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1715 - James Edward Stuart, son of James II (the deposed Catholic King of England), landed at Petershead in north-east Scotland. He lead a Jacobite rebellion against England. The rebellion failed.

1885 – Ito Hirobumi, a samurai, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.

1942 - World War II: Adolf Hitler signed the order to develop the V-2 rocket as a weapon. It was the world's first, long-range weapon and was developed specifically to target London and later Antwerp. Over 3,000 V-2s were launched as military rockets against Allied targets during the war.

1956 – Colo is born, the first gorilla to be bred in captivity.

1965 – In the United Kingdom, a 70 mph speed limit is applied to all rural roads including motorways for the first time. Previously, there had been no speed limit.

1989 – After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceauşescu's Communist dictatorship.

1989 – Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.

2001 - Richard C. Reid, a passenger on a flight from Paris to Miami, tried to ignite explosives in his shoes, but was subdued by flight attendants and fellow passengers.

2010 – The repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, the 17-year-old policy banning on homosexuals serving openly in the United States military, is signed into law by President Barack Obama.

1972: Survivors found 10 weeks after plane crash
The Chilean Air force has found 14 survivors from a plane that crashed in the Argentine Andes over two months ago.
The first news that anyone had survived came when two of the passengers reached civilization yesterday after a 10 day trek to get help.

The two men, Roberto Canessa and Fernando Parrado then contacted the emergency services and directed them to the wreckage.

Six survivors have been flown out by helicopter to a field hospital in San Fernando.

The other eight are on the mountain receiving medical care until weather conditions allow them to be rescued.

The Fokker "Fairchild" vanished on its way from the Uruguayan capital Montevideo to Santiago in Chile on Friday 13 October.

Its passengers included the Christian Brothers, a catholic Uruguayan rugby team and their friends and relatives.

Team spirit

Despite suffering from cold and hunger, 19-year-old Roberto Canessa and 21-year-old Fernando Parrado insisted on helping the rescue effort.

The two men had trudged for 10 days in arctic conditions before finally coming across some herdsmen in the Andean foothills.

Mr Canessa, a second year medical student, explained that 25 of the 45 passengers survived the initial crash.

The pilot had to make an emergency landing in a snowy valley after the plane hit turbulent weather conditions.

A further eight people died when an avalanche hit the wreckage two weeks after the crash.

The men spoke of a deep team spirit and a determination not to give up.

Mr Parrado, a mechanical engineering student, described how he watched his mother and sister die.

"They remained there in the snow, but I knew I had to live. Before this I had lost a little faith. Now I have regained it, very deeply. God heard our prayers."

The survivors lived on chocolate bars, sweets and light food they found in luggage.

They melted snow for water and used the aircraft's seats to make bedding.

They huddled inside the aircraft and used whatever they could find to plug up holes in the fuselage to keep the cold out.

Roy Harley, an electronics student managed to get a transistor radio to work.

Mr Canessa said, "After some tinkering we managed to hear radio stations. On the eightth day we heard the sad news that our search had been abandoned."

He said they had tried in vain to attract the attention of rescue planes as they flew above the snow camouflaged wreckage.


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The survivors remained on the mountain another six days until the weather improved



In Context
Four days after the rescue, a Santiago paper alleged that the survivors became cannibals to ward off starvation.
The group confirmed that they ate human flesh at a press conference two days later.

All the survivors were aged between 19 and 26 except a 36 year old business man.

Roberto Canessa made an unsuccessful bid for the Uruguayan presidency in 1994.

The story of the ordeal was published in a book called "Alive!" by Piers Paul Read.

A film based on the book was released in 1993, starring Ethan Hawke.

Fourteen of the survivors retraced their fateful flight route on the 30th anniversary in 2002.

Memories
I was living in Chile at the time. I remember so well all the news in the media. So many speculations, we could not believe that 14 people were alive in that weather conditions. But, we felt and still feel very proud that it was a Chilean "arriero" that found them alive.
I also remember talking on the phone with Roberto Canessa, the lines at the hospital were open to talk them. I could not believe when he answered my telephone call.

After asking the usual question, how are you? He said to me, "I am very well thank you but, I am suffering "chilenitis" and I asked: "What's that?" and he said: "I have been eating lettuces and having diarrhoea!!

I still laugh when I remember that conversation, I am Chilean but at that time I did not know we had a "medical" name for stomach problems.

