lift its ban on British beef.

1997 – An episode of Pokémon, "Dennō Senshi Porygon", aired in Japan induces seizures in 685 Japanese children.

1998 - USA & Britain combined bombing attacks on Iraq after UN weapons inspectors were expelled from the country, contrary to assurances given by Saddam Hussein.

1577 – Francis Drake sails from Plymouth, England, on a secret mission to explore the Pacific Coast of the Americas for English Queen Elizabeth I.

1777 – France formally recognizes the United States of America.

1790 – Discovery of the Aztec calendar stone.

1843 - A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, was published.

1849 - Thomas and William Bowler, felt hat makers, sold their first 'bowler' to William Coke, which he purchased at James Lock & Co. in London.

1903 – The Wright Brothers make their first powered and heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1933 - Members of the public were allowed to walk through the recently completed Mersey Road Tunnel, prior to its opening to traffic.

1954 - The British Petroleum Company (BP) was formed.

1976 - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates rejected Opec's recommended 15% oil price increase and choose to impose a lower price rise of 5%.

1989 - The Simpsons premieres on TV.

2003 – The Soham murder trial ends at the Old Bailey in London, with Ian Huntley found guilty of two counts of murder. His girlfriend Maxine Carr is found guilty of perverting the course of justice.

2003 – SpaceShipOne flight 11P, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes its first supersonic flight.

1559 - Queen Elizabeth I of England sent aid to the Scottish Lords to drive the French from Scotland.

1892 - Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker was first performed, in St. Petersburg by the Russian Imperial Ballet.

1912 - The Piltdown Man was discovered in Sussex by Charles Dawson. It was claimed to be the fossilized skull and remains of the earliest known European, but in 1953 it was proved to be a hoax. The skull was that of an orang-utan.

1956 – Japan joins the United Nations.

1979 - The sound barrier was broken on land for the first time by Stanley Barrett, driving at 739.6 mph, in California.

1997 - A bill giving Scotland its own parliament for the first time in three centuries was unveiled in Glasgow.

1154 - Henry II was crowned at Westminster Abbey.

1606 - English entrepreneurs set sail in the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery to establish a colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.

1848 - Emily Brontë, English author of Wuthering Heights, died of tuberculosis age 30.

1842 - Hawaii's independence was recognized by the United States.

1924 - The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost was sold, in London.The Silver Ghost is considered the most valuable car in the world. In 2005 its insured value was placed at more than £22 million. By 2011 it was valued at almost £37 million.

1932 – BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service

1963 – Zanzibar gains independence from the United Kingdom as a constitutional monarchy, under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah.

1997 - The epic movie Titanic, the highest grossing film ever made, opened in American movie theaters.

1192 - Richard the Lion-Heart was captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after signing a treaty that ended the Third crusade.

1803 - The Louisiana Purchase was completed as ownership of the territory was formally transferred from France to the United States during ceremonies in New Orleans.

1880 - Electric lights were installed throughout Broadway's theater section in New York City.

1920 - An English born comedian named Leslie Townes, who later changed his name to Bob Hope, became an American citizen on this day. He had lived in the United States since 1908 and became one America's true ambassadors for show business and charity.

1928 - Harry Ramsden started his fish and chip restaurant in a hut at Guiseley, near Bradford, West Yorkshire. It soon became the most famous fish and chip restaurant in the world.

1955 - Cardiff was officially named the capital of Wales.

1977 – Djibouti and Vietnam join the United Nations.

1984 – The Summit tunnel fire is the largest underground fire in history, as a freight train carrying over 1 million litres of petrol derails near the town of Todmorden in the Pennines.

1989 - U.S. armed forces invaded Panama to overthrow military dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega, who had been indicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges and accused of suppressing democracy in Panama.

1995 – NATO begins peacekeeping in Bosnia.

1999 – Macau is handed over to the People's Republic of China by Portugal.

2004 – A gang of thieves steal £26.5 million worth of currency from the Donegall Square West headquarters of Northern Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland, one of the largest bank robberies in UK history.

