December 21

December 21 is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 10 days remaining.

Table of contents

1 Events

2 Births

3 Deaths

4 Holidays and observances

1620 - The Pilgrims leave the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock.
1719 - The first U.S. newspaper (the Boston Gazette[?] was published.
1861 - The Congressional Medal of Honor first authorized
1861 - Lord Lyons[?], the British minister to the United States, meets with United States Secretary of State William Seward concerning Confederate envoys James Mason[?] and John Slidell[?], arrested by the United States Navy aboard the British mail steamer Trent in order to prevent war between the United States and the United Kingdom.
1872 - HMS Challenger sails from Portsmouth on the 4 year scientific expedition that would lay the foundation for the science of oceanography
1880 - Isle of Man becomes first political body that allows women to vote.
1891 - First basketball game played
1898 - Marie and Pierre Curie discover radium.
1913 - First crossword puzzle published
1914 First feature-length silent film comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance, starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand[?] and Charles Chaplin, is released
1923 - Nepal becomes independent
1933 - Newfoundland becomes a crown colony
1935 - First screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
1958 - Charles De Gaulle is elected as the first President of the Fifth Republic
1968 - Apollo 8 launched
1979 - The United States government bails out the Chrysler Corporation
1988 - A terrorist bomb brings down Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland
1991 - The Commonwealth of Independent States is formed

The winter solstice, sometimes known as Yule, occurs on or very close to this date.

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