December 21
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Events on This Day
1620 - The Mayflower, and its passengers, pilgrims from England, landed at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.1849 - The first ice-skating club in America was formed. It was called The Skater’s Club of the City and County of Philadelphia.
1913 - Readers of the New York World Sunday edition were treated to a “word-cross” puzzle as an added feature of the Fun supplement. The name later became “cross-word,” and even later, “crossword.”
1914 - Marie Dressler, Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand and Mack Swain appeared in the first six-reel, feature-length comedy. The film was directed by Mack Sennett and was lovingly titled, Tillie’s Punctured Romance.
1937 - Walt Disney presented the first, full-length, animated feature which debuted on this day at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Hollywood, CA. The cost to produce Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was $1.5 million. Disney got his total investment back in the first year of the film’s showing. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (now on video) is 83 minutes in length and is the work of 750 artists. Nearly one million drawings were made, of which 250,000 were used in the final print of the classic film.
1945 - U.S. General George Patton died in a German hospital this day. ‘Old Blood and Guts’, whose Third Army swept across France and into Germany after the Normandy Invasion, had been injured in a car crash near Mannheim, Germany twelve days earlier. He is buried among the soldiers who died in the Battle of the Bulge in Hamm, Luxembourg.
1948 - Ireland passed a law declaring itself a republic and withdrew from the British Commonwealth. The British parliament recognized the law, but reasserted its claim to reinstate Ireland’s six northeastern counties to the U.K. There is more -- much more -- to it, but this will have to do for now...
1954 - Dr. Sam Sheppard was found guilty of the July 4, 1954 murder of his wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard. Prosecutors said Sheppard had murdered his pregnant wife by beating her in their bedroom. (The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the “carnival atmosphere” surrounding Sheppard’s first trial had made due process impossible; after ten years in prison he was acquitted at a second trial.)
1956 - The Montgomery bus boycott ended as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Glen Smiley, a white minister, shared the front seat of a public bus. The U.S. Supreme Court had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses. During the 381-day boycott King was arrested, his home was bombed, and he was subjected to personal abuse.
1958 - Charles de Gaulle was elected to a seven-year term as the first president of the Fifth Republic of France.
1966 - The Beach Boys received a gold record for the single, Good Vibrations. A-one, and a-two and... “...I’m pickin’ up good vibrations. She’s givin’ me excitations...”
1967 - The Rolling Stones LP, Their Satanic Majesties Request, was released. It cost $50,000 to produce and came complete with a 3-D photograph of the Stones on the cover.
1968 - Apollo 8 was launched from Cape Kennedy. The crew, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders would perform the first orbit of the moon a few days later. (Remember the drama of Christmas Eve 1968? See Those Were the Days December 24).
1971 - The U.N. Security Council chose Kurt Waldheim of Austria to be Secretary-General of the world body, succeeding U Thant.
1974 - Harry Chapin’s Cat’s in the Cradle rose to the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. “...And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me; He’d grown up just like me. My boy was just like me...”
1978 - Police in Des Plaines, IL arrested John W. Gacy Jr. and began unearthing the remains of 33 men and boys that Gacy was later convicted of murdering. 27 bodies were found under his house, two in the back yard and four fished out of the nearby Des Plaines River. Gacy was executed in 1994.
1981 - Cincinnati defeated Bradley 75-73 in seven overtimes! The game became the longest collegiate basketball game in the history of NCAA Division I competition. The marathon game was played in Peoria, IL. If it can play there... it can play anywhere!
1983 - The NCAA men’s basketball rules committee rescinded the controversial, last-two-minute, free-throw rule. It had been enforced at the beginning of the 1983 season to eliminate excessive fouling at the end of a game. The idea bombed. There were even more fouls after the rule was enacted.
1985 - Bruce Springsteen’s album, Born in the USA, passed Michael Jackson’s Thriller to become the second longest-lasting LP in the top 10. It stayed there for 79 weeks. Only The Sound of Music, with Julie Andrews, lasted longer: 109 weeks.
1985 - Heart’s album, Heart, was #1 (for one week) in the U.S. The tracks are: If Looks Could Kill, What About Love, Never, These Dreams, The Wolf, All Eyes, Nobody Home, Nothin’ at All, What He Don’t Know and Shell Shock.
