Saturday, December 19th
The 353rd day of 2009.
There are 12 days left in the year.
Go to a previous date.
Go to lesson
Today's Highlights in History
On Dec. 19, 1984, Britain and China signed an accord returning Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997. (Go to article.)
On Dec. 19, 1906, Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet statesman who was the leader of the Soviet Union for 18 years, was born. Following his death on Nov. 10, 1982, his obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit. | Other Birthdays)
Editorial Cartoon of the Day
On December 19, 1863, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about a Union drummer boy during the Civil War. (See the cartoon and read an explanation.)
On this date in:
1732 Benjamin Franklin began publishing "Poor Richard's Almanac."
1776 Thomas Paine published his first "American Crisis" essay, writing: "These are the times that try men's souls."
1777 Gen. George Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, Pa., to camp for the winter.
1843 Charles Dickens' Yuletide tale, "A Christmas Carol," was first published in England.
1907 A coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pa., killed 239 workers.
1946 War broke out in Indochina as troops under Ho Chi Minh launched widespread attacks against the French.
1972 Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, ending the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.
1974 Nelson A. Rockefeller was sworn in as vice president, replacing Gerald R. Ford, who became president when Richard M. Nixon resigned.
1986 The Soviet Union announced it had freed dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile and pardoned his wife, Yelena Bonner.
1996 The school board of Oakland, Calif., voted to recognize Black English, also known as "ebonics."
1997 "Titanic," the highest-grossing movie of all-time, opened in American theaters.
1998 President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for perjury and obstruction of justice. (He was later acquitted by the Senate.)
1998 Two days after his confession of marital infidelity, Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., told the House he wouldn't serve as its next speaker.
2000 The U.N. Security Council voted to impose broad sanctions on Afghanistan's Taliban rulers unless they closed terrorist training camps and surrendered U.S. embassy bombing suspect Osama bin Laden.
2002 After a prosecutor cited new DNA evidence, a judge in New York threw out the convictions of five young men in a 1989 attack on a Central Park jogger who had been raped and left for dead.
2003 Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi agreed to halt his nation's drive to develop nuclear and chemical weapons.
2005 Afghanistan's first democratically elected parliament in more than three decades convened.
Current Birthdays
Cicely Tyson turns 76 years old today.
AP Photo/Matt Sayles Actress Cicely Tyson turns 76 years old today.
89 Little Jimmy Dickens
Country singer
84 Robert Sherman
Composer
75 Al Kaline
Baseball Hall of Famer
68 Maurice White
R&B musician (Earth, Wind and Fire)
66 James Jones
National security adviser
66 Elaine Joyce
Actress
65 Richard E. Leakey
Palaeontologist
65 Alvin Lee
Rock singer (Ten Years After)
65 Tim Reid
Actor ("WKRP in Cincinnati")
64 John McEuen
Country musician (The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
62 Janie Fricke
Country singer
54 Rob Portman
Former White House budget director
52 Kevin McHale
Basketball Hall of Famer
49 Mike Lookinland
Actor ("The Brady Bunch")
45 Scott Cohen
Actor
45 Randall McDaniel
Football Hall of Famer
43 Robert MacNaughton
Actor
42 Criss Angel
Magician
41 Kevin Shepard
Rock musician
40 Kristy Swanson
Actress
38 Amy Locane
Actress
37 Rosa Blasi
Actress
37 Alyssa Milano
Actress ("Charmed," "Who's the Boss?")
37 Warren Sapp
Football player
35 Jake Plummer
Football player
29 Jake Gyllenhaal
Actor
29 Marla Sokoloff
Actress
24 Lady Sovereign
Rapper
Historic Birthdays
Leonid Brezhnev
12/19/1906 - 11/10/1982
Russian statesman
(Go to obit.)
80 Charles-Julien Brianchon
12/19/1783 - 4/29/1864
French mathematician
55 Edwin Stanton
12/19/1814 - 12/24/1869
American Secretary of War under President Lincoln
78 A.A. Michelson
12/19/1852 - 5/9/1931
German-born American physicist
83 Barry Byrne
12/19/1883 - 12/17/1967
American architect
74 Fritz Reiner
12/19/1888 - 11/15/1963
Hungarian-born American conductor
80 Sir Ralph Richardson
12/19/1902 - 10/10/1983
English actor
92 George Davis Snell
12/19/1903 - 6/6/1996
American geneticist and Nobel Prize winner
75 Jean Genet
12/19/1910 - 4/15/1986
French novelist
47 Edith Piaf
12/19/1915 - 10/11/1963
French singer and actress
Go to a previous date.
SOURCE: The Associated Press
Front Page Image Provided by UMI
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Children's Privacy Notice