December 19
It’s Look for an Evergreen Day and Oatmeal Muffin Day
ON THIS DAY…
1686 Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Defoe)
1732 Benjamin Franklin begins publication of Poor Richard’s Almanack
1777 George Washingtons Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge
1843 Charles Dickens publishes A Christmas Carol in England
1915 The neon tube sign is patented by George Claude
1918 Robert Ripley begins his “Believe It or Not” column for The New York Globe
1932 British Broadcasting Corporation begins transmitting overseas
1961 British government begins decimal coin system
1971 Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange premieres
1972 The last manned lunar flight, Apollo 17, (crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt) returns to Earth
1974 Altair 8800 microcomputer goes on sale
1980 Mutual Broadcasting cancels Sears Radio Theater
1988 Lawn darts are banned for sale in the U.S.
BORN:
1902 Sir Ralph Richardson, actor (David Copperfield, Doctor Zhivago, Time Bandits)
1915 Édith Piaf, French singer
1923 Gordon Jackson, actor (The Great Escape, Upstairs Downstairs)
1946 Robert Urich, actor (Vega$, Lonesome Dove)
1961 Matthew Waterhouse, actor (Doctor Who)
1969 Kristy Swanson, actress (Buffy Vampire Slayer, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)
1969 Richard Hammond, television presenter (Top Gear)
1972 Alyssa Milano, actress (Charmed, Melrose Place)
1980 Jake Gyllenhaal, actor (Donnie Darko, Brokeback Mountain)
DIED:
1848 Emily Brontë, author (Wuthering Heights), dies at 40
1983 Raymond Massey, actor (Arsenic and Old Lace, The Prisoner of Zenda), dies at 87
1986 V. C. Andrews, author (Flowers in the Attic), dies at 63
1996 Marcello Mastroiani, actor (8½, Assassin), dies at 72
1999 Desmond Llewelyn, actor (Q in the Bond Films) dies at 86
2003 Hope Lange, actress (Peyton Place, Blue Velvet) dies at 70