324 – Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor.
1795 – First state appropriation of money for road building, Kentucky
1843 – Charles Dickens publishes “A Christmas Carol,” in England
1903 – Williamsburg bridge opens between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Click here to watch the opening of the bridge
1918 – Robert Ripley began his “Believe It or Not” column in the NY Globe
1922 – Mrs Theres Vaughn, 24, confessed in court to being married 62 times
The Silver Ghost was the origin of Rolls-Royce’s claim of making the “best car in the world” – a phrase coined not by themselves, but by the prestigious publication Autocar in 1907. The car had a new six-cylinder, 7036cc engine with the cylinders cast in two units of three cylinders each. The seven-bearing crankshaft had full pressure lubrication and the centre main bearing was made especially large to remove vibration. Two spark plugs were fitted to each cylinder with a choice of magneto or coil ignition. The earliest cars had used a trembler coil to produce the spark with a magneto as an optional extra which soon became standard – the instruction was to start the engine on the trembler-battery and then switch to magneto. Power output was increased from 48bhp at 1,250rpm to 80bhp at 2,250rpm.
1924 – The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.
1960 – Fire aboard USS Constellation, under construction at Brooklyn and 50 die
1965 – French president De Gaulle re-elected (Mitterrand gets 45%)
1971 – Stanley Kubrick’s X-rated “A Clockwork Orange” premieres
1972 – Apollo 17 (last of Apollo Moon landing series) returns to Earth
1974 – Nelson A Rockefeller sworn-in as 41st VP
1978 – France performs nuclear test
1978 – Indira Gandhi ambushed in India
1984 – UK signs agreement with China to return Hong Kong to China in 1997
1985 – Mary Lund is first woman to receive a Jarvik VII artificial heart
1991 – Boris Yeltsin takes control of Kremlin
1994 – Rolls-Royce announces its future cars will feature V12 engine which will be produced by BMW.
1998 – Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives forwards articles I and III of impeachment against President Bill Clinton to the Senate.
2007 – The Lakotah people, a Native American tribe, proclaim independence and withdraw all their treaties with the United States. They then proceed to establish the Republic of Lakotah, with an ongoing process of international recognition as a separate country.
2012 – UBS bank is fined $1.5 billion for its role in manipulating the Libor rate
Births
1944 – Richard Leakey, anthropologist
1849 – Henry Clay Frick, built world’s largest coke & steel operation