A few of the great historical events that happened today in history, December 21st!
| 1620 | Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Mass.  |
| 1708 | French forces seize control of the eastern shore of Newfoundland after winning a victory at St. John’s. |
| 1862 | The U.S. Congress authorizes the Medal of Honor to be awarded to Navy personnel who have distinguished themselves by their gallantry in action. |
| 1866 | Indians, led by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, kill Captain William J. Fetterman and 79 other men who had ventured out from Fort Phil Kearny to cut wood. |
| 1879 | Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was born Josef Dzhugashvili in Gori, Georgia. |
| 1898 | Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium.  |
| 1910 | Over 2.5 million plague victims are reported in the An-Hul province of China. |
| 1913 | The first crossword puzzle was published, in the New York World. |
| 1928 | President Calvin Coolidge signs the Boulder Dam bill. |
| 1937 | The Disney animated feature film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” had its world premiere in Los Angeles.  |
| 1944 | German troops surround the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne in Belgium. |
| 1945 | General George S. Patton dies at the age of 60 after being injured in a car accident. |
| 1946 | An earthquake and tidal wave kill hundreds in Japan. |
| 1948 | Ireland became an independent republic. |
| 1958 | Charles de Gaulle was elected the first president of France’s Fifth Republic. |
| 1963 | The Turk minority riots in Cyprus to protest anti-Turkish revisions in the constitution. |
| 1964 | Great Britain’s House of Commons votes to ban the death penalty. |
| 1965 | Four pacifists are indicted in New York for burning draft cards. |
| 1968 | Apollo 8 was launched on a mission to orbit the moon. |
| 1969 | American draft evaders gather for a holiday dinner in Montreal, Canada. |
| 1970 | Elvis Presley met with President Richard M. Nixon in the Oval Office to discuss fighting drugs.  |
| 1971 | The U.N. Security Council chose Kurt Waldheim to succeed U Thant as secretary-general. |
| 1978 | Police in Des Plaines, Ill., arrested John W. Gacy Jr. and began unearthing the remains of 33 men and boys he was later convicted of murdering. |
| 1986 | 500,000 Chinese students gather in Shanghai’s People’s Square calling for democratic reforms, including freedom of the press. |
| 1988 | Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, an hour after departure. All 259 passengers were killed in the explosion caused by a bomb– hidden inside an audio cassette player — that detonated inside the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. A shower of airplane parts falling from the sky also killed 11 Lockerbie residents. |
| 1991 | Eleven of the 12 former Soviet republics proclaimed the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States. |
| 1995 | The city of Bethlehem passed from Israeli to Palestinian control. |
| 1996 | After two years of denials, House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted violating House ethics rules. |
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