December 19: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

December 19 is the 353rd day of the year (354th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 12 days remaining.

Events

• 324 - Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor.
• 1187 - Pope Clement III is elected.
• 1777 - American Revolutionary War: George Washington's Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
• 1828 - Nullification Crisis: Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun pens the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828.
• 1835 - The first issue of The Blade newspaper is published in Toledo, Ohio.
• 1912 - William H. Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum which caught fire and killed over 1,000 people, is pardoned by President Taft after 3-and-a-half-years in Sing Sing prison .
• 1916 - World War I: Battle of Verdun - On the Western Front, the French Army successfully holds off the German Army and drives it back to its starting position.
• 1961 - India annexes Daman and Diu, part of Portuguese India.
• 1963 - Zanzibar receives its independence from the United Kingdom, to become a constitutional monarchy under Sultan Hamoud bin Mohammed.
• 1965 - Prison guard George Hodson is killed during Ronald Ryan and Peter Walker's escape from HM Prison Pentridge in Coburg, Victoria.
• 1967 - Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt is officially presumed dead.
• 1972 - Project Apollo: The last manned lunar flight, Apollo 17, crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth.
• 1974 - The Altair 8800 microcomputer kit goes on sale.
• 1974 -Nelson A. Rockefeller is sworn is as the 41st Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford.
• 1984 - The Sino-British Joint Declaration, stating that China would resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and the United Kingdom would restore Hong Kong to China with effect from July 1, 1997, is signed in Beijing by Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher.
• 1988 - Lawn darts are banned from sale in the United States by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
• 1997 - Silkair Flight 185 crashes into the Musi River, near Palembang in Indonesia, killing 104.
• 1997 - The film Titanic is released.
• 1998 - Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives forwards articles I and III of impeachment against President Bill Clinton to the Senate.
• 1999 - Portugal transferred sovereignty of Macau to the People's Republic of China.
• 2000 - The Leninist Guerrilla Units wing of the Communist Labour Party of Turkey/Leninist attack a Nationalist Movement Party office in Istanbul, killing one person and injuring three.
• 2001 - The film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is released.
• 2001 - A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Hövsgöl in Mongolia.
• 2001 - Argentine economic crisis: December 2001 riots - Riots erupt in Buenos Aires after Domingo Cavallo's "Corralito" measures restrict the withdrawal of cash from bank deposits.

