December 23

Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. 

– Proverbs 8:34

December is:

Church Library Month

Born on this Day

• 1777: Alexander I, Czar of Russia
  

• 1790: Egyptologist Jean Francois Champollion, who deciphered the Rosetta Stone
  

• 1805: Mormon church founder Joseph Smith
  

• 1812: Writer Samuel Smiles
  

• 1860: Poet Harriet Monroe, founder of Poetry magazine
  

• 1885: Manhattan restaurateur Vincent Sardi Sr.(Sardi’s Bar & Grill - New York)
  

• 1888: British film executive J. Arthur Rank
  

• 1903: Actress Fredi Washington (Imitation of Life)
  

• 1907: Radio host Don McNeill (The Breakfast Club ABC Radio)
  

• 1908: Photographer Yousuf Karsh
  

• 1911: Actor James Gregory (The Manchurian Candidate, Barney Miller,PT 109, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Captain Newman, M.D.)
  

• 1918: Flamenco dancer Jose Greco
  

• 1921: Actor Gerald S. O'Loughlin (The Rookies, Our House, Ensign Pulver, A Matter of Life and Death)
  

• 1923: Actress Ruth Roman (The Killing Kind, Love has Many Faces, Since You Went Away, The Window, Knots Landing)
  

• 1924: Football coach Dan Devine
  

• 1924: Newscaster Floyd Kalber
  

• 1925: Actor Harry Guardino (Hell is for Heroes, Dirty Harry, The Enforcer, Fist of Honor)
  

• 1926: Author Robert Bly (What Have I Ever Lost by Dying?, Iron John: A Book About Men)
  

• 1933: Emperor Akihito of Japan (First son of Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako)
  

• 1935: Pianist and singer ‘Little’ Esther Phillips (Release Me, What a Diff’rence a Day Makes)
  

• 1935: Football player The Golden Boy Paul Hornung
  

• 1936: Actor Frederic Forrest
  

• 1936: Actor James Stacy
  

• 1940: Rhythm-and-blues singer Eugene Record (The Chi-Lites)
  

• 1940: Singer composer Tim Hardin (If I Were a Carpenter, Reason to Believe, Hang on to a Dream, Misty Roses, Tippy-Toein’)
  

• 1941: Actress Elizabeth Hartman (Secret of NIMH, Full Moon High, Walking Tall, Patch of Blue)
  

• 1943: Actor-comedian Harry Shearer (The Fisher King, Portrait of a White Marriage, The Right Stuff, One Trick Pony, voice of Smithers & Otto the Bus Driver: The Simpsons)
  

• 1949: Actress Susan Lucci (All My Children, Dallas, French Silk, Lady Mobster, Mafia Princess, Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna, Invitation to Hell, Secret Passions)
  

• 1958: Rock musician Dave Murray (Iron Maiden)
  

• 1972: Actor Corey Haim (Life 101, Dream a Little Dream series, Oh, What a Night, Fast Getaway, Dream Machine, The Lost Boys, Lucas, A Time to Live, Silver Bullet, Murphy’s Romance, First Born)
  

• 1975: Rock musician Jamie Murphy (Space)

Events in History on this day
  

• 0619: Election of Pope Boniface V
  

• 0679: Murder of St. Dagobert II, King of the Franks
  

• 0800: Pope Leo III purges himself of charges of moral turpitude, before Charlemagne
  

• 1096: Godfrey and Baldwin's armies of the 1st Crusade arrive in Constantinople
  

• 1193: Death of St. Thorlac
  

• 1569: Martyrdom of St. Philip of Moscow, Primate of the Russian Church killed by Czar Ivan "the Terrible"
  

• 1588: Murder of the Duc de Guise and Cardinal de Tournon
  

• 1617: The English set up a penal colony in Virginia
  

• 1631: Michael Drayton, English poet, dies
  

• 1783: George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Army and retired to his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia.
  

• 1788: Maryland voted to cede a 100-square-mile area for the seat of the national government; about two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia.
  

• 1806: Beethoven's one violin concerto was premiered. The director of the Vienna orchestra that played was himself the soloist. This is another of those famous compositions finished just in time for performance, with the usual remarks about the ink still being wet.
  

• 1823: The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement C. Moore ("`Twas the night before Christmas...") was published in the "Troy (New York) Sentinel."
  

• 1893: The Engelbert Humperdinck opera "Haensel und Gretel" was first performed, in Weimar, Germany.
  

• 1913: The "Federal Reserve Act" was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. It established 12 Federal Reserve Banks.
  

