Born On This Day:

• King Gustavus Adolphus Sweden, 1594
• John Milton, 1608
• Joel Chandler Harris, 1848
• Clarence Birdseye, 1886
• Hermione Gingold, 1897
• Emmett Kelly, 1898
• Margaret Hamilton, 1902
• Louis Kronenberger, 1904
• Dalton Trumbo, 1905
• Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., 1909
• Broderick Crawford, 1911
• Lee J. Cobb, 1911
• Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, 1915
• Kirk Douglas, 1916
• Redd Foxx, 1922
• Dina Merrill, 1925
• Dick Van Patten, 1928
• John Cassavetes, 1929
• Buck Henry, 1930
• Dame Judi Dench, 1934
• Beau Bridges, 1941
• Dick Butkus, 1942
• Joan Armatrading, 1950
• Donny Osmond, 1953
• John Malkovich, 1953

Died On This Day:

• King Malcolm IV Scotland, 1165
• Emperor Sigismund, 1437
• Pope Pius IV, 1565
• Van Dyck, 1641
• Dame Edith Sitwell, 1964
• Branch Rickey, 1965
• Ralph Bunche, 1971
• Louella Parsons, 1972
• William Wellman, 1975
• Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, 1979
• Vincent Gardenia, 1992
• Vivian Blaine, 1995
• Archie Moore, 1998
• Gene Barry, 2009
• Eleanor Parker, 2013

Today's Events:

• 1793 - Noah Webster establishes New York's first daily newspaper, American Minerva.
• 1813 - Explorer George Evans discovers the Macquarie River in Australia.
• 1842 - First Christmas card created by William Maw Egley Jr. in England.
• 1854 - Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' published in the London Examiner.
• 1884 - Levant Richardson of Chicago receives patent on the ball-bearing roller skate.
• 1905 - Richard Strauss's opera Salome first performed in Dresden.
• 1907 - Christmas seals first go on sale in Wilmington, Delaware.
• 1917 - Jerusalem (under Turkish rule) taken by British under General Allenby; WW1
• 1940 - Longines Watch Company becomes first advertiser to sponsor FM radio broadcasting.
• 1941 - China declares war against Japan, Germany and Italy, WWII.
• 1958 - The John Birch Society organized.
• 1960 - Long run British soap opera Coronation Street premieres on Granada Television (now ITV). Still playing 2011.
• 1963 - Studebaker car plant closes in South Bend IN.
• 1968 - The computer mouse prototype unveiled by inventor Doug Engelbart; red clicker on wooden box.
• 2001 - Taliban's 5-year rule in Afghanistan comes to official end as Hamid Karzai rides into Kandahar.
• 2002 - United Airlines files for bankruptcy.

Feast Day of Saint:

• Budoc or Beuzec
• Gorgonia
• Leocadia
• Hipparchus and Philotheus
• Peter Fourier, and the 7 Martyrs of Samosata

Holiday:

• Independence Day (1961) and Republic Day (1962) in Tanzania

Non-Specific Holiday:

• ADVENT SUNDAY, Sunday nearest to feast of Saint Andrew (Nov. 30) whether before or after.
• CHANUKKA (Jewish Feast of Lights), eight day holiday beginning on 25th day of lunar month Kislev.
• TSAO CHÜN, Festival of the Kitchen God in China (23rd day of the twelfth moon (or 24th in Kwantung)
• CH'U HSI, Night of the Thirtieth (29th day of the twelfth moon)
• KWANZAA - African American Heritage celebrated December 26 - January 1