1799 – George Washington is eulogized by Colonel Henry Lee as “1st in war, 1st in peace & 1st in hearts of his countrymen.”
1848 – 1st gold seekers arrive in Panama en route to San Francisco.
1878 – 1st US store to install electric lights, Philadelphia.
1914 – US Government protests British interference with American merchant ships at sea, on the same day Germans announce they will treat food as contraband, subject to seizure; weakens America’s protest.
1924 – Frances Gumm (later Judy Garland), age 2½, billed as ‘Baby Frances; makes her show business debut.
1931 – George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind’s musical political satire “Of Thee I Sing” opens at the Music Box Theatre, NYC, runs for 441 performances, and becomes the first musical to win Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
1943 – National Football League Championship, Wrigley Field, Chicago: Chicago Bears beat Washington Redskins, 41-21; Bears 6th title.
1944 – Battle of Bastogne: US General George S. Patton’s 3rd Army repulses German forces.
1954 – “The Shadow” airs for the last time on radio.
1960 – Musical “Do re mi” with Phil Silvers premieres at St. James Theater in NYC.
1971 – Muhammad Ali finishes off German Jurgen Blin with a thundering right cross for a 7th-round knockout in a non-title heavyweight boxing contest in Zurich, Switzerland.
1973 – 2 Skylab 3 astronauts walk in space for a record 7 hours.
1982 – Time’s Man of the Year is a computer.
1986 – TV soap “Search for Tomorrow” ends 35 year run.
1996 – Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey is found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado.
2001 – Crude oil prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) records one of their largest 1-day jumps of the year as traders become convinced that OPEC will follow through on production cuts.
2006 – The 2006 Hengchun earthquake with 7.1 magnitude hit Taiwan.
2018 – American Colin O’Brady is the first person to cross Antarctica solo and unassisted after 54 days at the Ross Ice Shelf.
2019 – Annular solar eclipse visible from South and South East Asia.
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