Historical Events on December 19

1642 4 of Abel Tasman's crew killed at Wharewharangi (Murderers) Bay by Māori; Tasman's ships depart without landing

1732 Benjamin Franklin under the name Richard Saunders begins publication of "Poor Richard's Almanack"

1776 Thomas Paine publishes his 1st "American Crisis" essay beginning"These are the times that try men's souls" (date disputed)

1783 William Pitt the Younger becomes the youngest ever British Prime Minister at age 24

1828 Report by US Vice President John C. Calhoun defending the rights of states to nullify federal laws is presented to the South Carolina legislature but it takes no action

1835 HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin aboard arrives in New Zealand

1843 "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens is published, 6,000 copies sold

1888 Henry Morton Stanley's expedition reaches Fort Bodo, East-Africa

1900 General Horatio Kitchener offers protections to all Boers who will surrender and asks the Dutch community of Pretoria to convey this offer, leaders in the field refuse to surrender

1930 James Weldon Johnson resigns as executive secretary of NAACP

1931 Bradman scores 112 Australia v South Africa at cricket SCG

1941 Adolf Hitler takes complete command of German Army

1946 War breaks out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi

1950 General Eisenhower named NATO commander

1950 Tibet's Dalai Lama flees Chinese invasion

1960 Frank Sinatra's 1st session with Reprise Records (Ring-A-Ding-Ding)

1961 Indonesian President Sukarno proclaims general mobilization

1965 French President De Gaulle re-elected (Mitterrand gets 45%)

1971 Stanley Kubrick's X-rated film "A Clockwork Orange" based on the book by Anthony Burgess and starring Malcolm McDowell premieres

1974 "The Man with the Golden Gun", 9th James Bond film, starring Roger Moore, Britt Ekland and Christopher Lee, premieres in London

1974 Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as Vice President of the United States

1975 Ron Wood joined The Rolling Stones

1976 Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev receives his 5th Order of Lenin

1978 Indira Gandhi ambushed in India

1979 "Kramer vs Kramer" directed by Robert Benton and starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep is released (Best Picture 1980)

1980 "Raging Bull", directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro as boxer Jake LaMotta and Cathy Moriarty as his wife, is released in the United States

1984 Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration to transfer Hong Kong back to China in 1997

1984 Wayne Gretzky, 23, is 18th & youngest NHL-er to score 1,000 points

1984 Scotty Bowman wins his 691st regular season game, the most wins by any coach in NHL history

1986 USSR frees dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile

1986 "Platoon" directed by Oliver Stone and starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe is released (Academy Awards Best Picture 1987)

1989 Larry Bird (Celtics) begins NBA free throw streak of 71 games

1991 Boris Yeltsin takes control of the Kremlin

1998 Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives forwards articles I and III of impeachment against President Bill Clinton to the Senate.

2001 "The Fellowship of the Ring", 1st Lord of the Rings film is released. Makes US$47 million US opening weekend, $871 million total worldwide.

2008 Chanda Kochhar is named as the successor of K. V. Kamath to the post of CEO and Managing Director of ICICI Bank

2016 US electoral collage votes 304 to 227 to nominate Donald Trump for President over the objections of seven faithless electors