Events in History
- Dec 1 Bell Labs tests coaxial cable for TV use
- Dec 1 EW Brundin & FF Lyon obtain patent on soilless culture of plants
- Dec 5 Armenian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Georgian SSR, Kazakh SSR & Kirghiz SSR becomes constituent republics of Soviet Union
- Dec 8 Anastasio Somoza García elected President of Nicaragua
- Dec 8 NAACP files suit to equalize salaries of black & white teachers
- Dec 10 Stockholm: physicist PBJ Debije receives Nobel prize for chemistry
Event of Interest
Dec 10 Britain replaces King Edward VIII stamp series with King George VI
George VI
Edward VIII
Event of Interest
Dec 10 Edward VIII signs Instrument of Abdication, giving up the British throne to marry American divoree Wallis Simpson
Wallis Simpson
Edward VIII
Nobel Prize
Dec 10 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Carlos Saavedra Lamas for mediating end to Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, 1st Latin American to win
Carlos Saavedra Lamas
- Dec 11 Edward VIII announces in a radio broadcast that he is abdicating the British throne to marry Wallis Simpson
Event of Interest
Dec 12 Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek declares war on Japan
Chiang Kai-shek
- Dec 15 KVL-AM in Seattle Washington changes call letters to KEEN (now KING)
- Dec 18 Su-Lin, 1st giant panda to come to US from China, arrives in San Francisco
- Dec 22 1st common carrier license issued by ICC, Scranton, Pa
- Dec 23 Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty
- Dec 24 1st radioactive isotope medicine administered in Berkeley, California
- Dec 25 Belgian bishops condemn fascism & communism
- Dec 25 Ron Hamence scores 104 for SA v Queensland before 4,865
- Dec 30 United Auto Workers stage 1st sit-down strike, at Fisher Body Plant
Birthdays in History
- Dec 5 James Lee Burke, American writer
- Dec 6 Kenneth Copeland, American televangelist
- Dec 7 Martha Layne Collins, Baghdad Ky, (Gov-D-Ky)
- Dec 8 Brad Jurjens, Estonia, director (The Bank Job)
- Dec 11 Hans van den Broek, Dutch foreign minister (-1992)
- Dec 11 Taku Yamasaki, Japanese politician
- Dec 13 Karim Aga Khan, leader of the Nizari Ismailis, prince and billionaire
- Dec 14 Robert Alan Ridley Parker, American PhD/astronaut (STS 9, STS 35), born in NYC, New York
- Dec 16 Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center
- Dec 17 Frank Martinus Arion, [F Efraim M], Antilles, writer (Double Play)
- Dec 25 Alexandra HEOC, English princess/daughter of Sir Angus Ogilvy
- Dec 25 Ismail Merchant, producer (Householder), born in Mumbai, India
- Dec 26 Kitty Dukakis, substance abuser/wife of Michael (Gov-Mass)
- Dec 27 Lee Salk, Russian-American child psychologist and author, born in New York, New York (d. 1992)
- Dec 28 Jacques Mesrine, French criminal (d. 1979)
- Dec 28 Lawrence Schiller, American journalist
Weddings in History
Wedding of Interest
Dec 24 Paleoanthropologist Mary Nicol (23) weds archaeologist Louis Leakey (33) in England
Mary Leakey
Louis Leakey
- Dec 28 British best-selling romantic author Barbara Cartland (35) marries 2nd husband Hugh McCorquodale
Deaths in History
- Dec 2 John Ringling, American circus owner (b. 1866)
- Dec 10 Luigi Pirandello, Italian writer (Six Characters in Search of An Author-Nobel 1934), dies at 69
- Dec 18 Andrija Mohorovičić, Austro-Hungarian-born Yugoslav seismologist (b. 1857)
- Dec 20 Baron De Borchgrave, Belgian ambassador, murdered in Madrid
- Dec 24 Dragutin Gorjanovic-Kramberger, Croatian paleontologist (discovery and descriptions of the Neandertal remains from the Huŝnjakova rock shelter at Krapina in northwestern Croatia), dies at 80
- Dec 27 Hans von Seeckt, German Gen/advisor of Chiang Kai-shek, dies at 70
- Dec 31 Miguel de Unamuno Jugo, Span philosopher/poet (Cancionero), dies at 72
- Dec 31 William FA Ellison, Irish clergyman/astronomer, dies at 72