This Day in History

[Midnight Son]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Interesting.
Tell us a little more.

Otto and his gliders.

Otto-Lilienthal-Museum Anklam
Best wishes all.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Midnight Son

Otto and his gliders.

Otto-Lilienthal-Museum Anklam
Best wishes all.

Interesting & important, but Not self-propelled [powered] flight.

[Midnight Son]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Interesting & important, but Not self-propelled [powered] flight.

Section 3.5.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flying_machines

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Midnight Son

Section 3.5.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flying_machines

On the Langley claim: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...-the-airplane/

[GordMay]

A day late, in posting:

December 17

2002: Gisle founded the CruisersForum, from Norway, on December 17, 2002, and went “public” on February 24, 2003.

[GordMay]

December 19

1642: Four of Abel Tasman's crew killed, at Wharewharangi (Murderers) Bay, by Māori; Tasman's ships depart without landing.

1776: Thomas Paine publishes his 1st "American Crisis" patriotic essay, beginning: "These are the times that try men's souls", as Washington settles his troops, at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, for the winter.(date disputed)

1835: Charles Darwin, aboard HMS “Beagle”, arrives in New Zealand.

1843: "A Christmas Carol", by Charles Dickens, is published, 6,000 copies sold.

1870: After 31 days at sea, in a small boat, William Halford, and 3 others, reach the island of Kauai, Hawaii, to seek help for the shipwrecked USS “Saginaw”. A capsize, in the breakers, meant only Halford survived.

1962: “Transit 5A1", 1st operational navigational satellite, launched.

1981: Sixteen lives are lost [including eight volunteer lifeboatmen], when the Penlee lifeboat, RNLB “Solomon Browne” goes to the aid of the stricken coaster “Union Star”, in heavy seas, eight miles east of the Wolf Rock, on the Cornish coast.

The inquiry into the disaster determined that the loss of the Union Star and its crew was because of:
" ... the irreparable failure of the ship's engines due to contamination of fuel by sea water while off a dangerous lee shore;
the extreme severity of the weather, wind and sea; and
the capsize of the vessel on or shortly after stranding..."

The loss of the Solomon Browne was:
"... in consequence of the persistent and heroic endeavours by the coxswain and his crew to save the lives of all from the Union Star. Such heroism enhances the highest traditions of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in whose service they gave their lives..."
➥ https://www.submerged.co.uk/penlee/

[GordMay]

December 20

1860: South Carolina secedes from the Union.

1924: Adolf Hitler freed from jail early, having served only nine months, of five-year sentence, for treason [‘Beer Hall Putsch’].

1957: Elvis Presley is drafted.
At the peak of his career, Presley received his draft notice, for a two-year stint in the army. Fans sent tens of thousands of letters to the army, asking for him to be spared, but Elvis would have none of it. He received one deferment, during which he finished working on his movie, ‘King Creole’, before being sworn in as an army private, in Memphis, on March 24, 1958.
After basic training, which included an emergency leave, to see his beloved mother, Gladys, before she died, in August 1958, Presley sailed to Europe, on the USS “General Randall”.
For the next 18 months, he served in Company D, 32nd Tank Battalion, 3rd Armor Division, in Friedberg, Germany, where he attained the rank of sergeant.
For the rest of his service, he shared an off-base residence with his father, grandmother, and some Memphis friends.

[piloto]

Wow Gordy, quite an effort. I appreciate it. Sure hope we all get back to sailing again sometime soon

[GordMay]

December 21

1835: HMS “Beagle”, /w Charles Darwin, sails into Bay of Islands, New Zealand.

1898: Radium discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie
Having recently discovered polonium, future Nobel Prize winners [1903 Chemistry], Marie and Pierre Curie, discovered the radioactive chemical element, radium, a silvery white metal. They managed to extract 1 mg of radium from ten tonnes of the uranium ore pitchblende (uranium oxide, U3O8), a considerable feat, given the chemically methods of separation available to them. They identified that it was a new element, because its atomic spectrum revealed new lines. Their samples glowed with a faint blue light in the dark, caused by the intense radioactivity exciting the surrounding air.

The metal itself was isolated by Marie Curie and André Debierne in 1911, by means of the electrolysis of radium chloride. At Debierne’s suggestion, they used a mercury cathode in which the liberated radium dissolved. This was then heated to distill off the mercury, leaving the radium behind.

