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 New York University
• 1934 - 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