On December 14th, 1799, the first president of the United States, George Washington, died at his Mount Vernon, Virginia, home at age 67.
On this date:
In 1819, Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state.
In 1861, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, died in London.
In 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his group became the first men to reach the South Pole, beating out an expedition led by Robert F. Scott.
In 1939, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland.
In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish U.N. headquarters in New York.
In 1962, the US space probe Mariner 2 approached Venus, transmitting information about the planet.
In 1967, DNA was first synthesized. [It's mutants on parade now!! — Ed.]
In 1975, six South Moluccan extremists surrendered after holding 23 hostages for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen.
In 1981, Israel annexed the Golan Heights, which it had seized from Syria in 1967.
In 1985, Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
In 1986, the experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California on the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world.
In 1989, Nobel Peace laureate Andrei D. Sakharov died in Moscow at age 68. Also in 1989, opposition candidate Patricio Aylwin easily won Chile's first democratic presidential election since the 1973 coup that brought military leader Augusto Pinochet to power.
In 1993, a Colorado judge struck down as unconstitutional the state's voter-approved ban on gay rights laws.
In 1995, Presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia signed the Bosnian peace treaty in Paris.
In 1997, Iran's new president, Mohammad Khatami, called for a dialogue with the people of the United States -- a nation reviled by his predecessors as "The Great Satan." Cuban President Fidel Castro declared Christmas 1997 an official holiday to ensure the success of Pope John Paul II's upcoming visit to the communist country.
In 1999, U.S. and German negotiators agreed to establish a $5.2 billion fund for Nazi-era slaves and forced laborers. [Better late than never, but never better late. — Ed.] Charles M. Schulz announced he was retiring the "Peanuts" comic strip. [But it still hasn't stopped! — Ed.] Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national, was arrested after authorities found nitroglycerin in the trunk of his car as he arrived from Canada by ferry at Port Angeles, Wash. (Ressam was convicted in April 2001 of terrorist conspiracy and eight other charges.)
In 2000, the Federal Trade Commission unanimously approved the $111 billion merger of America Online and Time Warner. [That's worked out quite well, hasn't it? — Ed.]
In 2002, Jordanian police announced the arrest of two alleged al-Qaida members in the October killing of American diplomat Laurence Foley.
In 2004, The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the fifth time since June 2004. President George W. Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to three figures who were central to his Iraq policy: former CIA Director George Tenet, former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer and retired Gen. Tommy Franks.
In 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush acknowledged flawed intelligence led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq but said the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was right. Also in 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed the Holocaust was a "myth" and called for Israel to be moved to Europe or North America.
In 2006, South Korea's Ban Ki-moon was sworn in as the 8th secretary-general of the United Nations. A British police inquiry concluded that the deaths of Princess Diana and her boyfriend in a 1997 Paris car crash were a "tragic accident" and that allegations of murder were unfounded.
In 2008, an Iraqi journalist hurled each of his shoes at President George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad; Bush ducked the flying footwear as they whizzed past his head and landed against the wall behind him. (The shoe-thrower, Muntadhar al-Zeidi ended up spending nine months in prison.)
Today's Birthdays December 14: Jazz musician Clark Terry is 89. Singer-actress Abbe Lane is 78.
No Longer a Birthday, Merely a Birthdate: Nostradamus, astrologer and physician (1503); Tycho Brahe, astronomer (1546); John Mercer Langston, public official, diplomat, educator (1829) [Never heard of him. Yet 178 yrs. after his birth, someone remembers. Oh, no wonder we'd never heard of him. Click & see why. Busy guy. — Ed.]; James Doolittle, aviator, military leader (1896); Margaret Chase Smith, former U.S. Sen. from Maine (1897); Spike Jones, bandleader (1911); comedian Morey Amsterdam (1914); Shirley Jackson, writer (1919); Don Hewitt, "60 Minutes" creator, (1922); Charlie Rich, country singer (1932); & actress Lee Remick (1935).
This Date in Show Bidness "History:"
In 1947, Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman separated.
In 1961, Jimmy Dean's "Big Bad John" became the first country single to be certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.
In 1963, singer Dinah Washington died of an overdose of sleeping pills in Detroit. She was 39.
In 1972, Alexander's department store in New York stayed open late so singer Alice Cooper could do his Christmas shopping.
In 1977, the movie "Saturday Night Fever" opened in New York.
In 1978, the movie "Superman," starring Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder, opened in Los Angeles.
In 1979, the Clash's "London Calling" was released. [How fucking long ago was that, Johnny? — Ed.]
In 1980, fans around the world paid tribute to John Lennon, six days after he was shot to death in New York City. Hundreds of silent vigils were held at 2 p.m. Eastern time for ten minutes at the request of Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono.
In 1984, Madonna had her first number-one hit when "Like a Virgin" hit the top of the "Billboard" singles chart.
In 1998, actress Linda Hamilton filed for divorce from director James Cameron. They were married a year and a half.
In 2006, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun died in New York at age 83. Actor Mike Evans, who'd played Lionel Jefferson on "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons," died in Twentynine Palms, California, at age 57.
Thought for Today: "True education makes for inequality; the inequality of individuality, the inequality of success; the glorious inequality of talent, of genius; for inequality, not mediocrity, individual superiority, not standardization, is the measure of the progress of the world." - Felix Emmanuel Schelling, American educator and scholar (1858-1945).
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