2007 - Elizabeth II becomes the oldest ever monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days.

1620 - The Pilgrim Fathers arrived at Plymouth Rock , Massachusetts aboard The Mayflower.

1842 - Pentonville Prison, Islington, was opened. Pentonville became the model for British prisons. A further 54 were built to the same design over six years, and hundreds more were built throughout the British Empire.

1872 - The Challenger expedition, when HMS Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sailed from Portsmouth. The scientific exercise covered almost 70,000 nautical miles, laid the foundation of oceanography and more than 4,000 previously unknown species were discovered. The expedition was hailed as 'the greatest advance in the knowledge of our planet since the celebrated discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.'

1913 - The first crossword puzzle, compiled by Arthur Wynne, was published, appearing in the New York World.

1937 - Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was shown in Los Angeles, it was the first full-length animated talking picture.

1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.

1988 - A Pan American jumbo jet bound for New York was blown out of the sky by a terrorist bomb and crashed onto the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 passengers and 11 people on the ground.

1999 – The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a van loaded with 950 kg of explosives that ETA intended to use to blow up Torre Picasso in Madrid.

(21-12-2011 14:43 )skully Wrote:  1913 - The first crossword puzzle, compiled by Arthur Wynne, was published, appearing in the New York World.

Arthur Wynne was actually born in Liverpool in 1871 and emigrated to the States at the age of 19. For a time he lived in Pittsburgh where he worked on the Pittsburgh Press newspaper and played the violin in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He later moved to New York City and was working on the New York World newspaper when he invented the crossword puzzle in 1913.

Although Wynne's invention was based on earlier puzzle forms, such as the word "diamond", he introduced a number of innovations (e.g. the use of horizontal and vertical lines to create boxes for solvers to enter letters). He subsequently pioneered the use of black squares in a symmetrical arrangement to separate words in rows and columns. With the exception of the numbering scheme, the form of Wynne's "Word-Cross" puzzles is that used for modern crosswords.

A few weeks after the first "Word-Cross" appeared, the name of the puzzle was change to "Cross-Word" as a result of a typesetting error. Wynne's puzzles have been known as "crosswords" ever since.

He became a naturalised American in the 1920s, and retired to Florida.

He died in 1945 at the age of 73, and presumably was buried 6 down and 3 across

(21-12-2011 14:43 )skully Wrote:  1988 - A Pan American jumbo jet bound for New York was blown out of the sky by a terrorist bomb and crashed onto the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 passengers and 11 people on the ground.

If you are ever asked "what connects former Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten to former South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha" the answer is they should both have been on the doomed flight.

Botha was stopping off in London on his way to a UN meeting but his connecting flight arrived early and his scheduled meeting was cancelled so he flew out on an earlier flight (there was never any suggestion that Botha was the intended target as his travel arrangements were kept strictly secret, were often changed at the last moment for security reasons and the bombers could have had no idea that he would be on the plane).

John Lydon, aka Rotten, missed the flight having got stuck in Xmas traffic. They were already running late because his wife had taken so long packing. Despite his apparantly strange lifestyle, Lydon has been with the same woman (Nora Forster) for nearly 35 years. When they met he was 21, she was 35 and they are still together.

Luckiest of all, though, was Indian born Jaswant Basuta, who had been attending a family wedding. With a reputation of being scatter-brained and somebody who would be late for his own funeral, he got to the airport in plenty of time and checked in his luggage, but made the mistake of going to the bar with the relatives who had come to see him off. After several pints of Special Brew, he lost all track of time and when the awful realisation dawned that the "gate closing" info on the screen applied to his flight, his olympian dash through the terminal was in vain and he missed the flight by a couple of minutes.

He was asleep in the departure lounge several hours later when two policemen carted the befuddled and hungover passenger away for questioning, as his bag had been on the plane and he wasn't. It became apparant very quickly that Basuta was not connected with the attack and he was released the following day, but after Lockerbie the rules on unaccompanied baggage were changed and that is why now, if somebody doesn't make it onto the plane, their baggage is off-loaded before the plane is allowed to leave.