1986 - Atlanta Falcons center Jeff Van Note played his 246th and final NFL game as Atlanta downed Detroit, 20-6. At age 40, Van Note was the oldest player in pro football.
1988 - Pan Am World Airways Flight 103 was the target of a terrorist attack this day. The jet exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland killing 259 passengers and crew, plus eleven people who were on the ground at the site of the crash. (In Jan 2001 Libyan Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi was found guilty of planting the bomb that blew up the plane.)
1990 - Albania tore down eastern Europe’s last towering statues of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
1991 - The Soviet Union formally ceased to exist and was dissolved into Russia and fourteen other independent countries. The U.S. supported the change and pledged to extend as much help as possible to the new Russian state under Boris Yeltsin.
1992 - A Dutch DC-10 burst into flames after landing during a thunderstorm at Faro, Portugal. 56 people were killed.
1995 - A train collision outside Cairo claimed 75 lives. More than 130 were injured in the crash 20km south of Cairo, making it one of worst railway accidents in Egypt history.
1997 - U.S. President Bill Clinton, accompanied by his wife and daughter, left for Bosnia to spread holiday cheer. The President also carried the news that he wanted U.S. troops to remain in Bosnia indefinitely as the region recovered from its devastating war.
1997 - Jazz trumpeter Johnny Coles died in Philadelphia at 71 years of age. His records included The Warm Sound of Johnny Coles and Little Johnny C.
1998 - Israel appeared headed for early elections after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to restore unity to a government badly shaken up over his decision to suspend the Wye River land-for-security accord brokered by the United States in October 1998. The embattled Netanyahu was heckled by members left and right of the political spectrum when he rose to address Israel’s 120-member parliament, the Knesset. (Netanyahu was indeed defeated in 1999 by Ehud Barak.)
2000 - Fears about a harsh economic slowdown and continuing weakness in corporate earnings sent U.S. stocks sliding, with the Dow Jones industrials giving up more than 260 points, dropping to 10,318.93. The Nasdaq hit its low for the year, falling 178.93 (or 7 percent) to 2,332.78. “Investors are seeing a confirmation from the Fed that the economy is very weak and that earnings are going to be pretty poor and that assistance from the Fed is not going to be right away,” said A.C. Moore, chief investment strategist for Dunvegan Associates in Santa Barbara, CA. (The Fed [Federal Reserve System Board] did respond in 2001, dropping interest rates eleven times, pushing rates to the lowest level since 1961.)
2001 - Movies opening in the U.S.: How High, starring Method Man, Redman, Obba Babatunde, Mike Epps, Jeffrey Jones, Fred Willard, Anna Maria Horsford, Spalding Gray and Hector Elizondo; Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, with Debi Derryberry, Rob Paulson, Megan Cavanagh, Mark Decarlo, Carolyn Lawrence, Candi Milo, Jeff Garcia and Crystal Scales; Joe Somebody, starring Tim Allen, Julie Bowen, Kelly Lynch, Greg Germann, Hayden Panettiere, Patrick Warburton and Jim Belushi; and The Majestic, starring Jim Carrey, Bob Balaban, Brent Briscoe, Jeffrey Demunn, Amanda Detmer, Allen Garfield, Hal Holbrook, Laurie Holdon, Martin Landau, Ron Rifkin, David Ogden Stiers and James Whitmore.
2002 - U.S. President George Bush (II) received a smallpox vaccination, fulfilling the promise he had made when he ordered inoculations for 500,000 U.S. troops.
2003 - Tom Ridge, head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, announced that the government was increasing the national terror alert warning to Code Orange (HIGH), an upgrade from the Code Yellow (ELEVATED) status.
2004 - U.S. government officials warned that naproxen, a painkiller sold by prescription and also over the counter as Aleve, might increase people’s risk of having a heart attack or stroke.
2004 - Jack Newfield, New York City reporter and columnist, died. He was 66 years old. His books included Robert Kennedy: A Memoir (1969).
2005 - Films debuting in U.S. theatres: Cheaper by the Dozen 2, with Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Eugene Levy, Piper Perabo, Tom Welling, Hilary Duff, Kevin Schmidt, Alyson Stoner, Jacob Smith, Liliana Mumy, Morgan York, Forrest Landis, Blake Woodruff, Brent Kinsman, Shane Kinsman, Carmen Electra, Alexander Conti, Jaime King, Taylor Lautner, Jonathan Bennefiel, Jonathan Bennett, Dylan Rosenthal, Melanie Tonello; and Fun with Dick and Jane, starring Jim Carrey, Téa Leoni, Richard Jenkins, Angie Harmon, Vincent Curatola, Jacob Davich, Alec Baldwin and Stacey Travis.
