December 19 is the 353rd day of the year (354th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 12 days remaining.

Events

• 324 - Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor.
• 1187 - Pope Clement III elected
• 1732 - Benjamin Franklin publishes Poor Richard's Almanack
• 1777 - George Washington's army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
• 1828 - John C. Calhoun pens South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828.
• 1835 - Toledo Blade newspaper begins publishing.
• 1842 - United States recognizes the independence of Hawaii
• 1912 - William H. Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum, that killed over 1,000 people on June 15, 1904, the worst disaster in New York City before 9/11, was pardoned after 3 1/2 years in Sing Sing prison by President Taft.
• 1916 - The Battle of Verdun ended.
• 1928 - First autogiro flight in the United States
• 1945 - Austria becomes a republic for the second time, the first having been founded in 1918 and interupted by the Austro-fascist dictatorship from 1934 onwards and the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938.
• 1946 - Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi
• 1961 - The Indian Army invades the Portuguese colony of Goa
• 1962 - Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia and Nyasaland
• 1963 - Zanzibar received its independence from the United Kingdom to become a constitutional monarchy under the sultan.
• 1972 - Apollo 17, the last manned lunar flight, returns to Earth.
• 1974 - Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt is pronounced dead.
• 1974 - The Altair 8800, the first personal computer, goes on sale
• 1978 - John Wayne Gacy is arrested for the killings of 33 boys and young men
• 1979 - Kramer vs. Kramer opens in theaters, starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.
• 1980 - Anguilla is made a dependency of the United Kingdom separate from St. Kitt's
• 1984 - The United Kingdom and People's Republic of China sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which handed Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
• 1997 - A Silkair Boeing 737-300 crashes into the Musi River, in Sumatra, Indonesia killing 104
• 1998 - The U.S. House of Representatives pass articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.
• 2001 - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the first Lord of the Rings movie to open in theaters.
• 2001 - A new world-record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 mb (32.06 inches Hg) is set at Tosontsengel, Hövsgöl Aymag, Mongolia.

Births

• 1683 - King Philip V of Spain
• 1699 - William Bowyer, printer
• 1813 - Thomas Andrews, chemist (d. 1885)
• 1820 - Mary Ashton Livermore, suffragist, women's rights activist (d. 1905)
• 1865 - Minnie Maddern Fiske, Actress of Broadway fame, (d. 1932)
• 1885 - Joe "King" Oliver, jazz musician (d. 1938)
• 1888 - Fritz Reiner, Hungarian conductor (d. 1963)
• 1894 - Ford Frick, commissioner of baseball
• 1900 - Géza von Cziffra, film director (d. 1989)
• 1901 - Rudolf Hell, inventor (d. 2002)
• 1906 - Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet politician (d. 1982)
• 1910 - Jean Genet, novelist (d. 1986)
• 1915 - Edith Piaf, singer, actress (d. 1963)
• 1916 - Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, publicist
• 1918 - Professor Longhair, musician (d. 1980)
• 1920 - David Susskind, movie, stage and television producer (d. 1987)
• 1923 - Gordon Jackson, film, stage & tv actor best known as 'Hudson' on Upstairs Downstairs (d. 1990)
• 1925 - Tankred Dorst, dramatist
• 1933 - Cicely Tyson, actress
• 1934 - Al Kaline, Baseball Hall of Famer
• 1935 - Bobby Timmons, jazz pianist (d. 1974)
• 1939 - Gwynn Dowell, teacher
• 1940 - Phil Ochs, singer, songwriter (d. 1976)
• 1941 - Maurice White, musician
• 1944 - Richard Leakey, anthropologist
• 1944 - Alvin Lee, musician
• 1946 - Stan Smith, tennis player
• 1946 - Robert Urich, actor (d. 2002)
• 1949 - Claudia Kolb, swimming star
• 1960 - Mike Lookinland, actor (The Brady Bunch)
• 1961 - Reggie White, football player (d. 2004)
• 1964 - Arvydas Sabonis, Lithuanian basketball star
• 1965 - Chito Martinez, Belizean baseball player
• 1969 - Kristy Swanson, actress
• 1972 - Alyssa Milano, actress
• 1972 - Warren Sapp, American football player
• 1974 - Jake Plummer, American football quarterback
• 1980 - Jake Gyllenhaal, actor (The Day After Tomorrow)
• 1980 - Marla Sokoloff, actress (Full House, The Practice)

Deaths

• 401 - St. Anastasius I, Pope
• 1370 - Pope Urban V (b. 1310)
• 1737 - James Sobieski, Crown Prince of Poland (b. 1667)
• 1741 - Vitus Bering, explorer
• 1749 - Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (b. 1672)
• 1848 - Emily Brontë, author (b. 1818)
• 1939 - Hans Langsdorff, German naval officer (b. 1894)
• 1967 - Harold Holt, seventeenth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)
• 1968 - Norman Thomas, Leading American socialist (b. 1884)
• 1989 - Stella Gibbons, English author (b. 1902)
• 1996 - Marcello Mastroianni, actor (b. 1924)
• 1999 - Desmond Llewelyn, actor (b. 1914)
• 2003 - Hope Lange, American actress
• 2003 - Peter Carter-Ruck, British libel lawyer
• 2004 - Renata Tebaldi, opera singer

Holidays and observances

• Feast of Saint Boniface

Fictional Events

• 2003 - the events of the fictional docu-drama The Day Britain Stopped take place.

December 18 - December 20 - November 19 - January 19 -- listing of all days