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

Events

Up to 1900

• 324 – Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor.
• 1154 - Henry II of England is crowned at Westminster Abbey.
• 1187 – Pope Clement III is elected.
• 1490 - Anne, Duchess of Brittany marries Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor by proxy.
• 1666 - Lund University in southern Sweden is founded.
• 1732 – Benjamin Franklin publishes Poor Richard's Almanack
• 1777 – George Washington's army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
• 1783 - At age 24, William Pitt the Younger becomes the youngest-ever Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• 1828 – John C. Calhoun pens South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828.
• 1835 – The Toledo Blade newspaper begins publishing.
• 1842 – The United States recognizes the independence of Hawaii.

1901 – 2000

• 1907 - 239 coal miners die in a mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.
• 1909 - The German football club Borussia Dortmund is founded.
• 1912 – William H. Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum which killed over 1,000 people was pardoned by President Taft after ​3 ¹⁄₂ years in Sing Sing prison .
• 1916 – The Battle of Verdun ended during World War I.
• 1920 - King Constantine I of Greece is restored as King of the Hellenes after the death of his son, Alexander of Greece, and a vote.
• 1927 - Indian activists Ashfaqulla Khan, Ram Prasad Bismil and Roshan Singh are executed by British colonial authorities.
• 1928 – First autogiro flight in the United States.
• 1932 - The BBC World Service begins broadcasting, as the BBC Empire Service.
• 1941 - World War II: Limpet mines placed by Italian divers sink the HMS Valiant and HMS Elizabeth in Alexandria harbor.
• 1944 – The Soviet Union completely occupies Estonia (Ruhnu island).
• 1944 - French newspaper Le Monde is founded.
• 1945 – Austria becomes a republic for the second time, the first having been founded in 1918 and interrupted by the Austro-fascist dictatorship from 1934 onwards and the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938.
• 1946 – Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi.
• 1956 - Irish-born physician John Bodkin Adams is arrested in connection with the suspicious deaths of over 160 patients. Eventually, he is only convicted of minor charges.
• 1961 – The Indian Army invades the Portuguese province of Estado da India Portuguesa (Portuguese State of India) which will become part of India.
• 1962 – Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
• 1963 – Zanzibar received its independence from the United Kingdom to become a constitutional monarchy under the sultan.
• 1964 - The South Vietnamese military junta of Nguyen Khanh dissolves the High National Council and arrest some of the members.
• 1965 – Prisoners Ronald Ryan and Peter Walker escape from HM Prison Pentridge, Melbourne. During the escape a guard is killed. Ryan would hang for his death, in 1967.
• 1967 – Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt is declared dead, two days after going missing.
• 1972 – Apollo 17, the last manned lunar flight, returns to Earth.
• 1974 – The Altair 8800, the first personal computer, goes on sale.
• 1975 - John Paul Stevens is appointed as a justice of the United States Supreme Court.
• 1980 – Anguilla is made a dependency of the United Kingdom separate from Saint Kitts and Nevis.
• 1982 - A tanker fire in Tacoa, Venezuela, kills 150 people.
• 1983 - The Jules Rimet FIFA World Cup trophy is stolen from the Headquarters of the Brazilian Football Federation in Rio de Janeiro and is never seen again.
• 1984 – The United Kingdom and People's Republic of China sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which handed Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
• 1984 - Ted Hughes becomes Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.
• 1986 - Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev releases Andrei Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, from exile in Gorky.
• 1997 – A Silkair Boeing 737-300 crashes into the Musi River, in Sumatra, Indonesia killing 104
• 1997 – Titanic (the highest-grossing movie ever as of 2005) opens in U.S. theaters.
• 1998 – The U.S. House of Representatives passes articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.
• 2000 – The Leninist Guerrilla Units attack a party office of the far-right MHP in Istanbul, Turkey. One MHP member is killed and several wounded.

