^B{^#!16!16 December^N! Feast day of St Irenion, Saints Ananiah, Azariah, and Michael, and St Adelaide.
^B{1653^B} Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England. ^B{1773^B} The Boston Tea Party, a protest against British taxation, took place off Griffin's Wharf in Boston harbor. ^B{1809^B} Napoleon divorced his wife JosΘphine, because she had not produced children. ^B{1838^B} The Zulu chief Dingaan was defeated by a small force of Boers at Blood River - celebrated in South Africa as 'Dingaan's Day'. ^B{1850^B} The first immigrant ship, the Charlotte Jane, arrived at Lyttleton, New Zealand. ^B{1944^B} The Battle of the Bulge, in the Ardennes, began with a strong counter-attack by the Germans under General von Rundstedt. ^B{1990^B} Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist priest, was elected president in Haiti's first democratic elections. ^B{1991^B} The UN General Assembly voted to repeal its 1975^B} resolution equating Zionism with racism.
^B{^I{^#!14!Born ^N}Catherine of Aragon, 1st wife of King Henry VIII, ^B{1485^B}; Jane Austen, English novelist, ^B{1775^B}; Jack Hobbs, English cricketer, ^B{1882^B}; Noδl Coward, English dramatist, actor and composer, ^B{1889^B}; Margaret Mead, US anthropologist, ^B{1901^B}; Liv Ullmann, Norwegian actress, ^B{1938^B}.^B}
^B{^I{^#!14!Died ^N}Wilhelm Grimm, German philologist and folklorist, ^B{1859^B}; Camille Saint-Saδns, French composer, ^B{1921^B}; Glenn Miller, US trombonist and bandleader, ^B{1944^B}; William Somerset Maugham, British novelist, ^B{1965^B}; Kakuei Tanaka, Japanese politician, ^B{1993^B}.