2005 - The Supreme Court of Canada ruled (7-2) that swingers clubs do not harm society and are legal -- as long as there is no exchange of money and the activities are conducted in private.
2005 - The U.S. Senate blocked oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
2005 - Pop music legend Elton John and Canadian filmmaker David Furnish were joined in a civil partnership ceremony at Windsor Town Hall; the couple were among hundreds of same-sex couples entering civil partnerships in England and Wales on the first day that such ceremonies become possible. (Ceremonies were held earlier in the week in Northern Ireland and Scotland.)
2006 - Fidelity Investments said it would pay more than $42 million to its mutual funds after a review found that its traders had ‘misdirected’ business to brokers who lavished them with expensive gifts.
2006 - The Denver area was snowbound for a second day after a powerful blizzard dumped some two feet of snow on the Rocky Mountain region.
2006 - Thousands of passengers were stranded Heathrow airport in London after a thick blanket of freezing fog forced hundreds of flights to be canceled.
2006 - The Census Bureau said Arizona had replaced Nevada’s 19-year reign as the fastest growing U.S. state.
2007 - New in U.S. movie houses: Charlie Wilson’s War, starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Om Puri, Jud Tylor and Nazanin Boniadi; National Treasure: Book of Secrets, starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Ed Harris, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Bruce Greenwood and Helen Mirren; P.S. I Love You, with Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, James Marsters, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lisa Kudrow, Gina Gershon, Kathy Bates, Harry Connick Jr., Dean Winters, Mike Doyle, Marcus Collins, Tony Devon, Sal Longobardo, Stephen Singer, Chris Edwards, Eliezer Meyer, Madalyn McKay, Don Sparks, Bryan Webster, Richard Wallace Smith and Roger Rathburn; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee, Jamie Campbell Bowen, Jayne Wisener, Laura Michelle Kelly and Ed Sanders; and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, with Jenna Fischer, John C. Reilly, Kristen Wiig and Tim Meadows.
2007 - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair resigned from the Church of England and converted to Catholicism, the faith of his wife and children.
2008 - Rocket barrages fired from Gaza hit Israeli towns and the Israeli air force responded with a missile strike as violence surged following the official expiration of a truce with Hamas.
2008 - Vladivostok (eastern Russia), riot police clubbed, kicked and detained dozens of people as hundreds across the country protested an increase in car import tariffs.
2009 - A Pakistani court in Lahore ordered the noses and ears of two men cut off after they did the same thing to a young woman whose family spurned one of the men’s marriage proposal.
2010 - U.S. Department of Justice announced that Deutsche Bank had admitted criminal wrongdoing when it participated in tax shelters (from 1996-2002) that enabled the rich to temporarily avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. taxes. Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $553 million in penalties and restitution. Authorities said the $533,633,153 payment by the bank included that amount of taxes and interest that the Internal Revenue Service was unable to collect from taxpayers from 1996 to 2002 because of the misconduct. It also included a civil penalty of more than $149 million.
2010 - Toyota Motor Corp. agreed to pay the U.S. government a record $32.4 million in additional fines to settle an investigation into its handling of two recalls at the heart of its safety crisis. The settlement, on top of a $16.4 million fine Toyota paid earlier in a related investigation, brought the total penalties levied on the company to $48.8 million. The settlements involved Toyota’s delay in issuing recalls dating back to 2005 to address possible problems with steering relay rods and from 2007 to early 2010 over possible entrapment of the accelerator pedal by floor mats.
2011 - Movies making their debut in the U.S.: the animated (motion capture 3D) The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, featuring the voices (and motions) of Daniel Craig, Jamie Bell, Simon Pegg, Cary Elwes, Toby Jones, Nick Frost and Kim Stengel; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, starring Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Steven Berkoff and Robin Wright; Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, starring Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Léa Seydoux, Ving Rhames and Josh Holloway; and Albert Nobbs, with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Aaron Johnson, Mia Wasikowska, Glenn Close, Brendan Gleeson and Janet McTeer.
