December 29th in History
The murder of Thomas Beckett, by James William Edmund Doyle, from A Chronicle of England
Today in History
- Archbishop Thomas Becket is killed by supporters of King Henry II (1170)
- The US annexes the Republic of Texas, subsequently admitted as the 28th US state (1845)
- The first American YMCA opens in Boston (1851)
- Wounded Knee Massacre: 300 Lakota Sioux are killed by the US 7th Cavalry Regiment (1890)
- Mongolia becomes independent (1911)\
- Sun Yat-sen (孫文) becomes Provisional President of the Republic of China (1911)
- James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is published as a magazine serial (1914)
- A speech by Sir Muhammad Iqbal (محمد اقبال) on the occasion of his election to the presidency of the Muslim League outlines the “two-nation theory” and a vision for the creation of Pakistan (1930)
- The Irish Free State adopts a new constitution and becomes Ireland (1937)
- The Consolidated B-24 Liberator has its maiden flight (1939*)
- The Luftwaffe firebombs London, creating the “Second Great Fire of London” that kills nearly 200 civilians (1940)
- Physicist Richard Feynman gives his speech “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” considered the birth of nanotechnology (1959)
- Khmer Rouge leaders apologize for the 1970 Cambodian genocide (1998)
- The Russian language Akkala Sami dies along with its last-known speaker (2003)
- The UK pays off its post-World War II loan from the US (2006)
*My father, Odell Dobson, was a gunner aboard a B-24 during World War II. His amazing true story is told in my magazine Random Jottings, issue 5, available for free download here.
Birthdays
- Madame de Pompadour (Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour), official chief mistress of Louis XV (1721)
- Charles Goodyear, inventor of vulcanized rubber (1800)
- Andrew Johnson, 17th US President (1808)
- William Gladstone, UK Prime Minister (1809)
- Pablo Casals, cellist (1876)
- Billy Mitchell, US general and military aviation pioneer (1879)
- Klaus Fuchs, German physicist and spy (1911)
- Billy Tipton, jazz musician (1914)
- Robert Ruark, author (1915)
- Vivica Lindfors, actress (1920)
- Robert C. Baker, inventor of the chicken nugget (1921)
- William Gaddis, author (1922)
- Mary Tyler Moore, actress (1936)
- Wayne Huizenga, entrepreneur (1937)
- Jon Voight, actor (1938)
- Rick Danko, singer-songwriter, member of The Band (1942)
- Marianne Faithfull, singer-songwriter (1946)
- Ted Danson, actor (1947)
- Gelsey Kirkland, ballerina (1952)
- Paula Poundstone, comedienne (1959)
- Jennifer Ehle, actress (1969)
- Jude Law, actor (1972)
Deaths
- Thomas Becket, archbishop and saint (1170)
- Rainer Maria Rilke, poet (1926)
- Wilhelm Maybach, carmaker (1929)
- Don Marquis, journalist and poet (1937)
- Fletcher Henderson, bandleader (1952)
- Paul Whiteman, bandleader (1967)
- Harold Macmillan, UK Prime MInister (1986)
- Jean-Claude Forest, comics artist, creator of Barbarella (1998)
- Earl Hindman, actor (2003)
Holidays and Celebration
- Constitution Day (Ireland)
- Independence Day (Mongolia)
Informal and made-up holidays include National Pepper Pot Day and Tick Tock Day.
• • •
December 29 is the 363rd day of the year (364th in leap years). There are 2 days remaining until the end of the year.