Radium-223 is sometimes used to treat prostate cancer that has spread to the bones. Because bones contain calcium, and radium is in the same group as calcium, it can be used to target cancerous bone cells. It gives off alpha particles that can kill the cancerous cells.
Radium used to be used in luminous paints, for example in clock and watch dials. Although the alpha rays could not pass through the glass or metal of the watch casing, it is now considered to be too hazardous to be used in this way.
Radium now has few uses, because it is so highly radioactive [toxic].

Chemists considered that the discovery and isolation of radium was the greatest event in chemistry, since the discovery of oxygen. That for the first time in history, it could be shown that an element could be transmuted into another element, revolutionized chemistry, and signified a new epoch.

In 1911 Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The citation, by the Nobel Committee read: “in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element.”

More ➥ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/th...um-and-radium/

[GordMay]

December 22

1894: On the basis of specious evidence, and anti-Semitism, French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was court-martialed, and sentenced to life in prison, for treason, sparking a controversy that divided France for 12 years. Dreyfus was innocent of any crime or offence, and, in 1906, he was fully exonerated, and reinstated as a major, in the French Army.
➥ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair

[GordMay]

December 23

1672: Giovanni Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn.

1690: English astronomer John Flamsteed observes Uranus, without realizing it's previously undiscovered.

1805: Joseph Smith, an American prophet, whose writings, along with the Bible, provide the theological foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and other Mormon denominations, was born.

1866: First yacht race across the Atlantic won by the schooner “Henrietta” [beating ‘Fleetwing’ & ‘Vesta’], owned by Gordon Bennett of New York, first to reach Bishop Rock in the Scilly Isles, after racing from NY.
➥ https://www.classicboat.co.uk/articl...ic-yacht-race/

1888: Vincent van Gogh cuts off his left ear with a razor, after argument with fellow painter Paul Gauguin, and sends to a prostitute for safe keeping.

1947: Transistor invented, by John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William Shockley, in Bell Labs.

1948: Tojo Executed by Hanging
In Tokyo, Japan, Hideki Tojo, former Japanese premier. and chief of the Kwantung Army, is executed, along with six other top Japanese leaders, for their war crimes during World War II.
Seven of the defendants were also found guilty of committing crimes against humanity, especially in regard to their systematic genocide of the Chinese people.

On November 12, death sentences were imposed on Tojo and the six other principals, such as Iwane Matsui, who organized the Rape of Nanking, and Heitaro Kimura, who brutalized Allied prisoners of war.
Sixteen others were sentenced to life imprisonment, and the remaining two, of the original 25 defendants, were sentenced to lesser terms in prison.

Unlike the Nuremberg trial, of German war criminals, where there were four chief prosecutors, representing Great Britain, France, the United States, and the USSR, the Tokyo trial featured only one chief prosecutor – American Joseph B. Keenan, a former assistant to the U.S. attorney general.
However, other nations, especially China, contributed to the proceedings, and Australian judge William Flood Webb presided.

In addition to the central Tokyo trial, various tribunals, sitting outside Japan, judged some 5,000 Japanese guilty of war crimes, of whom more than 900 were executed.

Japanese War Crime Trials ➥ https://www.historynet.com/japanese-...ime-trials.htm

1952: Alain Bombard arrives in Barbados, after 65 days at sea, proving his theory that a shipwrecked person could survive, with almost no provisions, despite having lost 25 kg (65 lbs) in weight.

1961: Fidel Castro announces Cuba will release 1,113 prisoners, from failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, for $62M worth of food & medical supplies. Cuba starts returning US prisoners, on Dec. 23, 1962.

1968: Crew of USS Pueblo released by North Korea
The crew and captain of the U.S. intelligence gathering ship, “Pueblo”, are released after 11 months imprisonment, by the government of North Korea. The ship, and its 83-man crew, was seized by North Korean warships on January 23, and charged with intruding into North Korean waters.

The seizure infuriated U.S. President Lyndon Johnson. Later, he claimed that he strongly suspected (although it could not be proven) that the incident with the Pueblo, coming just a few days before the communist Tet Offensive in South Vietnam, was a coordinated diversion. At the time, however, Johnson did little. The Tet Offensive, which began just a week after the ship was taken by North Korea, exploded on the front pages and televisions of America, and seemed to paralyze the Johnson administration. To deal with the Pueblo incident, the United States urged the U.N.’s Security Council to condemn the action, and pressured the Soviet Union to negotiate with the North Koreans, for the ship’s release.

