1884 – “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain is first published in the United Kingdom and Canada. It was delayed in the United States until February 1885 due to a printing error.
1901 – First Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Red Cross founder Jean Henri Dunant and peace activist Frederic Passy.
1911 – Calbraith Rogers completes the first crossing of the United States by airplane in 84 days.
1919 – National League votes to ban the spitball’s use by all new pitchers.
1927 – “Grand Ole Opry” is first named as such during a Barn Dance radio broadcast from Nashville, Tennessee.
1935 – Philadelphia Athletics sell infielder Jimmie Foxx’s contract to the Boston Red Sox for $150,000, which would have been about $2.8 million in 2020 dollars.
1936 – Edward VIII signs an Instrument of Abdication, giving up the British throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
1945 – Preston Tucker reveals his plan to produce the Torpedo, a new 159 mph car.
1958 – The University of Pittsburgh agrees to buy Forbes Field from the Pirates and lease it to the baseball team for five years or until a new municipal stadium is built.
1962 – David Lean’s film “Lawrence of Arabia,” based on the life of T.E. Lawrence and starring Peter O’Toole, premieres at Odeon Leicester Square in London. It wins an Academy Award for Best Picture in 1963.
1964 – Dorothy Hodgkin is the first British woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for work on penicillin and vitamin B12.
1971 – Lucasfilm Ltd. is founded as a film and television production company by George Lucas in San Francisco, California.
1978 – “Superman: The Movie,” directed by Richard Donner and starring Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder, premieres at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C.
1985 – Bill to balance the federal budget is passed by Congress.
1990 – Space Craft STS 35 (Columbia 11) lands.
1995 – Worst snowstorm in Buffalo history, 37.9 inches in 24 hours starting December 9 at 7 p.m., breaks the previous record of 25.3 inches in 1982.
2009 – President Barack Obama accepts the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.
2012 – Google begins selling $99 laptops.
2016 – 82nd Heisman Trophy Award: Lamar Jackson, Louisville Cardinals quarterback, becomes the youngest player to win the award at 19.
2021 – Rare December tornadoes strike four American states with a “Quad-State Tornado” across Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky, completely destroying some towns and leaving at least 70 people dead.
Author: Sonny Jones
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