• 1554 - Philip William, Prince of Orange (d. 1618)
• 1683 - King Philip V of Spain (d. 1746)
• 1699 - William Bowyer, English printer (d. 1777)
• 1714 - John Winthrop, American astronomer (d. 1779)
• 1778 - Marie Thérèse Charlotte, eldest child of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI of France (d. 1851)
• 1813 - Thomas Andrews, Irish chemist (d. 1885)
• 1852 - Albert Abraham Michelson, Prussian-born American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1931)
• 1865 - Minnie Maddern Fiske, American actress (d. 1932)
• 1885 - Joe "King" Oliver, American jazz musician (d. 1938)
• 1888 - Fritz Reiner, Austro-Hungarian-born American conductor (d. 1963)
• 1894 - Ford Frick, American baseball commissioner (d. 1978)
• 1901 - Rudolf Hell, German inventor (d. 2002)
• 1902 - Sir Ralph Richardson, British actor (d. 1983)
• 1903 - George Davis Snell, American geneticist and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1996)
• 1906 - Leonid Brezhnev, Russian-born leader of the Soviet Union (d. 1982)
• 1907 - Jimmy McLarnin, Irish-born boxer and World Welterweight Champion (d. 2004)
• 1910 - Jean Genet, French writer (d. 1986)
• 1915 - Edith Piaf, French singer and actress (d. 1963)
• 1918 - Professor Longhair (Henry Roeland Byrd), American blues musician (d. 1980)
• 1920 - David Susskind, American TV talk show host (d.1987)
• 1923 - Gordon Jackson, British actor (d. 1990)
• 1925 - Tankred Dorst, German dramatist
• 1927 - James Booth (David Geeves), British actor and screenwriter (d. 2005)
• 1929 - Bob Brookmeyer, American jazz musician
• 1933 - Cicely Tyson, American actress
• 1934 - Al Kaline, American baseball player
• 1935 - Bobby Timmons, American jazz pianist (d. 1974)
• 1940 - Phil Ochs, American folk singer and songwriter (d. 1976)
• 1941 - Maurice White, American singer and songwriter (Earth, Wind & Fire)
• 1944 - Richard Leakey, British anthropologist
• 1944 - Mitchell Feigenbaum, American mathematical physicist
• 1944 - Alvin Lee (Graham Barnes), British singer and guitarist (Ten Years After)
• 1944 - Zal Yanovsky, Canadian guitarist and singer (The Lovin' Spoonful)
• 1945 - John McEuen, American guitarist (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
• 1946 - Stan Smith, American tennis player
• 1946 - Robert Urich, American actor (d. 2002)
• 1957 - Doug Johnson, Canadian keyboard player (Loverboy)
• 1958 - Limahl (Christopher Hamill), British singer (Kajagoogoo)
• 1960 - Mike Lookinland, American actor
• 1961 - Eric Allin Cornell, American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
• 1961 - Matthew Waterhouse, British actor
• 1961 - Reggie White, American Football player (d. 2004)
• 1964 - Arvydas Sabonis, Soviet-born Lithuanian basketball player and Olympic gold medalist
• 1965 - Chito Martinez, Belizean baseball player
• 1968 - Kevin Shepard, American drummer (Tonic)
• 1969 - Kristy Swanson, American actress
• 1971 - Tiffany Towers (Tiffany Amarziano), Canadian adult film actress
• 1972 - Alyssa Milano, American actress
• 1972 - Warren Sapp, American Football player
• 1974 - Jake Plummer, American Football player
• 1974 - Ricky Ponting, Australian test cricketer
• 1975 - Olivier Tebily, Ivorian international footballer
• 1980 - Jake Gyllenhaal, American actor
• 1980 - Marla Sokoloff, American actress
• 1983 - Kahlen Rondot, American model

• 401 - Pope Anastasius I
• 1075 - Edith of Wessex, Queen of Edward the Confessor of England
• 1327 - Agnes of France, Duchess of Burgundy
• 1370 - Pope Urban V (b. 1310)
• 1737 - James Sobieski, Crown Prince of Poland (b. 1667)
• 1741 - Vitus Bering, Danish-born explorer (b. 1681)
• 1745 - Jean-Baptiste van Loo, French painter (b. 1684)
• 1749 - Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (b. 1672)
• 1751 - Louise of Great Britain, Queen of Frederick V of Denmark (b. 1724)
• 1807 - Friedrich Melchior, baron von Grimm, German writer (b. 1723)
• 1819 - Sir Thomas Fremantle, British naval officer and politician (b. 1765)
• 1848 - Emily Brontë, British author (b. 1818)
• 1915 - Alois Alzheimer, German neuroscientist (b. 1864)
• 1932 - Yoon Bong-Gil, Protester against Japanese occupation of Korea (executed) (b. 1908)
• 1939 - Hans Langsdorff, German naval officer (b. 1894)
• 1946 - Paul Langevin, French physicist (b. 1872)
• 1953 - Robert Millikan, American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1868)
• 1967 - Harold Holt, seventeenth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)
• 1968 - Norman Thomas, American socialist (b. 1884)
• 1989 - Stella Gibbons, British author (b. 1902)
• 1996 - Marcello Mastroianni, Italian actor (b. 1924)
• 1999 - Desmond Llewelyn, British actor (b. 1914)
• 2003 - Peter Carter-Ruck, British lawyer
• 2003 - Hope Lange, American actress (b. 1931)
• 2004 - Herbert C. Brown, British-born American chemist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1912)
• 2004 - Renata Tebaldi, Italian soprano (b. 1922)
• 2005 - Vincent Gigante, American mafioso (b. 1927)

• Roman festivals - Opalia
• Also see December 19 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
• USA - National Unity Day, declared in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter in rememberance of the American hostages being held in Tehran, Iran

• 2003 - the events of the fictional docu-drama The Day Britain Stopped take place.

December 18 - December 20 - November 19 - January 19 -- listing of all days