It was 11 long months before the Pueblo‘s men were freed. Both captain and crew were horribly treated, and later recounted their torture, at the hands of the North Koreans. With no help in sight, Captain Lloyd Bucher reluctantly signed a document, confessing that the ship was spying on North Korea. With this propaganda victory in hand, the North Koreans released the prisoners, and also returned the body of one crewman, who died in captivity. Some Americans criticized Johnson for not taking decisive retaliatory action, against North Korea; others argued that he should have used every diplomatic means at his disposal, to secure a quick release for the crew. In any case, the event was another blow to Johnson, and America’s Cold War foreign policy.

1972: 16 plane crash survivors rescued, from Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, after 72 days on the Andean Mountains, after only surviving through cannibalism.

1983: Journal "Science" publishes 1st report on nuclear winter.
“Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multple Nuclear Explosions” ➥ https://atmos.uw.edu/~ackerman/Artic..._Winter_83.pdf
➥ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...ter-180967198/

1986: The “Voyager” completes the first nonstop flight around the globe on one load of fuel. The experimental aircraft, piloted by Americans Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California after nine days and four minutes in the sky.

2013: Russian weapons designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, who invented the AK-47 (automatic Kalashnikov Model 1947), an assault rifle that became one of the most successful and ubiquitous firearms of the modern era, died, in Izhevsk, Russia.

[Alan Mighty]

24 December

To get you in the mood for the season ...

820 Emperor of Byzantium, Leo X the Armenian, exposed a plot led by his loyal friend and military commander Michael II the Amorian (aka Michael the Stammerer) to overthrow him.

Leo had displaced Michael I Rangabe from the throne back in July 811. Following established practice, Leo had secured his place on the throne by having each of Michael Rangabe's sons castrated (in case they might harbour a grudge for the death of their father).

Leo looked unkindly at Michael the Amorian's plot. So he sentenced Michael II to be lashed to an ape and then thrust, with said ape, into a furnace at the palace. Recalling that tomorrow would be the Christian celebration of the birth of the Christos, Leo decided to postpone the sentence for a day or three, so Michael II spent the next 24 hours or so in chains in a cell (but without said ape for company).

Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode.

(impatient readers can browse ahead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_V_the_Armenian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_II )

950 Emperor Liu Chengyou (who might have preferred the pronunciation of his calling name as Chengyu and anyway likely changed his name to Liu Chenghan, was 18 years old in 950, and is also recorded as Emperor Yin or YinDi in the bits of writing that mention him) of the Later Han dynasty (ruling over the North China Plain and a bit more from the settlement currently called Kaifeng) executed three of his three closest advisors (whom had been recommended by Liu Chengyou's father, the founding emperor of the Later Han, Li Zhiyuan): Yang Bin, minister of personnel, Shi Hongzhao, chief director of the Imperial Guard and bodyguard, and finance commissioner Wang Zhang. Emperor Yin also ordered the execution of his chief military commander, Guo Wei, who was out of town with the army that day, and the execution of Guo Wei's family (in case they might harbour a grudge for the death of their father).

As you might expect, the triple execution of top officials did not go down well. The other palace officials were less than happy with their circumstances. Guo Wei harboured a grudge for the death of his family and rebelled against Emperor Yin.

The Later Han dynasty holds the record for the shortest dynasty in Chinese history.

Out of the mess that followed 24 Dec 950, one of Liu Chengyou's paternal uncles founded the Northern Han dynasty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Chengyou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Later_Han_(Five_Dynasties) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Chong

1524 death of Vasco da Gama. Nasty piece of business. He held grudges and acted with extreme prejudice. Cannot deny his role in what passes for globalisation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama

1737 Baiji Rao, the 7th Peshawa [prime minister, often a hereditary position with significant personal power] of the Maratha Empire nominally run by Emperor Shahu, accomplished the expansion of Maratha-ruled territory from about 3% to 30% of the Indian subcontinent. Portuguese (see Vasco da Gama), the Mughals, the Rajputs, the Nizam of Hyderabad, and a few others begrudged the loss of their territories to the Maratha.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baji_Rao_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_Empire

1778 On what was his 3rd (and final) major voyage, James Cook on HMS Resolution visited a Polynesian island in the Pacific and bestowed upon it the name Christmas. The name stuck, even though other Europeans had visited before and suggested other names. With a minimal Latin alphabet thrust upon them, the locals now use the orthography Kirimati for the same sound (i.e. Christmas). Cook sailed on to Hawai'i and discovered grudges.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiritimati https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_..._of_James_Cook