2011 - Finnish officials said they found some 160 tons of explosives and 69 surface-to-air Patriot missiles on a cargo ship bearing a British flag. The weapons were destined for China. The officials did not know the origin of the missiles or who was supposed to receive them, but the "Helsinki Times" reported that the explosives had been loaded in Germany on the Thor Liberty and the ship had Isle of Man flags.
2012 - New movies in U.S. theatres: the fantasy flick, Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, with Erica Linz, Igor Zaripov, Dallas Barnett, Jason Berrent, John Clarke, Alessandro D’Agostini, Matt Gillanders, Lutz Halbhubner, Caroline Lauzon and Taras Shevchenko; Jack Reacher, starring Tom Cruise, Robert Duvall, Rosamund Pike, Alexander Rhodes, Richard Jenkins, Jai Courtney, Werner Herzog, David Oyelowo, Michael Raymond-James, James Martin Kelly, Alexia Fast, Ron Pucillo, Kristen Dalton, Nicole Forester and Christopher Stadulis; This is 40, starring Megan Fox, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Leslie Mann, Melissa McCarthy, Albert Brooks, Chris O’Dowd, John Lithgow, Lena Dunham and Maude Apatow; Barbara, with Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld and Rainer Bock; The Impossible, starring Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, Geraldine Chaplin, Tom Holland, Ploy Jindachote, Marta Etura, Oaklee Pendergast, Samuel Joslin, Dominic Power and Sönke Möhring; On the Road, with Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen and Steve Buscemi; and Not Fade Away, starring Jack Huston, James Gandolfini, Bella Heathcote, Christopher McDonald and Brad Garrett.
2012 - The National Rifle Association said guns and police officers in all American schools were what’s needed to stop the next killer “waiting in the wings.” NRA executive chief Wayne LaPierre delivered a 25-minute rant against the notion that another gun law would stop killings.
2014 - British actress Billie Whitelaw died at 82 years of age. Whitelaw worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett over the years, appeared on stage and screen for decades, making more than 50 movies.
2014 - An Egyptian court jailed Mohamed Ali Abdel Baki, a Suez Canal shipping services manager, for 10 years on charges of spying for Israel about naval movements through the canal. The court found that Abdel Baki had passed on information damaging to national security about the movements of Egyptian and foreign warships, particularly Iranian ones.
2015 - SpaceX successfully landed its powerful Falcon 9 rocket upright on solid ground for the first time -- at Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was a major milestone in the effort to cut costs and waste by making rockets as reusable as airplanes.
2016 - Movies opening in the U.S. included: Assassin’s Creed, starring Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Irons; Passengers, with Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt and Michael Sheen; the animated Sing, featuring the voices of Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, Tori Kelly, Taron Egerton, Nick Kroll and Nick Offerman; and Julieta, with Emma Suárez, Adriana Ugarte and Daniel Grao.
2016 - Ikea reached a settlement to pay three U.S. families $50 million for the deaths of three children, all around age two. They were killed when Ikea MALM series dressers tipped over and fell on them.
2016 - When scientists discovered a new species of fish in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, they noticed a distinctive, colorful spot near the tail that bore a striking resemblance to POTUS Obama’s campaign logo. That’s one of the reasons why they decided to name the species after him. Scientists hoped the species would symbolize his legacy for many years to come.
2017 - Three opera singers and a classical musician said that world-renowned conductor Charles Dutoit (81) had sexually assaulted them. The women accused the artistic director and principal conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of sexual misconduct on the sidelines of rehearsals and performances in five cities between 1985 and 2010. The Royal Philharmonic announced that it and Dutoit agreed to cancel his pending engagements and the following month said that Dutoit had left all roles with the orchestra.
2018 - Motion pictures opening in U.S. theatres included: Aquaman, starring Jason Momoa, Amber Heard and Dolph Lundgren; Bumblebee, with Hailee Steinfeld, Justin Theroux and Dylan O’Brien; Second Act, starring Vanessa Hudgens, Milo Ventimiglia and Jennifer Lopez; Welcome to Marwen, starring Eiza González, Steve Carell and Leslie Mann; Cold War, with Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot and Borys Szyc; and Zero, with Shah Rukh Khan, Katrina Kaif and Salman Khan.
2018 - POTUS Donald Trump threatened a “very long” federal work stoppage unless Democrats agreed to his border wall demands. More than 800,000 federal workers faced furloughs or work without pay if a resolution was not reached. (The shutdown lasted until Jan 25, 2019. Trump did not get the wall funding he had demanded.)
