Week of December 19 in History

December 19 is the 353rd day of the year. There are 12 days remaining until the end of the year. 

December 19 is United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation. 

• 1606 – Three ships departed England carrying settlers who founded Jamestown, Virginia, the first colony in America.
• 2001 – A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa was recorded at Tosontsengel, Mongolia.

December 20 is the 354th day of the year. There are 11 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 20 is International Human Solidarity Day.

• 1803 – The Louisiana Purchase was completed at a ceremony in New Orleans.
• 1860 – South Carolina became the first state to secede from the United States.
• 1951 – The EBR-1 in Arco, Idaho became the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity, it powered four light bulbs.
• 1968 – John Steinbeck, American author and Nobel Prize laureate, died. He was born in 1902.
• 1996 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, died. He was born in 1934.
• 2007 – The painting “Portrait of Suzanne Bloch” (1904) by artist Pablo Picasso was stolen from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art.

December 21 is the 355th day of the year. There are 10 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1620 – The Mayflower pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts. 
• 1913 – The first crossword puzzle was published in the New York World.
• 1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated film, premiered.
• 1962 – Rondane National Park was established as Norway’s first national park.
• 1969 – The Gay Activists Alliance was formed in New York City.
• 1968 – Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the Moon was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew performed the first manned Trans Lunar Injection and become the first humans to leave Earth's gravity.

December 22 is the 356th day of the year. There are nine days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1807 – The US Congress passed the Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries.
• 1864 – Savannah, GA fell to Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, concluding his “March to the Sea.” 
• 1937 – The Lincoln Tunnel, between Manhattan and New Jersey, opened to traffic.
• 1956 – The first gorilla, Colo, to be bred in captivity was born in the Columbus, OH zoo.
• 1965 – The first speed limit, 70 mph, was imposed on all rural roads in the UK.
• 1989 – Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate re-opened after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.
• 2010 – The US’ Don’t Ask Don’t Tell 17-year-old military policy was repealed.

December 23 is the 357th day of the year. There are eight days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1783 – George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in Annapolis, Maryland.
• 1823 – A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, was published anonymously.
• 1913 – The Federal Reserve Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve.
• 1919 – Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 became law in the UK. Marriage was no longer legally considered a bar to a woman's ability to work.
• 1938 – The first modern coelacanth, believed to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period, was discovered in South Africa.
• 1947 – The transistor was first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
• 1982 – The US Environmental Protection Agency announced it identified dangerous levels of dioxin in the soil of Times Beach, Missouri
• 1986 – Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling.

December 24 is the 358th day of the year. There are seven days remaining until the end of the year. 

December 24 is Christmas Eve.

• 1777 – Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, was discovered by James Cook.
• 1826 – The Eggnog Riot at the US Military Academy began and ended the next morning.
• 1851 – The Library of Congress burned, destroying 35,000 books.
• 1865 – Several U.S. Civil War Confederate veterans formed the Ku Klux Klan.
• 1906 – Canadian Reginald Fessenden transmitted the first radio broadcast.
• 1955 – NORAD tracked Santa for the first time in what would become an annual Christmas Eve tradition.
• 1968 – The crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so.
• 1973 – The District of Columbia Home Rule Act was passed by Congress, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to elect officials

December 25 is the 359th day of the year. There are six days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1223 – St. Francis of Assisi assembled the first Nativity scene.
• 1642 – Isaac Newton, English scientist, was born. He died in 1727.
• 1776 – George Washington and his army crossed the Delaware River to attack the British mercenaries in Trenton, New Jersey.
• 1818 – The first performance of Silent Night occurred in the church of St. Nikolaus in Austria.
• 1821 – Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, was born. She died in 1912. 
• 1868 – US President Andrew Johnson granted unconditional pardon to all Confederate soldiers. 
• 1977 – Menachem Begin, Israel PM, met with Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt in Egypt.
• 1990 – The 1st successful trial run of what would become the World Wide Web (www) was run.