December 20

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

– Proverbs 8:34

December is:

National Drunk and Drugged Driving Awareness Month - Sponsor: Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Born on this Day

• 1579: John Fletcher, Elizabethan dramatist
  

• 1805: Thomas Graham, the father of colloid chemistry
  

• 1813: Dr. Samuel Mudd, doctor who helped Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth
  

• 1819: John Geary, 1st Postmaster, 1st Mayor (May 1, 1850)
  

• 1865: Author and decorator Elsie de Wolfe (Lady Mendl)
  

• 1868: Industrialist Harvey Firestone Founder of Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
  

• 1881: Baseball player Branch Rickey
  

• 1895: Philosopher Susanne Langer (author of Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art)
  

• 1898: Actress Irene Dunne (Cimarron, Show Boat, Anna and the King of Siam, Life with Father, I Remember Mama) some sources list 1901
  

• 1900: Baseball player Gabby (Charles) Harnett
  

• 1901: Nuclear physicist Robert Van de Graaff
  

• 1902: Max Lerner American educator, author, and syndicated columnist who was an influential spokesman for liberal political and economic views.
  

• 1902: Philosopher Sidney Hook
  

• 1918: Actress Ann Richards (Sorry Wrong Number)
  

• 1918: Actress Audrey Totter (The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Carpetbaggers
  

• 1922: Movie director George Roy Hill (Funny Farm, The World According to Garp, A Little Romance, Slap Shot, The Sting, Slaughterhouse Five, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii)
  

• 1925: Prime minister of Malaysia Mahathir bin Mohamed (Malaysia’s prime minister)
  

• 1926: Caricaturist David Levine (The New York Times)
  

• 1927: Sportscaster Jim Simpson
  

• 1928: Football player John Christiansen
  

• 1932: Actor John Hillerman (Magnum P.I., Hands of a Murderer, Chinatown, Blazing Saddles, Paper Moon, The Last Picture Show)
  

• 1938: Baseball player Mattie Alou
  

• 1939: Actress & singer Kim Weston (It Takes Two [w/Marvin Gaye])
  

• 1943: Actress Angel Tompkins (Walking Tall, Part II, The Bees)
  

• 1944: Musician (drummer and singer with Blood, Sweat & Tears) Bobby Colomby (And When I Die, You Made Me So Very Happy, Spinning Wheel)
  

• 1945: Rock musician Peter Criss (Kiss)
  

• 1946: Psychic and showman Uri Geller
  

• 1948: Singer Little Stevie Wright (She’s So Fine, Wedding Ring, Sad and Lonely and Blue, Woman, Come and See Her, Friday on My Mind, Hello How are You)
  

• 1949: Baseball player Cecil Cooper
  

• 1949: Baseball player Oscar Gamble
  

• 1950: Hockey player Bill Clement
  

• 1950: Tom R. Ferguson American cowboy who six times consecutively (1974-79) won the all-around cowboy title of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.
  

• 1952: Actress Jenny Agutter (The Snow Goose, Logan’s Run, An American Werewolf in London, Child’s Play)
  

• 1956: Actress Blanche Baker
  

• 1958: Rock singer Billy (Steven) Bragg (The Milkman of Human Kindness, A New England, Man in the Iron Mask, Island of No Return, Between the Wars, World Turned Upside Down, Which Side are You On?)
  

• 1960: Actor Mark Keyloun (Separate Vacations, Gimme an F, Mike’s Murder, Sudden Impact)
  

• 1964: Country singer Kris Tyler
  

• 1966: Rock singer Chris Robinson (The Black Crowes)

Events in History on this day
  

• 1192: Capture of Richard I, "the Lion Hearted," King of England, by Austria
  

• 1334: Election of Pope Benedict XII
  

• 1355: Death of Stephen Urosh IV, Emperor of the Serbs
  

• 1566: Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, tries tenderness towards the Protestants
  

• 1590: Death of Ambrose Pare, surgeon
  

• 1606: The "Susan Constant", "Godspeed" and "Discovery" set sail from London to America. They landed at Jamestown, Virginia o start the first permanent English settlement in America.
  

• 1620: Samuel Fuller becomes the first doctor to arrive in New England
  

• 1648: Oliver Cromwell arrests most of Parliament; the "Rump Parliament"
  

• 1649: Certain persons were imprisoned in London for the crime of being actors in stage plays
  

• 1790: The first successful cotton mill in the United States began operating at Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
  

• 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.
  

• 1820: The State of Missouri enacted legislation to tax bachelors between the ages of 21-50, $1 a year for being unmarried.
  

• 1822: Beethoven accepted a commission from the Philharmonic Society of London to compose a ninth symphony. The terms included as is customary in commissions the rights to the world premiere. But Beethoven stiffed the Brits, permitting a performance of the completed work.
  

• 1860: South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union.
  

• 1864: Confederate forces evacuated Savannah, Georgia, as Union General William T. Sherman continued his "March to the Sea."
  

• 1879: Thomas A. Edison privately demonstrated his incandescent light at Menlo Park, New Jersey.
  

