December 22

From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change

2008 Calendar

December 22 is the 356th day of the year (357th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 9 days left in the year.

[change] Events

1603 - Mehmed III Sultan of the Ottoman Empire dies and is succeeded by his son Ahmed I.
1807 - The Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries, is passed by the United States Congress, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson.
1809 - The Non-Intercourse Act, lifting the Embargo Act except for the United Kingdom and France, passes the United States Congress.
1849 - The execution of Fyodor Dostoevsky is canceled at the last second.
1851 - The first freight train is operated in Roorkee in India.
1864 - Savannah, Georgia falls to General William Tecumseh Sherman
1885 - Ito Hirobumi, a samurai, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.
1894 - The Dreyfus affair begins, in France, when Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted of treason, on antisemitic grounds.
1910 - Chicago Union Stock Yards Fire, 21 firemen were killed.
1937 - The Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic in New York City.
1944 - German troops demand the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium. See Battle of the Bulge
1944 - Vietnam People's Army is formed to resist Japanese occupation of Vietnam
1963 - Cruise ship Lakonia burns 180 miles north of Madeira with the loss of 128 lives.
1964 - Comedian Lenny Bruce is convicted of obscenity
1974 - Grande Comore, Anjouan and Mohéli vote to become the independent nation of Comoros. Mayotte remains under French administration.
1984 - Subway vigilante Bernhard Hugo Goetz shoots four African-American youths on an express train in The Bronx borough of New York City.
1988 - Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber tapper, unionist and environmental activist, was assassinated.
1988 - Ytzhak Shamir present his 3rd government in front of the Israeli Parliamnet
1989 - After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceauşescu's Communist dictatorship.
1989 - Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of |East and West Germany.
1989 - Two Tourist coaches collide on the Pacific Highway north of Kempsey NSW (Kempsey Bus Crash).
1990 - Lech Wałęsa sworn in as President of Poland
1997 - Acteal massacre: Attendees at a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic activists for indigenous causes in the small village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas were massacred by paramilitary forces.
1999 - The Spanish Civil Guard finds near Calatayud (Zaragoza) another van loaded by ETA with 750 kg of explosives (see related event on December 21 1999).
1999 - Tandja Mamadou became President of Niger.
2001 - Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, handed over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by Hamid Karzai.
2001 - Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.
2001 - Cc the cat, the first cloned pet, was born.