December 16 is the 350th day of the year (351st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 15 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Wednesday, Friday or Sunday (58 in 400 years each) than on Monday or Tuesday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Thursday or Saturday (56).
NATIONAL CHOCOLATE-COVERED ANYTHING DAY
NATIONAL CHOCOLATE-COVERED ANYTHING DAY
1431 – Hundred Years' War: Henry VI of England is crowned King of France at Notre Dame in Paris.
1689 – English Parliament passes a Bill of Rights establishing limits on crown powers and requirement for regular elections.
1707 – The last recorded eruption of Japan's Mount Fuji occurs.
1773 – The Boston Tea Party incident - Sons of Liberty protesters throw tea shipments into Boston harbour in protest against British imposed Tea Act.
1811 – In the Mississippi River Valley near New Madrid, Missouri, the greatest series of earthquakes in U.S. history begins when a quake of an estimated 8.6 magnitude on the Richter scale slams the region.
1835 – The Great Fire of New York consumes over 600 buildings. The fire covered 17 city blocks and destroyed hundreds of buildings. The fire killed two people and cost an estimated $200 million in property damage.
1864 – The Battle of Nashville (Tennessee) ends after 4400 causalities in the American Civil War. The battle was fought between the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Lieutenant General John Bell Hood and Federal forces under Major General George H. Thomas. In one of the largest victories achieved by the Union Army during the war, Thomas attacked and routed Hood's army, largely destroying it as an effective fighting force.
1880 – Transvaal region declares itself as the Republic of South Africa.
1900 – The Boer army under General Kritzinger takes Cape colony in the Second Boer War.
1907 – As a gesture of the U.S.'s new presence as a world power, President Roosevelt sends the Battle Fleet on a round-the-world cruise, visiting ports internationally.
1913 – Actor Charlie Chaplin began his film career at Keystone for $150 a week.
1914 – World War I: German battleships under Franz Von Hipper bombard the English ports of Hartlepool and Scarborough.
One particularly effective German trick was the use of English-speaking German commandos who infiltrated American lines and, using captured U.S. uniforms, trucks, and jeeps, impersonated U.S. military and sabotaged communications. The ploy caused widespread chaos and suspicion among the American troops as to the identity of fellow soldiers--even after the ruse was discovered. Even General Omar Bradley himself had to prove his identity three times--by answering questions about football and Betty Grable--before being allowed to pass a sentry point.
The battle raged for three weeks, resulting in a massive loss of American and civilian life. Nazi atrocities abounded, including the murder of 72 American soldiers by SS soldiers in the Ardennes town of Malmedy. Historian Stephen Ambrose estimated that by war's end, "Of the 600,000 GIs involved, almost 20,000 were killed, another 20,000 were captured, and 40,000 were wounded." The United States also suffered its second-largest surrender of troops of the war: More than 7,500 members of the 106th Infantry Division capitulated at one time at Schnee Eifel. The devastating ferocity of the conflict also made desertion an issue for the American troops; General Eisenhower was forced to make an example of Private Eddie Slovik, the first American executed for desertion since the Civil War.
The battle would not end until better weather enabled American aircraft to bomb and strafe German positions.
1920 – An 8.5 earthquake rocks the Gansu province in China, killing an estimated 200,000.
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1949 – Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, later knows as SAAB, is founded in Sweden.
1965 – Pioneer 6 is launched into solar orbit. Pioneer 6, 7, 8, and 9 were space probes in the Pioneer program. Together, they formed a series of solar-orbiting, spin-stabilized, solar-cell and battery-powered satellites designed to obtain measurements on a continuing basis of interplanetary phenomena from widely separated points in space. They were also known as Pioneer A, B, C, and D. The fifth (Pioneer E) was lost in a launch accident.
1973 – On the the night before the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' annual price-setting meeting in Caracas, two member states (Libya and Indonesia) announce plans to raise the price of their oil by $4 (Libya) and $2 (Indonesia) per barrel.
1991 – The UN reverses its ruling that Zionism is racism by a 111-25 (13 abstain) vote.
TODAY'S BIRTHS
1485 – Catherine of Aragon (d. 1536)
1770 – Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer (d. 1827)
1775 – Jane Austen, English author (d. 1817)
1866 – Wassily Kandinsky, Russian-French painter and theorist (d. 1944)
1901 – Margaret Mead, American anthropologist and author (d. 1978)
1917 – Arthur C. Clarke, English-Sri Lankan soldier and author (d. 2008)
1928 – Philip K. Dick, American philosopher and author (d. 1982)
1936 – Morris Dees, American lawyer and activist, co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center
1955 – Carol Browner, American lawyer and environmentalist, 8th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
1689 – English Parliament passes a Bill of Rights establishing limits on crown powers and requirement for regular elections.
1707 – The last recorded eruption of Japan's Mount Fuji occurs.
1773 – The Boston Tea Party incident - Sons of Liberty protesters throw tea shipments into Boston harbour in protest against British imposed Tea Act.