From 2001

• 2001 – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the first movie in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, opens in theaters.
• 2001 – A new world-record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is set at Tosontsengel, Hövsgöl Aymag, Mongolia.
• 2001 – The Argentine economic crisis bursts into street riots after the announcement by the economy minister of the measures of holding back the bank deposits.
• 2005 – Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon suffers a minor stroke.
• 2007 – Marcus Stephen becomes President of Nauru.
• 2007 - Lee Myung-bak is elected President of South Korea.
• 2011 – North Korean state television announces that Kim Jong-il died two days earlier. His son Kim Jong-un has been named as his successor, as North Korea's leader.
• 2012 - Park Geunhye is elected President of South Korea, as the first woman elected to lead South Korea.
• 2016 - Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov is assassinated at an art gallery in Ankara by an off-duty police officer.
• 2016 - A lorry is driven into a crowd at a Christmas market in central Berlin, killing at least 12 people.

Births

Up to 1900

• 1343 - William I, Margrave of Meissen (d. 1407)
• 1498 - Andreas Osiander, German theologian (d. 1552)
• 1554 - Philip William, Prince of Orange (d. 1618)
• 1587 - Dorothea Sophia, Abbess of Quedlinburg (d. 1645)
• 1594 - Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden (d. 1632)
• 1683 – King Philip V of Spain (d. 1746)
• 1699 – William Bowyer, printer (d. 1777)
• 1714 - John Winthrop, American astronomer (d. 1779)
• 1753 - John Taylor Gilman, Governor of New Hampshire (d. 1828)
• 1778 - Marie Thérèse of France (d. 1851)
• 1784 - Marcus Morton, 16th and 18th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1864)
• 1790 - William Parry, English admiral and polar explorer (d. 1855)
• 1796 - Manuel Breton de los Herreros, Spanish playwright (d. 1873)
• 1813 – Thomas Andrews, chemist (d. 1885)
• 1815 - Edwin M. Stanton, American politician (d. 1869)
• 1816 - Franz Sacher, Austrian confectioner (d. 1907)
• 1817 - James J. Archer, American lawyer and general (d. 1864)
• 1819 – James Spriggs Payne, 4th and 8th President of Liberia (d. 1882)
• 1820 – Mary Ashton Livermore, women's rights activist (d. 1905)
• 1838 - Ghedrub Gyatso, 11th Dalai Lama (d. 1856)
• 1845 - Henri Joseph Perrotin, French astronomer (d. 1904)
• 1852 – Albert Abraham Michelson, Prussian-born physicist (d. 1931)
• 1854 - Marcel Brillouin, French physicist (d. 1948)
• 1861 – Italo Svevo, Italian writer (d. 1928)
• 1865 – Minnie Maddern Fiske, stage actress (d. 1932)
• 1875 – Mileva Maric, Serbian-Swiss scientist, was married to Albert Einstein (d. 1948)
• 1875 - Carter G. Woodson, American historian, author and journalist (d. 1950)
• 1876 - Enrique Pla y Deniel, Archbishop of Toledo, Spain (d. 1968)
• 1879 - Beals Wright, American tennis player (d. 1961)
• 1882 - Walter Braunfels, German composer (d. 1954)
• 1884 - Antonin Zapotocky, Czech politician (d. 1957)
• 1885 – Joe "King" Oliver, jazz musician (d. 1938)
• 1888 – Fritz Reiner, Hungarian conductor (d. 1963)
• 1891 – Edward Raczynski, Polish diplomat and politician (d. 1993)
• 1894 – Ford Frick, American commissioner of baseball (d. 1978)
• 1899 - Martin Luther King, Sr., father of Martin Luther King, Jr. (d. 1984)
• 1900 – Géza von Cziffra, movie director (d. 1989)

