Today's Highlight in History:
In 1932, Radio City Music Hall opened in New York City.
On this date:
In 1822, scientist Louis Pasteur was born in Dole, France.
In 1831, British naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a voyage to the Pacific Ocean aboard the HMS Beagle. Darwin's discoveries during the nearly five-year journey helped form the basis of his theories on evolution.
In 1900, prohibitionist Carry Nation carried out her first public smashing of a bar, at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kan.
In 1945, 28 nations signed an agreement creating the World Bank.
In 1949, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands signed an act granting sovereignty to Indonesia after more than three centuries of Dutch rule.
In 1968, Apollo 8 and its three astronauts made a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific.
In 1979, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown and executed, was replaced by Babrak Karmal.
In 1985, Palestinian guerrillas opened fire inside the Rome and Vienna airports; a total of 20 people were killed, including four of the attackers, who were slain by police and security personnel. Naturalist Dian Fossey, who had studied gorillas in the wild, was found hacked to death at a research station in Rwanda. [Or she was found 26 December. See below & make up your mind, AP! — Ed.]
Ten years ago: Billy Wright, Northern Ireland's most notorious Protestant militant, was shot to death by three members of the Irish National Liberation Army at the Maze Prison outside Belfast.
In 2001, President Bush permanently normalized trade relations with China, & U. S. officials announced that Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners would be held at the U. S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [Yet another "day that will live in infamy." — Ed.]
Five years ago: A defiant North Korea ordered U. N. nuclear inspectors to leave the country and said it would restart a laboratory capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. But the U.N. nuclear watchdog said its inspectors were "staying put" for the time being. A suicide truck-bomb attack destroyed the headquarters of Chechnya's Moscow-backed government, killing 72 people. Clonaid, a company founded by a religious sect that believes in space aliens, announced it had produced the world's first cloned baby, a claim subsequently dismissed by scientists for lack of proof.
In 2004, on an audiotape, a man purported to be Osama bin Laden endorsed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq.
In 2005, Indonesia's Aceh rebels formally abolished their 30-year armed struggle for independence, under a peace deal born out of the 2004 tsunami.
One year ago: Saddam Hussein urged Iraqis to embrace "brotherly coexistence" and not to hate U.S.-led foreign troops in a goodbye letter posted on a Web site a day after Iraq's highest court upheld his death sentence. Former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards jumped into the presidential race a day earlier than he'd planned after his campaign accidentally went live with his election Web site a day before his scheduled announcement.
Today's Birthdays:
Rockabilly musician Scotty Moore is 76. Actor John Amos is 68. ABC News correspondent Cokie Roberts is 64. Rock musician Mick Jones (Foreigner) is 63. [Not the good Mick Jones. This is the evil one. — Ed.] Singer Tracy Nelson is 63. Actor Gerard Depardieu is 59. Jazz singer-musician T.S. Monk is 58. [That's Thelonius Monk's son. 58! — Ed.] Singer-songwriter Karla Bonoff is 56. Actress Tovah Feldshuh is 55.
Rock musician David Knopfler (Dire Straits) is 55. Former White House aide [& George W. Bush mommy-substitute — Ed.] Karen Hughes is 51. Actress Maryam D'Abo is 47. Football player Deuce McAllister is 29. Football player Carson Palmer is 28.Dead Born This Date:
Johannes Kepler, astronomer (1571)
Sir George Cayley, scientist and aerial navigator (1773)
Sydney Greenstreet, actor (1879)
Show Bidness & Weaponry:
In 1904, James Barrie's play "Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up" opened at the Duke of York's Theater in London.
In 1927, the musical play "Show Boat," with music by Jerome Kern and libretto by Oscar Hammerstein the Second, opened at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York.
In 1947, the children's TV program "The Howdy Doody Show" made its debut on NBC under the title "Puppet Playhouse."
In 1970, "Hello, Dolly!" closed on Broadway after a run of 2,844 performances. It had opened in 1964.
In 1981, singer-songwriter Hoagy Carmichael died of natural causes at his home in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 82.
In 1992, singer Harry Connick Junior was arrested in New York's Kennedy Airport because an unloaded gun was found in his carry-on bag. He spent a night in jail.
In 1999, Puff Daddy and Jennifer Lopez were arrested following a shooting at a New York dance club during which three people were shot and wounded. Charges against Lopez were dropped. Puff Daddy [Ahem. We call him "P. Diddy now. — Ed. ] was acquitted of gun and bribery charges.
In 2002, Oscar™-winning director George Roy Hill died in New York at age 81.
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