This Day in History — December 21
Today is the 355th day of 2022. There are 10 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
2006: The Jamaica National Heritage Trust declares Ackendown Castle ruins, Westmoreland, a national monument. The castle consists of the stone remains of an eastern and western tower connected by what is said to have been an underground passage.
OTHER EVENTS
1582: Flanders adopts the Gregorian calendar, skipping 11 days making the next day January 1, 1583.
1849: The first US skating club is formed, in Philadelphia.
1886: Founder of Girl Scouts of the USA, Juliette Gordon Low, weds William Mackay Low in Savannah, Georgia.
1891: The first game of basketball, based on rules created by James Naismith, is played by 18 students in Springfield, Massachusetts.
1898: Having recently discovered polonium, future Nobel Prize winners Marie and Pierre Curie discover the radioactive chemical element radium, a silvery-white metal that would be used to treat cancer.
1906: The British Parliament passes two important pieces of social legislation: The Trades Disputes Bill, legalising peaceful picketing, and The Workingmen’s Compensation Act, broadening employers’ liability for accidents.
1909: The first junior high school is established in Berkeley, California. The University of Copenhagen rejects American explorer Frederick A Cook’s claim that he was the first to the North Pole.
1913: The New York World publishes the first modern crossword puzzle (with 32 clues).
1914: The first feature-length silent film comedy Tillie’s Punctured Romance is released, starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and Charlie Chaplin.
1919: J Edgar Hoover deports anarchist-feminist Emma Goldman to Russia.
1921: The Supreme Court rules labour injunctions and picketing are unconstitutional.
1929: The first group hospital insurance plan is offered in Dallas, Texas. Coco the Clown first appears for Bertram Mills Circus in Manchester, England.
1933: Dried human blood serum is first prepared at the University of Pennsylvania. Fox Films signs Shirley Temple, aged 5, to a studio contract.
1934: French film Zouzou premieres in Paris, starring Josephine Baker — the first black woman to star in a major motion picture.
1937: The classic animated movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premieres, establishing Walt Disney as one of the world’s most innovative and creative moviemakers.
1939: Adolf Hitler names Adolf Eichmann leader of “Referat IV B” responsible for evictions and Jewish immigration.
1940: F Scott Fitzgerald, American author of The Great Gatsby, dies at age 44 from a heart attack. His book is considered one of the greatest American novels ever written. Being published in 1925, it depicted the roaring twenties and re-examined the “American Dream” through its hero Jay Gatsby.
1945: US General George Patton, known as Old Blood-and-Guts by his men, dies following an automobile accident in Germany. American author and journalist of The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway and journalist Martha Gellhorn divorce after five years of marriage.
1946: Morton Gould’s Minstrel Show premieres in Indianapolis.
1956: Martin Luther King Jr and others sit in the new integrated bus.
1988: Pan Am flight 103 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, because of a terrorist bombing.
2010: The Lord of The Rings actor Sean Bean divorces actress Georgina Sutcliffe due to irreconcilable differences after two years of marriage.
2012: The music video for South Korean singer PSY’s humorous pop song Gangnam Style becomes the first video on YouTube to garner 1 billion views.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Benjamin Disraeli, British statesman and novelist who was twice prime minister (1804-1881); Josh Gibson, American professional baseball catcher and one of the game’s most prodigious home-run hitters; known as the black Babe Ruth (1911-1947 ); John Leslie “Jackie” Hendriks, Jamaican legendary cricketer (1933- ); Florence Griffith Joyner, American athlete (1959-1998); Kiefer Sutherland, British-born Canadian actor (1966- ); Emmanuel Macron, president of France (1977- )
– AP/Jamaica Observer
