This Day in History — December 22
Today is the 356th day of 2022. There are 9 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
2009: American Airlines flight 331 crashes at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica.
OTHER EVENTS
1636: Archduke Ferdinand, son of the emperor, is elected leader of the Romans.
1793: Napoleon Bonaparte, aged 24, is promoted to brigadier general in recognition of his decisive part in the capture of Toulon from British forces.
1807: US Congress passes the Embargo Act, designed to force peace between Britain and France by cutting off all trade with Europe.
1905: Insurrection of Moscow workers; Revolution in Persia begins.
1941: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Washington for a wartime conference with US President Franklin Roosevelt.
1944: During the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans demand the surrender of American troops at Bastogne, Belgium, and Brigadier General Anthony C McAuliffe reportedly replies, “Nuts!”
1963: Greek liner Laconia catches fire and sinks in North Atlantic; 150 people die.
1984: New York City resident Bernhard Goetz shoots four black youths on a Manhattan subway, claiming they were about to rob him.
1985: Winnie Mandela, defying expulsion order, is arrested by police who drag her from her home in Soweto, South Africa.
1990: Lech Walesa is sworn in as Poland’s first popularly elected president.
1991: Twenty-one US sailors drown when an Israeli ferry taking them from shore capsizes; the body of Lieutenant Colonel William R Higgins, an American hostage murdered by his captors, is found dumped along a highway in Lebanon.
1992: A Libyan Boeing 727 on a domestic flight crashes, killing all 157 people aboard.
1993: Alina Fernandez Revuelta, daughter of Cuban President Fidel Castro, leaves Cuba and is granted political asylum in the United States.
1994: Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi resigns over a bribery scandal after seven months as head of conservative coalition.
1995: As thousands cheer, Yasser Arafat’s wife lights the Christmas tree in Manger Square, ushering in Bethlehem’s first Christmas under Palestinian rule.
1996: In a “Christmas gesture”, Tupac Amaru rebels free 225 hostages from the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, but keep 140.
2001: Passengers and crew aboard an American Airlines jet en route to Miami subdue Briton Richard Reid as he tries to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes.
2002: North Korea confirms it removed and disabled monitoring devices that had been placed at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor to ensure compliance with a 1994 international agreement.
2003: The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Boston pays the 542 plaintiffs who agreed to a sexual abuse settlement with the archdiocese. The archdiocese will sell church property to fund the part of the US$85-million settlement not covered by insurers.
2004: Saudi Arabia announces it is withdrawing its ambassador to Libya in what the kingdom called a measured response to reports Tripoli had plotted to assassinate its crown prince.
2006: The Roman Catholic Church denies a religious funeral for paralysed Italian author Piergiorgio Welby, who died after a doctor disconnected his respirator saying it would treat his public wish to “end his life”. The Vatican calls it an apparent suicide.
2007: Guatemalan congressman-elect Marco Antonio Xicay of the conservative Patriotic Party is shot to death by unidentified attackers outside a popular resort in the country.
2010: Iraq’s Christian leaders call off Christmas celebrations amid new al-Qaeda threats on the tiny community still terrified from a bloody siege on a Baghdad church.
2012: Egypt’s Islamist-backed constitution heads toward approval in a final round of voting, but the deep divisions it has opened up threaten to fuel continued turmoil.
2013: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch who crossed President Vladimir Putin and ended up in jail for a decade, says he plans to devote his life to securing the freedom of the country’s political prisoners.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Jean Racine, French dramatist (1639-1699); Thomas Higginson, US abolitionist (1823-1911); Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer (1858-1924); Dame Peggy Ashcroft, English actress (1907-1991); Barbara Billingsley, US actress (1915-2010); Robin Gibb (1949-2012) and twin Maurice Gibb (1949-2003), Anglo-Australian founding members of the Bee Gees; Vanessa Paradis, French singer and model (1972- ); Ralph Fiennes, British actor (1962- )
— AP/Jamaica Observer