1901 – 1950

• 1901 – Rudolf Hell, German inventor (d. 2002)
• 1902 - Ralph Richardson, English actor (d. 1983)
• 1903 – George Davis Snell, American geneticist (d. 1996)
• 1905 - Irving Kahn, American businessman (d. 2015)
• 1906 – Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet politician (d. 1982)
• 1910 – Jean Genet, French writer (d. 1986)
• 1913 - Juan Landazuri Ricketts, Archbishop of Lima (d. 1997)
• 1915 - Claudia Testoni, Italian athlete (d. 1998)
• 1915 – Édith Piaf, French singer and actress (d. 1963)
• 1916 - Manoel de Barros, Brazilian poet (d. 2014)
• 1916 – Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, German publicist (d. 2010)
• 1918 – Professor Longhair, American musician (d. 1980)
• 1920 - Little Jimmy Dickens, American country music singer (d. 2015)
• 1920 - Alexander McAllister, Scottish cricketer
• 1920 – David Susskind, movie, stage, and television producer (d. 1987)
• 1922 - Eamonn Andrews, Irish radio and television host (d. 1987)
• 1923 – Gordon Jackson, Scottish movie, stage and television actor (d. 1990)
• 1924 - Michel Tournier, French writer (d. 2016)
• 1925 – Tankred Dorst, German dramatist (d. 2017)
• 1925 - Robert B. Sherman, American songwriter (d. 2012)
• 1925 - Rabah Bitat, President of Algeria (d. 2000)
• 1926 - Fikret Otyam, Turkish painter and journalist (d. 2015)
• 1927 - Remo Capitani, Italian actor (d. 2014)
• 1929 - Lorenzo Buffon, Italian footballer
• 1929 – Bob Brookmeyer, American musician (d. 2011)
• 1930 - Georg Stollenwerk, German footballer (d. 2014)
• 1932 - Thomas Hunter, American actor (d. 2017)
• 1932 - Bernhard Vogel, German politician
• 1933 – Cicely Tyson, American actress
• 1934 – Rudi Carrell, Dutch entertainer (d. 2006)
• 1934 – Al Kaline, American Baseball Hall of Famer
• 1934 – Pratibha Patil, former President of India
• 1935 – Bobby Timmons, American jazz pianist (d. 1974)
• 1936 - Marian McKnight, American model
• 1938 – Karel Svoboda, Czech composer (d. 2007)
• 1940 – Phil Ochs, singer, songwriter (d. 1976)
• 1941 – Maurice White, American musician (d. 2016)
• 1941 – Lee Myung-bak, former President of South Korea
• 1942 – Cornell Dupree, American musician (d. 2011)
• 1943 - Sam Kelly, English actor (d. 2014)
• 1944 – Richard Leakey, Kenyan anthropologist (d. 2022)
• 1944 – Alvin Lee, British musician (d. 2013)
• 1946 – Robert Urich, American actor (d. 2002)
• 1947 - Jimmy Bain, Scottish musician (d. 2016)
• 1949 – Jupp Kapellmann, German footballer
• 1949 – Nasser Hejazi, Iranian footballer (d. 2011)
• 1949 – Claudia Kolb, swimmer
• 1949 - Carlos Gomes Junior, former Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau
• 1950 - Walter Frosch, German footballer (d. 2013)

1951 – 1975

• 1951 - Mohammed Reza Aref, 2nd Vice President of Iran
• 1952 - Walter Murphy, American songwriter and musician
• 1955 - Rob Portman, American politician
• 1956 – Jens Fink-Jensen, Danish writer
• 1957 – Kevin McHale, American basketball player
• 1957 - Cyril Collard, French actor, director and composer (d. 1993)
• 1957 - Michael E. Fossum, American astronaut
• 1957 - John Gulager, American actor, cinematographer and director
• 1958 - José Aguilar, Cuban boxer (d. 2014)
• 1959 - Ivan Vallejo, Ecuadorean footballer
• 1960 – Mike Lookinland, actor
• 1961 - Eric Allin Cornell, American physicist
• 1961 – Reggie White, American football player (d. 2004)
• 1963 - Til Schweiger, German actor
• 1963 - Jennifer Beals, American actress
• 1964 – Arvydas Sabonis, Lithuanian basketball player
• 1964 - Béatrice Dalle, French actress
• 1965 - Jessica Steen, Canadian actress
• 1965 – Chito Martinez, Belizean baseball player
• 1966 - Alberto Tomba, Italian skier
• 1967 – Criss Angel, American illusionist
• 1968 - Ken Marino, American actor and comedian
• 1968 - Kristina Keneally, 42nd Premier of New South Wales
• 1969 – Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, Azerbaijani composer, pianist and singer
• 1969 – Kristy Swanson, American actress
• 1969 – Richard Hammond, British television presenter
• 1971 – Tiffany Towers, American actress
• 1972 – Alyssa Milano, American actress
• 1972 – Warren Sapp, American football player
• 1974 – Jake Plummer, American football player
• 1974 – Ricky Ponting, Australian cricketer

