December 29 is the 363rd day of the year (364th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 2 days remaining.

Events

• 1170 - Thomas Becket, is slain in his own cathedral on orders from Henry II of England.
• 1813 - War of 1812: British soldiers burn Buffalo, New York
• 1845 - Texas is admitted as the 28th U.S. state.
• 1851 - The first American-based YMCA opens, in Boston, Massachusetts
• 1860 - The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, the HMS Warrior is launched.
• 1876 - The Ashtabula River Railroad bridge disaster, 64 injured, 92 dead at Ashtabula, Ohio.
• 1890 - Wounded Knee Massacre: The United States soldiers massacred over 400 men, women and children of the Great Sioux Nation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
• 1891 - Thomas Edison patents the radio.
• 1911 - Sun Yat-sen becomes the first President of the Republic of China
• 1913 - The first serial motion picture, The Unwelcome Throne is released by Seligs Polyscope Company.
• 1921 - William Lyon Mackenzie King becomes Prime Minister of Canada
• 1934 - The first college basketball game at Madison Square Garden in New York City is played, between the University of Notre Dame and Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930.
• 1937 - The Irish Free State was replaced by a new state called Ireland when a new constitution was adopted.
• 1940 - Battle of Britain: Luftwaffe firebombs London, killing almost 3000 civilians
• 1949 - KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.
• 1972 - An Eastern Airlines Lockheed Tristar crashed on approach to Miami, International Airport killing 101
• 1975 - A bomb explodes at New York City's LaGuardia Airport killing 11.
• 1989 - Václav Havel becomes President of Czechoslovakia
• 1989 - Riots break-out after Hong Kong decides to forcibly repatriate Vietnamese refugees.
• 1989 - On the final day of trading for the year, the Japanese Nikkei 225 Average closes at an all-time high of 38,916.
• 1992 - Fernando Collor de Mello, president of Brazil, resigned.
• 1993 - Construction of the Tian Tan Buddha, the world's tallest outdoor bronze statue of the seated Buddha, was completed.
• 1996 - Guatemala and leaders of Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union sign a peace accord that ends a 36 year civil war.
• 1997 - Hong Kong begins to kill all the nation's chickens (1.25 million) to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.
• 1998 - Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the genocide in Cambodia that claimed over 1 million in the 1970s.

Births

• 1800 - Charles Goodyear, inventor of the vulcanization of rubber (d. 1860)
• 1808 - Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the United States (d. 1875)
• 1809 - William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1897)
• 1840 - Anton Dohrn, zoologist (d. 1909)
• 1876 - Pablo Casals, cellist and conductor (d. 1973)
• 1879 - Billy Mitchell, United States Army officer, United States Air Force pioneer (d. 1936)
• 1881 - Jess Willard, boxing champion (d. 1968)
• 1890 - Käthe Dorsch, actress (d. 1957)
• 1908 - Helmut Gollwitzer, theologian (d. 1993)
• 1914 - Billy Tipton, jazz musician (d. 1989)
• 1917 - Tom Bradley, mayor of Los Angeles, California (d. 1998)
• 1927 - Andy Stanfield, American athlete d. (1985)
• 1936 - Mary Tyler Moore, actress (The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show)
• 1936 - Ray Nitschke, American football star (d. 1998)
• 1937 - Barbara Steele, actress
• 1938 - Jon Voight, actor
• 1942 - Rick Danko, musician ("The Band") (d. 1999)
• 1946 - Marianne Faithfull, singer
• 1947 - Ted Danson, actor
• 1952 - Gelsey Kirkland, dancer
• 1967 - Andy Wachowski, director (The Matrix)
• 1970 - Kevin Weisman, actor
• 1970 - Frankie Dettori, jockey
• 1972 - Jason Kreis, American soccer star
• 1972 - Jude Law, actor
• 1974 - Richie Sexson, Major League Baseball All-Star

Deaths

• 1170 - Thomas Becket, English bishop, assassinated (b. 1115)
• 1785 - Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian poet
• 1825 - Jacques-Louis David, French painter (b. 1748)
• 1894 - Christina Rossetti, poet
• 1916 - Grigori Rasputin, Russian monk (b. 1869)
• 1926 - Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian poet (b. 1875)
• 1937 - Don Marquis, author (b. 1878)
• 1960 - Eden Phillpotts, British novelist, poet, dramatist
• 1967 - Paul Whiteman, jazz musician, conductor (b. 1890)
• 1980 - Tim Hardin, musician (b. 1941)
• 1986 - Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1894)
• 1999 - Jerzy Waldorff, Polish film and music critic
• 2003 - Earl Hindman, American actor (b. 1942)
• 2004 - Julius Axelrod, American biochemist, co-winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970 (b. 1912)
• 2004 - Liddy Holloway, New Zealand actress

Holidays and observances

• The fourth day of Christmas in Western Christianity

December 28 - December 30 - November 29 - January 29 -- listing of all days