1814 Formal end of the 1812 war that made the White House white.

1865 Founding of the KKK. I'll say no more and you get no URL from me.

1910 birth of Max Miedinger, designer (in 1957) of the Neue Haas Grotesk typeface known since 1960 as Helvetica. Consolidated the fashion for sans serif typefaces in signage in languages using the Latin alphabet. Must hold the record for clones and imitations, no?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Miedinger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica

1980 death of Karl Dönitz. Invented the 'wolfpack' tactic [Rudeltaktik] for submarine warfare. Held grudges, to the point of extreme prejudice, against Jews, socialists, Rom, and others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_D%C3%B6nitz

1997 death of Mifune Toshiro. What a life! Anything I write is inadequate: born in Qingdao (formerly occupied by Germany but given to Nippon by the Treaty of Versailles after the Great War), worked in aerial photography for the Imperial Army of Nippon in the Second Sino-Nipponese War, and then became a key actor in Kurosawa Akira's ensemble, playing roles in movies (Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Red Beard, and of course more with other directors) that gave him a measure of immortality enjoyed by few others. He and Kurosawa seemed to get over their grudges.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiro_Mifune

[GordMay]

Also on December 24

0336: First Recorded Christmas Celebration
Although Christmas celebrations started in the early 300s, the first celebration of Christmas, that we have recorded evidence for, occurred in Rome, on December 24th in A.D. 336.

1492: Columbus Sinks the “Santa Maria”
While Christopher Columbus was sleeping the steersman decided to take a nap, leaving only a cabin boy to steer the “Santa Maria”; a practice forbidden by Columbus. The ship struck a sandbank in Haiti sinking the next day.

1955: NORAD's Tracking of Santa Started By a Wrong Number
A Colorado Springs, Colorado Sears store runs an ad, asking children to call Santa. However, a misprint gave the CONAD (forerunner to NORAD) phone number. The CONAD soldiers answered the calls, starting a holiday tradition that is now carried on by NORAD.
➥ https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3542576

1971: Juliane Koepcke Fell Two Miles From an Airplane - And then it got worse …
LANSA Flight 508 is struck by lightning, igniting the right wing fuel tank, and causing the plane to plummet into the Amazon rainforest, breaking into pieces as it fell.
Juliane Koepcke's mother, and another passenger, who was riding in their seat row, were ejected from their seats, but Koepcke remained strapped into hers, as she fell roughly two miles (3.2 km).
She sustained a broken collar bone, an eye injury, a torn ACL, a strained neck vertebra, a fractured shin, and a concussion. The loss of her eyeglasses, along with one eye swollen shut, limited her vision.
She spent a day looking for her mother, but to no avail. She did find a bag of candy, which was her only food for the next 10 days.
She came across a river and followed it downstream, during which time her wounds became infested with maggots.
She eventually encountered a lumberman's camp, and they brought her to safety.
Fourteen others, including her mother, had survived the initial crash, but died while waiting to be rescued.
Koepcke was the sole survivor of the crash.
The movie “Miracles Still Happen” (1974), and the documentary “Wings of Hope” (2000) are based on her story.
Coincidentally, a LANSA crash the previous year also had only one survivor.

[Alan Mighty]

25 December

508 Clovis, King of the Franks, converted to Roman Catholic Christianity and performed a symbolic baptism in a tiny church at Reims. Clovis's wife was a Roman Catholic. Clovis may have been an Arian Christian similar to other Germanic kings (e.g. among the Vandals and the Visigoths) before the ceremony.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_I

800 Charlemange, King of the Franks and the Lombards, became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne

820 the story so far: on 24 December Leo V the Armenian, Emperor of Byzantium, condemned his loyal friend and military commander Michael II the Amorian to death (by being lashed to an ape and thrown into a furnace) but postponed the sentence to celebrate Christmas, leaving Michael II in a cell, shackled.

On 25 December, Michael's supporters - many of whom took the view that Leo V had been a good administrator and the contradiction between Leo and Michael was all about Leo refusing Michael's offer to get hitched to Michael's sister-in-law - mobilised. Leo V attended Christmas service in a chapel. Michael's friends also attended, in the guise of the choir. The fake singers pulled out their swords and, in a shocking operational error, sliced an arm off the priest. Leo V grabbed the gold crucifix from the altar to parry their swords, but was soon hacked into meal-sized portions, which were dumped outside in the snow without ceremony.