In 1993 I lived in Montevideo and I visited the hospital where Mr Canessa was the director. I met him and asked if he remembered me from 1972 when he told me about "chilenitis"? Yes, he said. I remember that telephone call, amazing that we are alive.
Ester, Noruega


Stories From 22 Dec
1972: Survivors found 10 weeks after plane crash
1989: Brandenburg Gate re-opens
1974: Heath's home is bombed
2000: Madonna weds her Guy
2003: Hostages freed by Colombian rebels
1997: BSE inquiry to be 'far-reaching'

1688 – As part of the Glorious Revolution, King James II of England flees England to Paris after being deposed in favour of his nephew, William of Orange and his daughter Mary.

1823 – A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, is published anonymously.

1834 - English architect Joseph Hansom patented the horse drawn taxi, known as the Hansom Cab. He went on to sell the patent to a company for £10,000 but the sum was never paid.

1888 - Following a quarrel with Paul Gauguin, Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh cut off part of his own earlobe.

1937 - The first flight of the Vickers Wellington, a British twin-engine, long range medium bomber designed at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey.

1947 - John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William Shockley invented the transistor at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. They won the Nobel Prize for their discovery.

1970 - The Mousetrap reached its 7511th consecutive performance to break the world record for the longest running play.

1986 - The experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, round-the-world flight without refueling as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

1968: First astronauts orbit Moon
The Apollo 8 spacecraft has taken its crew of three astronauts safely into orbit around the Moon, the first manned space mission to achieve the feat.
The climax of the mission began at 0959 GMT, when Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were about 78 miles (125 km) from the Moon.

Right on schedule, the crew fired their rocket engine to send Apollo 8 into the first of 10 elliptical lunar orbits.

The engine burned for just over four minutes, and then suddenly the avid audience of television-watchers on Earth had the first-ever eyewitness account of the lunar surface from astronaut James Lovell.

"The moon is essentially grey," he said. "No colour. Looks like plaster of Paris. Sort of a greyish beach sand."

Lost contact

Shortly afterwards, the spacecraft passed out of contact with mission control in Houston, travelling into the dark side of the Moon - never seen directly by humans before, as it always faces away from the Earth.

There followed a tense 45 minutes in which radio communication was impossible - a drama which will be repeated on each circuit around the Moon.

Once back in contact, Apollo 8 then fired another engine, sending it into circular orbit 69 miles (110 km) above the Moon's surface.

About two and a half hours afterwards, the astronauts beamed back the first television pictures of what they were seeing.

As the pictures flooded in, the astronauts broadcast the first words of Genesis, describing the creation of the world.

They then signed out: "From the crew of Apollo 8, we pause with good night, good luck and merry Christmas and God bless all of you - all of you on the good earth."

Bad food

All three men appear to be in good spirits and health.

They have been able to sleep and eat according to schedule, although the food, in plastic packets divided into small "bites", apparently tastes as bad as it looks.

One of Captain Lovell's first comments today was, "Happiness is bacon squares for breakfast."

They were told by Houston control, "You can always bring them back if you have any left over."


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Watch/Listen

The Apollo 8 astronauts sent back this photo of the Earth rising (picture: Nasa)


Views of the Earth and Moon from the Apollo 8






In Context
The crew of Apollo 8 spent 20 hours in orbit around the Moon, before returning to Earth.
They splashed down in the Pacific on 27 December, landing just 5,000 yards (4,500 metres) from their target point. They were picked up by the aircraft carrier Yorktown.

They returned as national heroes. The next mission, Apollo 9, took off at the beginning of 1969, to test a Moon-landing module.

That same year, the crew of Apollo 11 became the first men to walk on the Moon.

James Lovell went on to command the ill-fated Apollo 13, which was crippled by an explosion on board in 1970. He and his crew returned to Earth safely.

Budget constraints brought the first phase of American lunar exploration to an end in 1972.

Then, in January 2004, US President George Bush announced American astronauts would return to the Moon by 2020 as the launching point for missions further into space.


Stories From 24 Dec
1962: Bay of Pigs prisoners fly to freedom
1974: 'Drowned' Stonehouse found alive
1968: First astronauts orbit Moon
1979: Europe launches first rocket
1988: Oilfields crippled after storage ship drifts
1997: Minister's son arrested in drug probe

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_repor.../71828.stm

1814 - The war of 1812 between the US and Britain was brought to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.

