4 Dey 1403

Events

• 1500 (526 years ago) A joint Venetian–Spanish fleet captures the Castle of St. George on the island of Cephalonia.
• 1814 (212 years ago) Representatives of the United Kingdom and the United States sign the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812.
• 1924 (102 years ago) Albania becomes a republic.
• 1929 (97 years ago) Assassination attempt on Argentine President Hipólito Yrigoyen.
• 1953 (73 years ago) Tangiwai disaster: In New Zealand's North Island, at Tangiwai, a railway bridge is damaged by a lahar and collapses beneath a passenger train, killing 151 people.
• 1968 (58 years ago) Apollo program: The crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so. They performed ten lunar orbits, took the Earthrise photograph, broadcast live TV pictures, and read the first ten verses of Genesis.
• 1997 (29 years ago) The Sid El-Antri massacre in Algeria kills between 50 and 100 people.
• 1999 (27 years ago) Indian Airlines Flight 814 is hijacked in Indian airspace between Kathmandu, Nepal, and Delhi, India. The aircraft landed at Kandahar in Afghanistan. The incident ended on December 31 with the release of 190 survivors (one passenger is killed).

Births

• 3 BC Galba, Roman emperor (died 69)
• 1166 (860 years ago) John, King of England (died 1216)
• 1798 (228 years ago) Adam Mickiewicz, Polish poet and playwright (died 1855)
• 1818 (208 years ago) James Prescott Joule, English physicist and brewer (died 1889)
• 1922 (104 years ago) Ava Gardner, American actress (died 1990)
• 1943 (83 years ago) Tarja Halonen, Finnish lawyer and politician, 11th President of Finland
• 1957 (69 years ago) Hamid Karzai, Afghan politician, 12th President of Afghanistan
• 1961 (65 years ago) Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijani businessman and politician, 4th President of Azerbaijan

Deaths

• 1524 (502 years ago) Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer and politician, Governor of Portuguese India (born 1469)
• 1863 (163 years ago) William Makepeace Thackeray, English author and poet (born 1811)
• 1872 (154 years ago) William John Macquorn Rankine, Scottish physicist and engineer (born 1820)
• 1914 (112 years ago) John Muir, Scottish-American geologist, botanist, and author, founded Sierra Club (born 1838)
• 1980 (46 years ago) Karl Dönitz, German admiral and politician, President of Germany (born 1891)
• 1982 (44 years ago) Louis Aragon, French author and poet (born 1897)
• 1997 (29 years ago) Toshiro Mifune, Chinese-Japanese actor and producer (born 1920)
• 2008 (18 years ago) Harold Pinter, English playwright, screenwriter, director, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1930)

All 395 events, births and deaths of December 24