Michael was brought from his prison cell, still in shackles, direct to the Hagia Sophia, to be crowned Emperor of the Byzantine Empire. The only key to the shackles was in one of those meal-sized portions of Leo (the services of a blacksmith were sought to deal with the shackles; the key was forgotten for evermore).

Michael followed tradition: the sons of Leo were castrated (one son died as a result) to reduce their aggression and ensure that they could generate no sons who might hold a grudge against Michael the Amorian and the subsequent Amorian dynasty.

The ape was ignored by the scribblers who wrote history. No doubt he or she meditated on what had taken place and laughed at human notions of Christmas gifts of love, hope, peace, and happiness.

1000 King Stephen of Hungary (aka King Saint Stephen) was anointed with consecrated oil to mark his rule over the Kingdom of Hungary. Opinions differ as whether it happened today or a week later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_I_of_Hungary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Hungary

1013 Svend Haraldson Tveskæg (aka Sweyn Forkbeard, son of Harald Bluetooth), King of Danmark, Ruler of the Danelaw, became King of England.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweyn_Forkbeard

1066 William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, became King of England and William the Conqueror after King Harold Godwinson took an arrow in the eye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Conquest

1130 Norman Count Roger II became Norman King Roger of Sicily, the first king of Sicily. A remarkable leader with a focus on administration and the rule of laws. Story goes that he commissioned a team of Islamic scholars to produce a written report on the world. That report, a sort of encyclopaedia if you will, had an extensive discussion of the use of bureaucracy in government administration in China. Hence the idea that Norman King Roger was instrumental in the introduction of file folders and a system of management of government records that pervaded Europe and persisted until digital records.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_II_of_Sicily

1261 Michael VIII Palaiologo, a co-ruler of the Empire of Nicea, became Emperor of the Byzantium by the simple deed of blinding his co-ruler John IV Doukas Laskaris on John's 11th birthday! What a birthday/Christmas present of love, hope, peace, and happiness. The deal was that an emperor has to be able to see, so blinding disqualified John. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_IV_Laskaris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_VIII_Palaiologos

1642 birth (probably on this day or a week later) of Isaac Newton. Strange bloke. We could do with more like him. Maybe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

1776 Late in the evening, George Washington led soldiers of the Continental Army to cross the Delaware River in preparation for an attack next day on forces comprising mercenaries recruited by the English from the Duchies of Hesse-Kassel und Hesse-Hanau. In 1851, Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze painted his imagined scene of the crossing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George...Delaware_River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washin...(1851_painting)

1876 birth of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Founder of Pakistan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali_Jinnah

1914 German and British 'other ranks' soldiers in Europe, stuck in misery in a war not of their choosing and sick of the bloody history of humans and their greed and hatred, organised their own temporary armistice. The office corps and the political elites were not amused by cannon fodder showing initiative and appreciation for love, hope, peace, and happiness. So the Great War ground its horrible way forward. Who wants World Peace?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

1989 execution by firing squad of Nicolae Ceausescu and his spouse Elena. Nicolae sang 'The Internationale' before being put against the wall. Film footage of the deed (starting just after the bullets hit their targets) was shown on Romanian tv and, a few days later, around the world. No more deluded by reaction, on tyrants only we’ll make war. The soldiers too will take strike action, they’ll break ranks and fight no more!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Ceau%C8%99escu

1991 Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev resigned as President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Union collapsed next day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissol...e_Soviet_Union

[Alan Mighty]

26 December

1893 birth in Shaoshan, Hunan, of Mao Zedong.

One of the most famous sons of China. Very likely the political leader who holds the record of governing more people for longer than any other. Founded a couple of polities and one decent-sized nation. Won a civil war. Almost every view of Mao has been contested - perhaps a century or two will need to pass before an objective view might be formed. The Wikipedia pages for Mao, in Chinese and in English, have been tiny battlegrounds for years.

Special CF link: Mao (and his PR people) quite liked promoting him as Great Helmsman (a couple of women are on record saying he was a Great Lover too).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Helmsman
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AF...B3%BD%E4%B8%9C

1898 Marie Salomea Sklodowska Curie and Pierre Curie announce the existence of the element they named radium, the second of two elements they had discovered in pitchblende (Marie named the first Polonium, after her natal country of Poland).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Curie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium

1968 Jose Maria Sison formed the Communist Party of the Philippines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Maria_Sison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commun...he_Philippines

1939 birth of Phil Spector.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Spector

1972 death of Harry S Truman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman

1991 (see 25 December) dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1...BB%D0%B8%D0%BA