• 1892: Alexander T. Brown and George Stillman of Syracuse, New York, patented the pneumatic tire.
  

• 1920: An English-born comedian named Leslie Downes (Bob Hope) became an American citizen. He had lived in the United States since 1908.
  

• 1924: Adolf Hitler is released from prison.
  

• 1932: Al Jolson recorded "April Showers" on Brunswick Records.
  

• 1933: The German government announces 400,000 citizens are to be sterilized because of hereditary defects. Many of the Nazi leaders were prosecuted for the many atrocities that occurred during and before World War II.
  

• 1938: First electronic television system is patented by Vladimir Kosma Zworykin of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.
  

• 1945: The Office of Price Administration announced the end of tire rationing, effective January first, 1946.
  

• 1945: Mussolini’s daughter Edda, is given a sentence of two years in prison for aiding the Fascists.
  

• 1946: The Frank Capra film "It's A Wonderful Life," starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, had a preview showing for charity at New York's Globe Theatre, a day before its "official" world premiere.
  

• 1952: Jimmy Boyd reached the #1 spot on the record charts with the Christmas song of the year, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus."
  

• 1962: In its first free election in 38 years, the Dominican Republic chooses leftist Juan Bosch Gavino as president.
  

• 1962: A world indoor pole-vault record was set by Don Meyers in Chicago, IL as he cleared 16 feet, 1-1/4 inches.
  

• 1963: The Berlin Wall was opened for the first time. It remained open for the holiday season, but closed again on January 6, 1964. 4,000 people crossed over to visit relatives during this period.
  

• 1965: In the largest U.S. drug bust to date, 209 lb. of heroin is seized in Georgia.
  

• 1968: Author John Steinbeck died in New York at age 66.
  

• 1973: Singer Bobby Darin died following open-heart surgery at the age of 37.
  

• 1976: Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley died at age 74.
  

• 1980: The government of the Soviet Union confirmed that former Premier Alexei N. Kosygin had died two days earlier at the age of 76.
  

• 1980: Shirley Temple Black became a grandmother. Her oldest daughter gave birth to a baby girl.
  

• 1983: Joe Gibbs, of the Washington Redskins, was named NFL Coach of the Year by the Associated Press. He became the first head coach to receive this honor in consecutive years since 1961-62 (when Allie Sherman, of the New York Giants, was so honored).
  

• 1987: More than 3,000 people were killed when the "Dona Paz," a Philippine passenger ship, collided with the tanker "Vector" off Mindoro island, setting off a double explosion.
  

• 1988: The International Committee of the Red Cross suspended its operations in Lebanon after receiving death threats.
  

• 1989: The United States launched Operation "Just Cause," sending troops into Panama to topple the government of General Manuel Noriega.
  

• 1990: Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze shocked Soviet lawmakers by announcing his resignation, warning that "dictatorship is coming." 
  

• 1992: US Marines and Belgian paratroopers in Somalia took control of Kismayu'sport and airport; the first truck convoy in more than a month reached the starving inland town of Baidoa.
  

• 1993: Real estate developer Donald Trump married Marla Maples in a brief ceremony in the grand ballroom of Trump's Plaza Hotel in New York. (However, the couple separated in 1997.)
  

• 1993: Alina Fernandez Revuelta, a daughter of Cuban President Fidel Castro, flew to Spain, where she was granted political asylum by the US Embassy.
  

• 1994: Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk died in Athens, Georgia, at age 85.
  

• 1994: Former President Jimmy Carter succeeded in getting Bosnia's warring factions to agree to a temporary cease-fire.
  

• 1994: Intel announced it would replace all flawed Pentium computer chips.
  

• 1994: Marcelino Corniel, a homeless man, was shot and mortally wounded by White House security officers as he brandished a knife near the execution mansion.
  

• 1995: An American Airlines Boeing 757 en route to Cali, Colombia, slammed into a mountain, killing all but four of the 163 people aboard.
  

• 1995: In Bosnia-Herzegovina, NATO began its peacekeeping mission, taking over from the United Nations. 
  

• 1996: President Clinton selected Federico Pena as energy secretary, Rodney Slater as transportation secretary, Andrew Cuomo as housing secretary and Alexis Herman as labor secretary.
  

• 1996: A judge in Orange County, California, gave O.J. Simpson full custody of his young children.
  

• 1996: Astronomer Carl Sagan died in Seattle at age 62.
  

• 1997: President Nelson Mandela stepped down as leader of South Africa's governing African National Congress.
  

• 1997: Pope John Paul the Second sent Christmas greetings to the Cuban people in advance of his visit to the island.

• 1998: Nkem Chukwu gave birth in Houston to five girls and two boys, 12 days after giving birth to another child, a girl. (However, the tiniest of the babies died a week later.)

• 1999: The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that homosexual couples were entitled to the same benefits and protections as wedded couples of the opposite sex. 
  

• 1999: Country music legend Hank Snow died in Nashville, Tenn., at age 85.      

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