In 1858, opera composer Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy.
In 1894, French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggered worldwide charges of antisemitism. (Dreyfus was eventually vindicated.)
In 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington for a wartime conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In 1944, during the World War II Battle of the Bulge, US Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe rejected a German demand for surrender, writing “Nuts!” in his official reply.
In 1984, New York City resident Bernhard Goetz shot and wounded four young Black men on a Manhattan subway, alleging they were about to rob him.
In 1989, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, the last of Eastern Europe’s hard-line Communist rulers, was toppled from power in a popular uprising.
In 1990, Lech Walesa took the oath of office as Poland’s first popularly elected president.
In 1992, a Libyan Boeing 727 jetliner crashed after a midair collision with a MiG fighter, killing all 157 aboard the jetliner, and both crew members of the fighter jet.
In 1995, actor Butterfly McQueen, who’d played the slave Prissy in “Gone with the Wind,” died in Augusta, Georgia, at age 84.
In 2001, Richard C. Reid, a passenger on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, tried to ignite explosives in his shoes, but was subdued by flight attendants and fellow passengers. (Reid is serving a life sentence in federal prison.)
In 2003, a federal judge ruled the Pentagon couldn’t enforce mandatory anthrax vaccinations for military personnel.
In 2010, President Barack Obama signed a law allowing gays for the first time in history to serve openly in America’s military, repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
In 2017, the wildfire that had burned its way through communities and wilderness northwest of Los Angeles became the largest blaze ever officially recorded in California; it had scorched 273,400 acres and destroyed more than 700 homes.
In 2020, President Donald Trump unexpectedly released two videos, one falsely declaring that he had won the election in a “landslide,” and the other urging lawmakers to increase direct payments for most individuals to $2,000 in a COVID relief package, a move opposed by most Republicans.