From 1976

• 1978 - Patrick Casey, American screenwriter and actor
• 1979 – Gareth Williams, Welsh rugby player
• 1980 – Jake Gyllenhaal, American actor
• 1980 - Billy O'Sullivan, American actor
• 1980 – Marla Sokoloff, actress
• 1982 - Tero Pitkamaki, Finnish javelin thrower
• 1983 – Matt Stajan, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1985 - Neil Kilkenny, Australian footballer
• 1985 – Gary Cahill, English footballer
• 1985 – Lady Sovereign, English musician
• 1985 - Dan Logan, English bass player
• 1986 – Ryan Babel, Dutch footballer
• 1987 – Karim Benzema, French footballer
• 1988 – Alexis Sanchez, Chilean footballer
• 1989 - Yong Jun-hyung, South Korean singer, rapper and actor
• 1991 – Declan Galbraith, English singer
• 1991 - Edwin Jackson, American football player (d. 2018)
• 1991 - Jorge Blanco, Mexican actor and singer
• 1992 - Iker Muniain, Spanish footballer
• 1993 - Leonardo Bittencourt, German footballer
• 1994 - Michele Bravi, Italian singer
• 1994 - Estelle Balet, Swiss snowboarder (d. 2016)
• 1995 - Brandur Olsen, Faroese footballer
• 1998 - Frans Jeppsson Wall, Swedish singer

Deaths

Up to 1900

• 211 - Geta, Roman Emperor
• 401 – Pope Anastasius I
• 1075 – Edith of Wessex, queen of Edward the Confessor of England
• 1111 - Al-Ghazali, Persian theologian and philosopher
• 1123 - Saint Berardo, Italian bishop
• 1327 – Agnes of France, Duchess of Burgundy
• 1370 – Pope Urban V (b. 1310)
• 1475 - Louis de Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol (b. 1418)
• 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)
• 1813 - James McGill, Scottish-Canadian businessman and philanthropist (b. 1744)
• 1814 - Joseph Bramah, English inventor and locksmith (b. 1748)
• 1819 – Sir Thomas Fremantle, English naval officer and politician (b. 1765)
• 1848 – Emily Brontë, English writer (b. 1818)
• 1851 – J. M. W. Turner, English painter (b. 1775)
• 1859 - Mirabeau B. Lamar, American politician and President of Texas (b. 1798)
• 1860 - Konstantin Aksakov, Russian writer (b. 1817)
• 1899 - Henry Ware Lawton, American Civil War general (b. 1843)