1811 – In the Mississippi River Valley near New Madrid, Missouri, the greatest series of earthquakes in U.S. history begins when a quake of an estimated 8.6 magnitude on the Richter scale slams the region.
1826 – In an act that foreshadowed the American rebellions to come, Benjamin Edwards rides into Mexican-controlled Nacogdoches, Texas, and proclaims himself the ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.
1864 – The Battle of Nashville (Tennessee) ends after 4400 causalities in the American Civil War. The battle was fought between the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Lieutenant General John Bell Hood and Federal forces under Major General George H. Thomas. In one of the largest victories achieved by the Union Army during the war, Thomas attacked and routed Hood's army, largely destroying it as an effective fighting force.
1880 – Transvaal region declares itself as the Republic of South Africa.
1900 – The Boer army under General Kritzinger takes Cape colony in the Second Boer War.
1907 – As a gesture of the U.S.'s new presence as a world power, President Roosevelt sends the Battle Fleet on a round-the-world cruise, visiting ports internationally.
1913 – Actor Charlie Chaplin began his film career at Keystone for $150 a week.
1914 – World War I: German battleships under Franz Von Hipper bombard the English ports of Hartlepool and Scarborough.
1944 – Battle of the Buldge: The Germans launch the last major offensive of the war, Operation Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans created a "bulge" around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, was the largest fought on the Western front.
The Germans threw 250,000 soldiers into the initial assault, 14 German infantry divisions guarded by five panzer divisions-against a mere 80,000 Americans. Their assault came in early morning at the weakest part of the Allied line, an 80-mile poorly protected stretch of hilly, woody forest (the Allies simply believed the Ardennes too difficult to traverse, and therefore an unlikely location for a German offensive). Between the vulnerability of the thin, isolated American units and the thick fog that prevented Allied air cover from discovering German movement, the Germans were able to push the Americans into retreat.
The Germans threw 250,000 soldiers into the initial assault, 14 German infantry divisions guarded by five panzer divisions-against a mere 80,000 Americans. Their assault came in early morning at the weakest part of the Allied line, an 80-mile poorly protected stretch of hilly, woody forest (the Allies simply believed the Ardennes too difficult to traverse, and therefore an unlikely location for a German offensive). Between the vulnerability of the thin, isolated American units and the thick fog that prevented Allied air cover from discovering German movement, the Germans were able to push the Americans into retreat.
One particularly effective German trick was the use of English-speaking German commandos who infiltrated American lines and, using captured U.S. uniforms, trucks, and jeeps, impersonated U.S. military and sabotaged communications. The ploy caused widespread chaos and suspicion among the American troops as to the identity of fellow soldiers--even after the ruse was discovered. Even General Omar Bradley himself had to prove his identity three times--by answering questions about football and Betty Grable--before being allowed to pass a sentry point.
The battle raged for three weeks, resulting in a massive loss of American and civilian life. Nazi atrocities abounded, including the murder of 72 American soldiers by SS soldiers in the Ardennes town of Malmedy. Historian Stephen Ambrose estimated that by war's end, "Of the 600,000 GIs involved, almost 20,000 were killed, another 20,000 were captured, and 40,000 were wounded." The United States also suffered its second-largest surrender of troops of the war: More than 7,500 members of the 106th Infantry Division capitulated at one time at Schnee Eifel. The devastating ferocity of the conflict also made desertion an issue for the American troops; General Eisenhower was forced to make an example of Private Eddie Slovik, the first American executed for desertion since the Civil War.
The battle would not end until better weather enabled American aircraft to bomb and strafe German positions.
1949 – Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, later knows as SAAB, is founded in Sweden.
1965 – Pioneer 6 is launched into solar orbit. Pioneer 6, 7, 8, and 9 were space probes in the Pioneer program. Together, they formed a series of solar-orbiting, spin-stabilized, solar-cell and battery-powered satellites designed to obtain measurements on a continuing basis of interplanetary phenomena from widely separated points in space. They were also known as Pioneer A, B, C, and D. The fifth (Pioneer E) was lost in a launch accident.
1973 – On the the night before the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' annual price-setting meeting in Caracas, two member states (Libya and Indonesia) announce plans to raise the price of their oil by $4 (Libya) and $2 (Indonesia) per barrel.
1991 – The UN reverses its ruling that Zionism is racism by a 111-25 (13 abstain) vote.
TODAY'S BIRTHS
1485 – Catherine of Aragon (d. 1536)
1770 – Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer (d. 1827)
1775 – Jane Austen, English author (d. 1817)
1866 – Wassily Kandinsky, Russian-French painter and theorist (d. 1944)
1901 – Margaret Mead, American anthropologist and author (d. 1978)
1917 – Arthur C. Clarke, English-Sri Lankan soldier and author (d. 2008)
1928 – Philip K. Dick, American philosopher and author (d. 1982)
1936 – Morris Dees, American lawyer and activist, co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center
1955 – Carol Browner, American lawyer and environmentalist, 8th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
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