THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― DECEMBER 29

December 29 is the 363rd day of the year (364th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are two days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Sunday or Monday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Wednesday or Friday (56).

NO INTERRUPTIONS DAY (LAST WORK DAY OF THE YEAR) 

1170 – Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church.

1778 – American Revolutionary War: Three thousand British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell capture Savannah, Georgia.

1812 – The USS Constitution under the command of Captain William Bainbridge, captures the HMS Java off the coast of Brazil after a three-hour battle.

1845 – In accordance with International Boundary delimitation, the United States annexes the Republic of Texas, following the manifest destiny doctrine. The Republic of Texas, which had been independent since the Texas Revolution of 1836, is thereupon admitted as the 28th U.S. state.

1876 – The Ashtabula River railroad disaster occurs, leaving 64 injured and 92 dead at Ashtabula, Ohio.

1890 – Wounded Knee Massacre on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 300 Lakota killed by the United States 7th Cavalry Regiment.

1940 – World War II: In the Second Great Fire of London, the Luftwaffe fire-bombs London, England, UK, killing almost 200 civilians.

1972 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 (a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar) crashes on approach to Miami International Airport, Florida, killing 101.

1997 – Hong Kong begins to kill all the nation's 1.25 million chickens to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.

1998 – Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the 1970s genocide in Cambodia that claimed over one million lives ("The Killing Fields").

2003 – The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct.

2006 – UK settles its Anglo-American loan, post-WWII loan debt.

2013 – A suicide bomb attack at the Volgograd-1 railway station in the southern Russian city of Volgograd kills at least 18 people and wounds 40 others.

TODAY'S BIRTHS

1800 – Charles Goodyear, American chemist and engineer (d. 1860)

1808 – Andrew Johnson, American general and politician, 17th President of the United States (d. 1875)

1876 – Pablo Casals, Catalan cellist and conductor (d. 1973)

1879 – Billy Mitchell, American general and pilot (d. 1936)

1911 – Klaus Fuchs, German physicist and spy, Manhattan Project (d. 1988)

From Wikipedia and Google, ex as noted.