2018 - Another day of big losses left the U.S. stock market with its worst week in more than seven years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 414.23 points, or 1.8 percent, to 22,445.37.
2018 - Three men stole about $800,000 worth of diamond-encased jewelry from a display case in the Little Nell hotel in Aspen, Colorado. Police later identified three Chilean men as the robbers: Richard Esteban Delgado Escobar, 28; Diego Miqueles, 37, a Chilean living in Reseda, California, and Guiliano Maurizio Donoso Jofre, 40.
2019 - The U.S. Space Force was launched. What will it do? According to its Congresional mandate, the United States Space Force Act, which was part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, established Space Force’s functions to:
*Provide freedom of operation for the United States in, from, and to space
*Provide prompt and sustained space operations
It also enshrined in legislation the Space Force’s stated duties to:
*Protect the interests of the United States in space
*Deter aggression in, from, and to space
*Conduct space operations2019 - Joseph Segel, the founder of home shopping television channel QVC and Franklin Mint, died at 88 years of age. Segel founded QVC, which stands for Quality Value Convenience, in 1986 as an alternate to the Home Shopping Network (HSN).
2020 - The U.S. Military Academy at West Point confronted its biggest academic scandal in nearly five decades. More than 70 cadets were accused of cheating on a calculusam exam.
2020 - Republican Oregon state Representative Mike Nearman let violent, far-right protesters into the state Capitol. Police prevented a full-scale assault and on June 10, 2021 state lawmakers expelled Nearman. He was the first legislator to be kicked out of the Oregon House of Representatives.
2020 - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said British Airways agreed to allow only passengers who tested negative for the novel coronavirus to fly into New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, as international leaders reacted to discovery of a highly infectious new strain of COVID-19.
2021 - Biden administration opened federal COVID-19 testing sites in New York City and bought 500 million at-home rapid tests for Americans to order online for free. This, as the U.S. tackled the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
2021 - The Secret Service said nearly $100 billion had been stolen from COVID-19 relief programs set up to help businesses and people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Most of the loss came from unemployment fraud.
2021 - Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was prepared to take military steps in response to “unfriendly steps” taken by the West over the Ukraine conflict. The U.S. had been sounding the alarm since mid-November that Moscow was planning a large-scale attack on its ex-Soviet neighbour.
2022 - Universal’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish opened in the U.S. The animated comedy adventure features characters voiced by Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Harvey Guillén and Florence Pugh.
2022 - Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris died at age 72. His cause of death was later ruled as ‘natural causes.’ The Steelers were preparing to retire Harris' No. 32 jersey in a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the ‘Immaculate Reception,’ the most famous play in Harris’ career -- and possibly in NFL history. The Steelers were down 7-6 with just seconds left in a playoff game against the Oakland Raiders. Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw threw a desperation pass that Raiders safety Jack Tatum broke up, appearing to end the game. But Harris caught the football just inches above the ground and scored a 60-yard touchdown, putting the Steelers in their first AFC championship game.
2022 - President Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. Zelensky presented Biden with a Ukrainian military medal and thanked the United States for aid that has helped his country fight back. “The situation is under control because of your support,” Zelensky told Biden. The meeting came as the U.S. announced $1.85 billion in additional military aid for Kyiv -- including the first-ever transfer of a Patriot missile defense system. Zelensky called the additional aid “an investment in the global security and democracy.”
and more...