• 1919: Britain institutes a new constitution for India.
  

• 1919: The first ship designed to be used as an ambulance for the transport of sick and wounded patients was launched. The hospital ship was named "USS Relief" and had 515 beds.
  

• 1921: President Harding frees Socialist Eugene Debs and 23 other political prisoners.
  

• 1928: The National Broadcasting Company established a permanent coast-to-coast radio hookup.
  

• 1930: An unknown actress arrived in Hollywood, under contract to Universal Studios. She was Ruth Elizabeth Davis. Universal changed her name for the movies to Bette Davis.
  

• 1941: During World War Two, American forces on Wake Island surrendered to the Japanese.
  

• 1942: Bob Hope agreed to entertain U.S. airmen in Alaska. It was the first of his many, famous Christmas shows for American armed forces around the world. He continued the tradition for more than three decades.
  

• 1947: Scientists at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey achieved a major breakthrough with an invention called a point-contact transistor, which paved the way to a new era of miniaturized electronics. (transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain & Shockley in Bell Labs )
  

• 1947: Truman grants a pardon to 1,523 who had evaded the World War II draft.
  

• 1954: The classic movie, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", was released. It was to become one of
  Walt Disney’s most successful films.
  

• 1957: Actor Dan Blocker made his debut on television in the "Restless Gun" production of "The Child". Two years later, Blocker starred in "Bonanza" on NBC, as Hoss Cartwright.
  

• 1968: 82 crew members of the US intelligence ship "Pueblo" were released by North Korea, eleven months after they had been captured.
  

• 1969 - B.J. Thomas received a gold record for the single, "Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head."
  

• 1974: The B-1 bomber makes its first successful test flight.
  

• 1980: A state funeral was held in Moscow for former Premier Alexei N. Kosygin, who had died December 18th at age 76.
  

• 1986: The experimental airplane "Voyager," piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, round-the-world flight without refueling as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
  

• 1988: Pope John Paul the Second met with Yasser Arafat at the Vatican.
  

• 1988: The pontiff told the PLO leader he believed Palestinians and Jews had "an identical fundamental right" to their own countries.
  

• 1989: Ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were captured as they were attempting to flee their country.
  

• 1994: Baseball owners imposed a salary cap that was fiercely opposed by players.
  

• 1994: Bosnian Serbs and the Muslim-led government agreed to a weeklong truce beginning the next day as they worked on details of a four-month cease-fire.
  

• 1995: A fire in Dabwali, India, killed 540 people, including 170 children, during a year-end party being held near the children's school.
  

• 1987: Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of President Ford in 1975, escaped from the Alderson Federal Prison for Women in West Virginia. (She was recaptured two days later.)
  

• 1990: Slovenians voted overwhelmingly in favor of their republic's secession from Yugoslavia.
  

• 1992: An American mission to save lives in Somalia lost the first of its own when a US vehicle hit a land mine near Bardera, killing civilian Army employee Lawrence N. Freedman of Fayetteville, North Carolina.
  

• 1993: President Clinton, under intense political pressure, instructed his attorney to give the Justice department all records of his investment in an Arkansas real estate partnership linked to a failed savings-and-loan.
  

• 1995: A fire in Dabwali, India, killed 540 people, including 170 children, during a year-end party being held near the children's school. 
  

• 1995: The charred bodies of 16 members of a doomsday cult, the Order of the Solar Temple, were found outside Grenoble, France. The same cult lost 53 members in 1994 in ritual killings in Switzerland and Canada. 
  

• 1996: Russian President Boris Yeltsin returned to his office at the Kremlin after a six-month bout with a heart ailment.
  

• 1996: President Clinton expressed gratitude to the nation's armed forces as he visited Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
  

• 1997: A jury in Denver convicted Terry Nichols of involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing, declining to find him guilty of murder.
  

• 1997: Woody Allen married Soon-Yi Previn in a small ceremony in Venice, Italy.
  

• 1998: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat freed Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin from house arrest, a move denounced by Israel.
  

• 1998: Lebanese guerrillas attacked Israel's northern border with rockets, in retaliation for an Israeli air raid a day earlier.

• 1999: President Clinton pardoned Freddie Meeks, a black sailor court-martialed for mutiny during World War II when he and other sailors refused to load live ammunition following a deadly explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine near San Francisco that had claimed more than 300 lives. 
  

• 1999: The Nasdaq composite index briefly crossed 4,000 and closed at a record high for the 58th time in 1999.        

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