1901: Walt Disney, cartoon film producer, was born in Chicago.
Surrey home. She was discovered on December 14 staying under an assumed name at a hotel in Harrogate but had no recollection of how she got there.
1933: Prohibition ended in America after 14 years.
1967: The first heart transplant was performed by Dr Christiaan Barnard and a team of surgeons in South Africa.
1945: Five US Navy bombers from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, disappeared over the area which became known as the Bermuda Triangle.
1984: More than 3,000 people died in a chemical factory spillage at Bhopal, central India.
1952: Smog enveloped London and killed more than 4,000 people in less than a week.
1988: Health minister Edwina Currie claimed that most of Britain’s egg production was affected by salmonella.
1956: Rose Heilbron became Britain’s first female recorder.
2012: St James’s Palace announced that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were expecting their first baby.
1958: The Preston by-pass, Britain’s first section of motorway (the M1, eight-and-a-half miles long) was officially opened by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The Duke of Cambridge revealed a Tina Turner hit brings back treasured memories of his mother singing it at the “top of her voice” with her sons as she drove them to school.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Bournemouth on England’s south coast was the most in-demand seaside hotspot for buyers in 2021, according to a property website.
DECEMBER 4 - 1154: Nicholas Breakspear became the only English Pope – as Adrian IV.
1791: The Observer, the oldest Sunday newspaper in the United Kingdom, was first published.
DECEMBER 6 - 1421: Henry VI, who inherited the throne at the age of nine months, was born at Windsor.
1865: Edith Cavell, the nurse shot by the Germans in 1915 for helping refugees, was born in Norfolk.
1774: Austria introduced the first state education system.
1877: Thomas Alva Edison recited Mary Had A Little Lamb into his phonograph – and made the world’s first recording of the human voice.
1921: Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, silent film comedian, was found not guilty by 10-2 of rape and manslaughter. He was retried twice and found not guilty both times – but his career was ruined.
1888: Will Hay, British music hall and film comedy actor, was born in Stockton-on-Tees.
1935: The game of Monopoly was born – the brainchild of unemployed engineer Charles Darrow.
1897: The world’s first motor cab fleet began operations in London. It went out of business in 1900 – its battery- powered taxis moved at only 8mph. 1921: Irish independence was granted for the 26 southern states which became known as the Irish Free State. Six counties which formed Ulster (Northern Ireland) remained as part of the UK.
1937: The Dandy comic was first published by DC Thomson, featuring Desperate Dan.
1947: Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire was premiered on Broadway with Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy in the leading roles. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The boost to mental health and wellbeing caused by people spending time in the UK’s woodlands saves the health service and employers around £185 million each year, new research said.
1963: Christine Keeler, model involved in the Profumo scandal, was jailed for nine months for perjury.
1969: A free concert given by the Rolling Stones at Altamont, California, ended in tragedy when Hell’s Angels stabbed a man to death.
DECEMBER 5 - 1697: The first Sunday service was held in the new St Paul’s Cathedral.
1991: Durham were admitted to first-class cricket, the first new county side for 70 years.
1766: James Christie, founder of the famous auctioneers, held his first sale in London.
2012: A powerful typhoon that swept away emergency shelters, a military camp and possibly entire families in the southern Philippines killed around 350 people with nearly 400 missing. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Michael Sheen said he has turned himself into a social enterprise, a “not-for-profit actor”.
1791: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,Austrian composer, died and was reportedly buried in an unmarked grave with several other paupers.
1872: The American brig Mary Celeste was found drifting in the Atlantic, her crew missing.
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