This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1925 "Battleship Potemkin", Soviet silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein, starring Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barksy and Grigori Aleksandrov, premieres in Moscow.

1939 Adolf Hitler names Adolf Eichmann leader of "Referat IV B", responsible for evictions and Jewish immigration.

1941 German submarine U-567 sinks.

1988 Lockerbie disaster: Pan Am Flight 103 destroyed mid air by a terrorist bomb killing all 258 on board over Scotland.

[Aktungbby]

1891:At the YMCA Training School in Springfield Mass, William Naismith invents the first game of basketball...the score of this experimental game was 1-0!!?

[Jimbuna]

1775 Continental navy organized with 7 ships.

1810 British frigate HMS Minotaur sinks killing 480.

1942 Adolf Hitler signs the order to develop the V-2 rocket as a weapon.

1944 Sub Swordfish departs Pearl Harbor for Japan.

1964 First flight of the US aircraft Lockheed SR-71, reaches 3,530 kph (record for a jet)

1970 Treblinka SS commander Franz Stangl sentenced to life imprisonment.

2010 Repeal of the "Don't Ask Don't Tell policy", a 17-year-old policy banning homosexuals serving openly in the US military, signed into law by President Barack Obama.

[Aktungbby]

1944: During the Battle of the Bulge, U.S. Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, under siege at Bastogne, rejected the Germany demand for surrender with a single word: "Nuts!" Sometimes brevity really is eloquence...

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1944 Battle of Bastogne: Germans surround 101st Airborne (NUTS!)

....

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

1944: During the Battle of the Bulge, U.S. Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, under siege at Bastogne, rejected the Germany demand for surrender with a single word: "Nuts!" Sometimes brevity really is eloquence...

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

....

no problem; the actual German delegation and the General's response occurred on 12/22/44...ie "this date in history"

[Aktungbby]

1783: George Washington resigns as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army and retires to his home at Mt Vernon VA... where he remains to this day...

[Jimbuna]

1941 American forces on Wake Island surrender to Japanese.

1943 Gen Bernard Montgomery told he is appointed commandant for D-day.

1961 Fidel Castro announces Cuba will release 1,113 prisoners from failed 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion for $62M worth of food & medical supplies.

1962 Cuba starts returning US prisoners from Bay of Pigs invasion.

1968 82 members of US intelligence ship Pueblo released by North Korea.

[Jimbuna]

1814 Treaty of Ghent signed, ending the War of 1812 between the United States, the United Kingdom and their allies.

1818 Christmas carol "Silent Night" composed by Franz Xaver Gruber is first sung at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, Austria.

1941 First ships of admiral Nagumo's Pearl Harbor fleet return to Japan.

1942 First powered flight of V-1 'buzz bomb', Peenemunde, Germany.

1943 US President FDR appoints General Eisenhower Supreme Commander of the Allied forces.

1980 Americans remembered Iran hostages by shining lights for 417 seconds.

[Jimbuna]

1066 William the Conqueror is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, completing the Norman conquest of England.

1914 Legendary "Christmas Truce" takes place on the battlefields of WWI between British and German troops. Instead of fighting, soldiers exchange gifts and play football.

1926 Crown Prince Hirohito of Japan assumes the throne upon his father, Emperor Yoshihito's, death.

1932 During King George V's Christmas dinner speech his chair collapses.

1939 Montgomery Ward introduces Rudolph the 9th red-nosed reindeer.

1941 Japanese aircraft carriers Akagi/Kagu back in Kure, Japan.

1989 Show trial of Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena on charges of genocide and personal enrichment. The couple are found guilty and executed by firing squad the same day.

1991 Mikhail Gorbachev formally resigns as President of USSR in a televised speech.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1066 William the Conqueror is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, completing the Norman conquest of England.

The real X-Mass 'gift' was: nobody referred to him William the Bastard (of Normandy) after that! It's good to be king!

[Jimbuna]

1914 US Government protests British interference with American merchant ships at sea, on the same day Germans announce they will treat food as contraband, subject to seizure; weakens America's protest.

1918 After spending Christmas with American troops in France, President Wilson goes to London for preliminary discussions about the forthcoming peace conference.

1941 Winston Churchill becomes first British Prime Minister to address a joint meeting of the US Congress, warning that Axis would "stop at nothing"

1943 British sink German battlecruiser Scharnhorst.

[Jimbuna]

1923 Emperor Hirohito of Japan narrowly evades an assassination attempt by a Korean independence activist, Lee Bong-chang.

1942 First Japanese women camp (Ambarawa) goes into use.

2001 The People's Republic of China is granted permanent normal trade relations with the United States.

2012 NASA unveils plans to capture a 500 ton asteroid in 2025

[Jimbuna]

1915 British Cabinet recognizes the true nature of the war by deciding to institute compulsory military service, with single men to be conscripted before married ones.

1950 Chinese troops cross 38th Parallel, into South Korea.

1972 Martin Bormann's skeleton is found in Berlin (Hitlers deputy)

[Jimbuna]

1934 Japan renounces Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and London Treaty of 1930

1939 First flight of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber prototype.

1940 Worst German air raid on London as over 10,000 bombs including the 1st incendiary bombs are dropped on the city as part of the Blitz.

1944 Belgian Nazi Leon Degrelle sentenced to death.

1944 General Eisenhower's train returns to Versailles.

2016 US President Barack Obama retaliates against Russia for hacking American computer systems and trying to influence the 2016 presidential election by ejecting 35 Russian spies and imposing sanctions.