Birthdays on This Day December 21
1639 - Jean Baptiste Racine
dramatist: Alexandre, Andromaque, Les Plaideurs, Britannicus, Berenice, Bajazet, Mithridate, etc.; died Apr 21, 16991804 - Benjamin Disraeli
author, statesman: “No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition.”; died Apr 19, 18811860 - Henrietta Szold
humanitarian: founding president of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America; died Feb 13, 19451879 - Joseph Stalin (Dzhugashvili)
Russian dictator; died Mar 5, 19531892 - Walter Hagen
golf champion: U.S. Open [1914 & 1919], British Open [1922, 1924, 1928-29], PGA [1921, 1924-27]; died Oct 5, 19691908 - Sylvester Pat Weaver
President of NBC-TV, credited with the idea for Today and Tonight shows; father of actress Sigourney Weaver; died Mar 17, 20021913 - Andor Foldes
pianist: played with Budapest Philharmonic at eight years of age; died Feb 9, 19921913 - Luise King
singer: group: The King Sisters: The King Family Show; actress: On Stage Everybody, Larceny With Music, Follow the Band; died Aug 4, 19971917 - Heinrich Böll
Nobel Prize-winning author [1972]; Group Portrait with Lady, The Clown, Billiards at Half-Past Nine; died July 16, 19851918 - Kurt Waldheim
government official: President of Austria; U.N. Secretary-General; died Jun 14, 20071920 - Alicia Alonso (Martinez Hoyo)
ballet dancer; died Oct 17, 20191922 - Paul Winchell
comedian, ventriloquist: TV: The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show; remember Knucklehead Smith?; voice of Tigger in Winnie the Pooh animated films; died June 24, 20051926 - Freddie Hart
singer: Easy Loving; TV: Home Town Jamboree; quote: “I try to put down in my songs what every man wants to say, and what every woman wants to hear.”; died Oct 27, 20181926 - Joe Paterno
football coach: Penn State [1966-2011]; died Jan 22, 20121928 - Ed Nelson
actor: Peyton Place, Anatomy of a Seduction, Deadly Weapon; died Aug 9, 20141935 - Phil Donahue
TV talk show host: Donahue; married to actress Marlo Thomas1937 - Jane Fonda
Academy Award-winning actress: Coming Home [1978], Klute [1971]; Barbarella, The China Syndrome, Cat Ballou, They Shoot Horses Don’t They, On Golden Pond, Grace and Frankie; ex-wife of Time-Warner’s Ted Turner; daughter of actor Henry Fonda; sister of actor Peter; exercise videos; Vietnam-era peace activist1939 - Wes Farrell
producer, songwriter: Come On Get Happy, Come a Little Bit Closer, Boys, Jungle Jim at the Zoo, Old Man Willow, Hang On Sloopy, The Partridge Family TV theme; died Feb 29, 19961940 - Frank Zappa
musician: guitar; songwriter, singer: group: Mothers of Invention; Valley Girl [w/daughter Moon]; died Dec 4, 19931941 - Paul (Paulino Ortiz) Casanova
baseball: catcher: Washington Senators [all-star: 1967], Atlanta Braves; died Aug 12, 20171941 - Jared Martin
actor: The New Gladiators, Karate Warrior; died May 24, 20171942 - Hu Jintao
General Secretary of the Communist Party of China [2002-2012]1942 - Carla Thomas
singer: B-A-B-Y, I’ll Bring It on Home to You, What a Fool I’ve Been, Let Me Be Good to You, Knock on Wood, Lovey Dovey1944 - Michael Tilson Thomas
jazz band conductor: led London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic1945 - Gordon Kannegiesser
hockey: Des Moines Oak Leafs, KC Blues, SL Blues, Seattle Totems, Denver Spurs, Houston Aeros, Indianapolis Racers1946 - Josh Mostel
actor: City Slickers series, The Chase, Little Man Tate, Wall Street, Radio Days, The Money Pit, Sophie’s Choice, Harry and Tonto, Jesus Christ, Superstar, The King of Marvin Gardens, Murphy’s Law, Delta House, At Ease1946 - Carl Wilson
musician: guitar, group: The Beach Boys: I Get Around, Help Me Rhonda, Good Vibrations, California Girls, Surfin’ USA, Little Deuce Coupe, Surfer Girl, Be True to Your School; brother of Brian and Dennis; original group: Carl and the Passions; died Feb 6, 19981947 - Elliott Maddox
baseball: Detroit Tigers, Washington Senators, Texas Rangers, NY Yankees [World Series: 1976], Baltimore Orioles, NY Mets1948 - Samuel L. Jackson
