2 Dey 1403

Events

• 1825 (201 years ago) The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., burns.
• 1942 (84 years ago) World War II: Adolf Hitler signs the order to develop the V-2 rocket as a weapon.
• 1944 (82 years ago) World War II: The People's Army of Vietnam is formed to resist Japanese occupation of Indochina, now Vietnam.
• 1971 (55 years ago) The international aid organization Doctors Without Borders is founded by Bernard Kouchner and a group of journalists in Paris, France.
• 1987 (39 years ago) In Zimbabwe, the political parties ZANU and ZAPU reach an agreement that ends the violence in the Matabeleland region known as the Gukurahundi.
• 2010 (16 years ago) The repeal of the Don't ask, don't tell policy, the 17-year-old policy banning homosexuals serving openly in the United States military, is signed into law by President Barack Obama.
• 2012 (14 years ago) Bashir Ahmad Bilour of Awami National Party and eight others are killed in a Pakistan Taliban bomber suicide attack in Dhaki Nalbandi area near Qissa Khwani Bazaar.
• 2017 (9 years ago) United Nations Security Council Resolution 2397 against North Korea is unanimously approved.

Births

• 244 (1782 years ago) Diocletian, Roman emperor (died 311)
• 1639 (387 years ago) Jean Racine, French poet and playwright (died 1699)
• 1858 (168 years ago) Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer and educator (died 1924)
• 1887 (139 years ago) Srinivasa Ramanujan, Indian mathematician and theorist (died 1920)
• 1962 (64 years ago) Ralph Fiennes, English actor
• 1972 (54 years ago) Vanessa Paradis, French singer-songwriter and actress
• 1984 (42 years ago) Basshunter, Swedish singer, record producer and DJ
• 2000 (26 years ago) Joshua Bassett, American actor and singer

Deaths

• 69 (1957 years ago) Vitellius, Roman emperor (born 15)
• 1603 (423 years ago) Mehmed III, Ottoman sultan (born 1566)
• 1870 (156 years ago) Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Spanish journalist, poet, and playwright (born 1836)
• 1880 (146 years ago) George Eliot, English novelist and poet (born 1819)
• 1942 (84 years ago) Franz Boas, German-American anthropologist and linguist (born 1858)
• 1943 (83 years ago) Beatrix Potter, English children's book writer and illustrator (born 1866)
• 1989 (37 years ago) Samuel Beckett, Irish author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1906)
• 2014 (12 years ago) Joe Cocker, English singer-songwriter (born 1944)

All 380 events, births and deaths of December 22