1995 Christopher Reeve The actor, know for playing Superman, is paralyzed from the neck down after being thrown from a horse. He had been scheduled to pose for an equestrian safety poster.

1994 New Catechism The Roman Catholic Church releases the English version of its first revision to its catechism in 426 years. It was more tolerant toward gays and maintained the Church's position against birth control and abortion. Its release was delayed 18 months due to debates over gender-neutral language.

1992 Religious leader Yahweh Ben Yahweh is convicted of conspiring to kill, maim, and burn to intimidate both members and non-members of his religious sect.

1977 First Woman to Race in the Indianapolis 500 Janet Guthrie finishes 29th of 33. Source: Famous First Facts

1975 Marijuana The Alaskan Supreme Court legalizes its use in the privacy of one's home.

1964 James Bond From Russia with Love premiers in the U.S., 2nd in the James Bond series, it starred Sean Connery as 007.

1949 Marilyn Monroe The famed actress poses nude for her famous calendar photograph.  The photo would be featured as the centerfold in the first issue of Playboy magazine.

1941 World War II Germany's largest battleship of the war, the Bismarck, is sunk off the coast of France.

1939 Voyage of the Damned The German liner St. Louis arrives in Cuba after carrying more than 900 Jews fleeing from the NAZIs. All but 28 passengers were turned away by the Cuban, U.S., and Canadian governments and returned to Europe where many died in the Holocaust.  These events were the basis of the 1976 film Voyage of the Damned.

1937 Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco opens.

1931 First men in the stratosphere Swiss scientists Auguste Piccard and Charles Kipfer reach 51,775 feet in a sealed-gondola balloon flight in Germany.

???? The $280 million diamond ransom must be delivered by 8:00 P.M., in the movie Thunderball.

1966 Todd Bridges American actor. TV: Diff'rent Strokes (Willis). In 1989, he was acquitted of the attempted murder of a drug dealer at a crack house, and in a separate incident in 1993, he plead guilty to possession of drugs and a loaded gun.

1961 Cathy Silvers American actress. TV: Happy Days (Jenny Piccalo).

1936 Louis Gossett Jr American Oscar-Emmy-winning actor. Film: An Officer and a Gentleman (1982, Oscar).

1935 Lee Meriwether American actress. TV: Batman (one of the Catwomen) and The New Munsters (Lily).

1923 Henry Alfred Kissinger (Heinz Alfred Kissinger), former U.S. Secretary of State, winner of the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize.

1922 Christopher Lee British actor. Film: The monster in numerous horror movies - including Frankenstein and Dracula - and as Bond's nemesis Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). He was also author Ian Fleming's cousin.

1915 Herman Wouk American Pulitzer-winning author. Writings: The Caine Mutiny (1951, Pulitzer) and The Winds of War (1971).

1912 Sam Snead golfer, 3-time Masters winner (1949, 52, 54), 3-timer winner of the PGA Championship (1942, 49, 51), and winner of the British Open (1946), 6-time winner of the Seniors Championship (1964-65, 67, 70, 72-73).

1911 Vincent Price d. 1993 American horror actor. Film: House of Wax (1953) , The Fly (1958), The Last Man on Earth (1964). TV: Batman (as Egghead) and Mystery (as host).

1911 Hubert Horatio Humphrey d. 1978 38th U.S. Vice-President (1965-69).

1907 Rachel Louise Carson d. 1964 American biologist, conservationist. Her 1962 book Silent Spring alerted the nation to the dangers of pesticides.

1897 Sir John Cockcroft d. 1967 British nuclear physicist, in 1932 he and Ernest Walton became the first to use a particle accelerator to split an atom, for which they were awarded the 1951 Nobel Prize.

1894 Dashiell Hammett d. 1961 American author. Writings: The Maltese Falcon (1930) and Adventures of Sam Spade (1944).

1837 Wild Bill Hickok d. 1876 (James Butler Hickok), American frontiersman, U.S. marshal, and famous citizen of Deadwood, South Dakota. He was shot in the back during a poker game while holding two pair (aces and eights), since known as a "dead man's hand."

1819 Julia Ward Howe d. 1910 American poet. She wrote the lyrics to The Battle Hymn of the Republic (1861).

1818 Amelia Jenks Bloomer d. 1894 American women's rights advocate. She published the Lily, the first major women's rights newspaper (1849), in which she advocated the wearing of bloomers.

1794 Cornelius Vanderbilt d. 1877 American railroad magnate, and for whom Vanderbilt University is named.

1756 Maximilian I d. 1825 King of Bavaria (1806-25).

1991 Edward Benton Dodd b. 1902 American cartoonist, created Mark Trail (1946).

1969 Jeffrey Hunter b. 1925 (Henry H. McKinnies), American actor. Film: King of Kings (1961, Christ). TV: Star Trek (Capt. Pike, the first commander of the Enterprise).

1964 Jawaharlal Nehru b. 1889 Indian statesman, first prime minister of the Republic of India (1947-64).

1960 James Montgomery Flagg b. 1877 American artist, creator of the "I Want You" Uncle Sam recruiting poster (1917).  He used his own face as the model for the poster.

1949 Robert LeRoy Ripley b. 1893 American cartoonist, created Believe-It-or-Not (1918). Note: He claimed his birthday was Dec 25, believe it or not.

1914 Joseph Wilson Swan b. 1828 English inventor, chemist. Known for his development of dry photographic plates, he also invented a carbon element electric light (1860), which was the basis of Edison's light 20 years later. Swan patented his incandescent light in 1879, a year before Edison patented his.

1910 Robert Koch b. 1843 German Nobel Prize-winning physician.  He was the first to prove that a bacterium could cause disease (1877, anthrax).  He also discovered the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (1882) and the bacterium that causes cholera (1883).

1840 Nicolo Paganini b. 1782 Italian violin virtuoso, considered the greatest violinist of all time.

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