actor: Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Pulp Fiction, Do the Right Thing, Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Jackie Brown, Sphere, Rules of Engagement, Shaft, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones1948 - Dave Kingman
baseball [‘Kong’, ‘Sky King’]: San Francisco Giants [1971–1974]; New York Mets [1975–1977]; San Diego Padres [1977]; California Angels [1977]; New York Yankees [1977]; Chicago Cubs [1978–1980]; New York Mets [1981–1983]; Oakland Athletics [1984–1986]1950 - Jeffrey Katzenberg
movie producer: The Prince of Egypt, Chicken Run, Joseph: King of Dreams, Shrek1951 - Nick Gilder
singer: Hot Child in the City1953 - Betty Wright (Bessie Regina Norris)
singer: Clean Up Woman, Slip and Do It, Dance with Me, No Pain, No Gain, Tonight Is the Night; died May 10, 20201954 - Chris Evert
tennis champion: Women’s singles: Australian Open [1982, 84], French Open - a record for most wins [1974-75, 1979-80, 1983, 1985-86], Wimbledon [1974, 1976, 1981], U.S. Open [1975-78, 1980, 1982]1955 - Jane Kaczmarek
actress: Malcolm in the Middle, Uncommon Valor, Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac, The Heavenly Kid, Without Warning, Cybill1957 - Ray Romano
comedian, actor: Everybody Loves Raymond, Hollywood Squares, CBS: The First 50 Years1959 - Florence Griffith Joyner (Flo-Jo)
track star: Olympic gold medalist [100, 200-meter run: Seoul: 1988]; died Sept. 21, 1998 of a heart seizure1960 - Andy (Andrew James) Van Slyke
baseball: SL Cardinals [World Series: 1985], Pittsburgh Pirates [all-star: 1988, 1992, 1993/The Sporting News NL Player of the Year: 1988/Golden Glove: 1988-1992], Baltimore Orioles, Philadelphia Phillies1962 - Christy Forester
singer: group: The Forester Sisters: I Fell In Love Again Last Night, [That’s What You Do] When You’re in Love, Letter Home, Just in Case, Don’t You, Sincerely1965 - Andy Dick
actor: NewsRadio, The Ben Stiller Show, Reality Bites, The Cable Guy, Inspector Gadget, Being John Malkovich, Dude, Where's My Car?, The Andy Dick Show, Dr. Dolittle 21966 - Kiefer Sutherland
actor: Designated Survivor, 24, An Eye for an Eye, The Vanishing, The Three Musketeers, A Few Good Men, Young Guns series, Flatliners, Bright Lights Big City, Brotherhood of Justice, Twin Peaks; son of actor Donald Sutherland1966 - Karri Turner
actress: JAG, Wild Oats, Hollywood Squares, The X Files1967 - Ervin Johnson
basketball [center]: Univ of New Orleans; NBA: Seattle SuperSonics, Denver Nuggets, Milwaukee Bucks, Minnesota Timberwolves1968 - Khrystyne Haje
actress: Head of the Class, Hearts are Wild, Attack of the 5'2" Women, Scanner Cop II, Demolition University1969 - Julie Delpy
actress: The Three Musketeers, Killing Zoe, White, An American Werewolf in Paris, Crime and Punishment1969 - Jack Noseworthy
actor: U-571, The Brady Bunch Movie, Encino Man, Event Horizon, Unconditional Love, Poster Boy, Phat Girlz, Surrogates, Barb Wire, Trigger Affect, Breakdown, Idle Hands; more1973 - Mike Alstott
football [running back]: Purdue Univ; NFL: Tampa Bay Buccaneers1977 - Emmanuel Macron
French politician: President of France [2017- ]1982 - Tom Payne
actor: Waterloo Road, The Walking Dead, Talking Dead, Winter, MindGamers, Prodigal Son; more1983 - Steven Yeun
actor: The Walking Dead, I Origins, Like a French Film, Warehouse 13, Voltron: Legendary Defender1987 - Rachel Shenton
actress: Hollyoaks, Money Kills, Blood and Bone China1989 - Mark Ingram Jr.
football [running back]: Univ of Alabama: Heisman Trophy [2009]; NFL: New Orleans Saints [2011-2018]; Baltimore Ravens [2019–2020]; Houston Texans [2021]; New Orleans Saints [2021– ])1996 - Kaitlyn Dever
actress: Justified, Last Man Standing, Unbelievable, Dopesick, Bad Teacher, The Spectacular Now, Short Term 12, Detroit, Beautiful Boy, Dear Evan Hansen, Ticket to Paradise, Rosaline, No One Will Save You1997 - Madelyn Cline
actress: Outer Banks, Stranger Things, Savannah Sunrise, Boy Erased, This Is the Night, What Breaks the Ice
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day December 21
1947Civilization (facts) - Louis Prima
How Soon (facts) - Jack Owens
1956
1965
1974
1983
1992
2001
2010
2019
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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