1901 – 2000

• 1915 – Alois Alzheimer, German neuroscientist (b. 1864)
• 1916 - Thibaw Min, King of Burma (b. 1859)
• 1927 - Ashfaqulla Khan, Indian activist (b. 1900)
• 1927 - Ram Prasad Bismil, Indian activist (b. 1897)
• 1927 - Roshan Singh, Indian activist (b. 1892)
• 1932 – Yoon Bong-Gil, Korean resister against Japanese occupation (executed) (b. 1908)
• 1933 - George Jackson Churchward, English engineer (b. 1857)
• 1939 – Hans Langsdorff, German naval officer (b. 1894)
• 1944 - Abbas II of Egypt (b. 1874)
• 1944 - Rudolph Karstadt, German entrepreneur (b. 1856)
• 1946 - Paul Langevin, French physicist (b. 1872)
• 1953 – Robert Millikan, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1868)
• 1967 – Harold Holt, seventeenth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)
• 1968 – Norman Thomas, American socialist (b. 1884)
• 1976 – Giuseppe Caselli, Italian painter (b. 1893)
• 1977 – Nellie Tayloe Ross, Governor of Wyoming (b. 1876)
• 1982 - Dwight Macdonald, American philosopher, author and critic (b. 1906)
• 1988 - Robert Bernstein, American author and playwright (b. 1919)
• 1989 – Stella Gibbons, English writer (b. 1902)
• 1993 - Michael Clarke, American drummer (b. 1946)
• 1996 – Marcello Mastroianni, Italian actor (b. 1924)
• 1997 - Masaru Ibuka, Japanese industrialist (b. 1908)
• 1998 - Mel Fisher, American treasure hunter (b. 1922)
• 1999 – Desmond Llewelyn, Welsh actor (b. 1914)
• 2000 - Pops Staples, American singer (b. 1915)
• 2000 - John Lindsay, 103rd Mayor of New York City (b. 1921)
• 2000 - Rob Buck, American guitarist and songwriter (b. 1958)

From 2001

• 2003 – Peter Carter-Ruck, British lawyer (b. 1914)
• 2003 – Hope Lange, American actress (b. 1941)
• 2004 – Herbert C. Brown, English-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1912)
• 2004 – Renata Tebaldi, Italian soprano (b. 1922)
• 2008 - Carol Chomsky, American linguist and educator (b. 1930)
• 2009 – Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Iranian cleric (b. 1922)
• 2009 – Kim Peek, American megasavant, inspiration for the movie Rain Man (b. 1951)
• 2012 - Peter Struck, German politician (b. 1943)
• 2012 - Robert Bork, American judge and scholar (b. 1927)
• 2013 - Herb Geller, American-German saxophonist and composer (b. 1928)
• 2013 - Ned Vizzini, American writer (b. 1981)
• 2014 - Igor Rodionov, Russian general and politician (b. 1936)
• 2014 - Philip Bradbourn, English politician (b. 1951)
• 2014 - Arthur Gardner, American movie and television producer (b. 1910)
• 2015 - Jimmy Hill, English footballer and pundit (b. 1928)
• 2015 - Kurt Masur, German conductor (b. 1927)
• 2015 - Greville Janner, British politician (b. 1928)
• 2015 - Karin Söder, Swedish politician (b. 1928)
• 2015 - Dickie Moore, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1931)
• 2015 - Selma Reis, Brazilian actress and singer (b. 1960)
• 2016 - Andrei Karlov, Russian diplomat, Ambassador to Turkey (b. 1954)
• 2017 - Lito Cruz, Argentine actor (b. 1941)
• 2017 - Clifford Irving, American author (b. 1930)
• 2017 - Hiep Thi Le, Vietnamese-American actress (b. 1971)
• 2018 - Tömür Dawamat, Chinese Uighur politician; b. '27
• 2018 - Mel Hutchins, American basketball player; b. '28
• 2018 - Geetha Salam, Indian actor; b. '48
• Twenty-nineteen
  • Ricardo de Aparici, Argentine lawyer and politician; b. '40
  • Francisco Brennand, Brazilian sculptor; b. '27
  • Jules Deelder, Dutch poet; b. '44
  • Jan de Laval, Swedish actor; b. '48
  • Ward Just, American journalist and writer; b. '35
  • George Metallinos, Greek priest; b. '40
  • Yoshio Mochizuki, Japanese politician; b. '47
  • Shahdon Winchester, Trinidadian footballer
  • Alba Zaluar, Brazilian anthropologist; b. '42

Observances

• Liberation Day (Goa)
• National Heroes and Heroines Day (Anguilla)