On This Day:
Sunday December 22, 2013 This is the 356th day of the year, with 9 days remaining in 2013. Fact of the Day: mercury thermometer The mercury thermometer was invented in 1714 by Daniel Fahrenheit, a German physicist and maker of scientific instruments. He also developed the Fahrenheit temperature scale in 1724, which is still commonly used in the United States to measure temperature.
Holidays Feast day of St. Flavian of Tuscany, St. Zeno, St. Chaeremon and Others, and St. Ischyrion.
Japan: Toji or Winter Solstice.
Events 1775 - The Continental Navy was organized in the American colonies under the command of Ezek Hopkins.
1807 - Congress passed the Embargo Act, designed to force peace between Britain and France and keep the United States out of their war by cutting off all trade with Europe.
1894 - French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggered worldwide charges of anti-Semitism. He was sent to Devil's Island but was later vindicated.
1894 - The United States Golf Association (USGA) was founded.
1895 - German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen made the first X-ray.
1938 - The first coelacanth to be identified was caught in the Bay of Chalumna off South Africa. The fish, thought extinct for 50 million years, was later named Latimeria-Chalumnae.
1944 - During the Battle of the Bulge, General Anthony McAuliffe responded to a German surrender request with a one word answer: "Nuts!"
1956 - The first gorilla was born in captivity, "Colo" in Columbus Ohio.
1961 - James Davis became the first U.S. soldier to die in Vietnam.
1989 - Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausçescu was overthrown in a revolutionary coup.
2001 - Richard C. Reid, a passenger on a flight from Paris to Miami, tried to ignite explosives in his shoes, but was subdued by flight attendants and fellow passengers.
Births 1858 - Giacomo Puccini, Italian musician, opera composer.
1862 - Connie Mack (McGillicuddy), American baseball star.
1945 - Diane Sawyer, American television journalist.
1949 - Maurice Gibb, English musician and a member of the Bee Gees.
Deaths 1880 - George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), English Victorian novelist.
1943 - Beatrix Potter, English author and artist who created the character Peter Rabbit.
1989 - Samuel Beckett, Irish author and playwright, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.
2002 - Joe Strummer, lead singer of the British punk band The Clash.
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