1828 - William Burke who, with his partner William Hare, dug up the dead and murdered to sell the corpses for dissection, went on trial in Edinburgh. The other bodysnatcher, William Hare, had turned King’s evidence and was not therefore brought to trial.

1865 - Some veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, called the Ku Klux Klan. The name of the Ku Klux Klan is derived from the Greek word kuklos, meaning circle, and clann, a Scottish Gaelic word for the traditional tribal units of Scotland that reflects the Scottish ancestry of many of the KKK's founding members.

1914 - World War 1 - Not a shot was fired, as German & British soldiers played football & handed out drinks, cigars & souvenirs. It was possibly the most poignant moment of the 'Great War' & for several days afterwards the two sides appeared reluctant to fire on the men they had met face to face.

1914 - A German monoplane dropped a single bomb on Dover, the first ever to be dropped on British soil.

1955 – NORAD Tracks Santa for the first time in what will become an annual Christmas Eve tradition.

1980 – Witnesses report the first of several sightings of unexplained lights near RAF Woodbridge, in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England, an incident called "Britain's Roswell".

(24-12-2011 15:10 )skully Wrote: [ -> ]1828 - William Burke who, with his partner William Hare, dug up the dead and murdered to sell the corpses for dissection, went on trial in Edinburgh. The other bodysnatcher, William Hare, had turned King’s evidence and was not therefore brought to trial.

Although they were believed responsible for up to 17 murders, the evidence against the pair was not overwhelming, so Lord Advocate Sir William Rae offered Hare immunity from prosecution if he confessed and agreed to testify against Burke. Hare's testimony led to Burke's death sentence in December 1828. He was hanged on 28 January 1829, after which he was publicly dissected at the Edinburgh Medical College. The dissecting professor, Alexander Monro, dipped his quill pen into Burke's blood and wrote "This is written with the blood of Wm Burke, who was hanged at Edinburgh. This blood was taken from his head." His skeleton, death mask, and items made from his tanned skin are displayed at the college's museum. A calling card case made out of Willliam Burke's skin is on display at The Police Information Centre in Edinburgh's Royal Mile.

Hare was released in February 1829 and for a while he returned to his native Ireland, but was recognised and hounded everywhere he went. Many popular tales tell of him ending his days as a blind beggar on the streets of London, having been mobbed and thrown in a lime pit. However, none of these reports were ever confirmed. The last known sighting of him was in Carlisle in the late 1830s, but his exact fate is unknown.



Burke's skeleton as displayed at Edinburgh Medical College (photo by permission of Kim Traynor)

"I am disposed to agree that your sentence shall be put in execution in the usual way, but accompanied with the statutory attendant of the punishment of the crime of murder, viz.- that your body should be publicly dissected and anatomized. And I trust, that if it is ever customary to preserve skeletons, yours will be preserved, in order that posterity may keep in remembrance of your atrocious crimes."
-- Lord Justice-Clerk at Burke's trial in Dec. 1829

0000: 2011 years ago some kid was born in a barn! lol!

1977: Silent film legend Chaplin dies
Charles "Charlie" Spencer Chaplin, the comic genius of silent films, has died aged 88.
The "King of film"', knighted in 1975, died at 0400 today at his Swiss manor at Corsier-sur-Vevey.

His wife Oona, daughter of the late playwright Eugene O'Neill, and seven of their eight children were present.

The couple's eldest daughter, actress Geraldine, was abroad filming in Spain but his son Sidney, the eldest son by the second of his four marriages was at his bedside.

It is understood Sir Charles slipped into a coma last night.

A family spokesman said the actor would be buried in a private family ceremony in two days.

As actor, writer, director, producer, composer and choreographer he left his indelible legacy on 80 films including favourites The Gold Rush, City Lights, and Limelight.

Humble beginnings

From his screen debut in 1914, to his last completed film in 1967, Sir Charles is considered to have helped found the modern film.

He rose from humble beginnings to become one of the highest paid films stars.

Born into poverty in London in 1889 his parents Charles Chaplin, senior, and Hannah Hill were music hall entertainers who separated shortly after his birth.

Sir Chaplin and his half-brother, Sydney, who later became his business manger, ended up in an institute for destitute children.

Performing from the age of five he moved to America in 1910.

There he introduced the world to one of his most revered characters - Little Tramp - in the 1914 film Kid's Auto Races.

The shuffling, cane-twirling figure in over-sized trousers and a black moustache, was born.

By 1920, at the height of his fame worldwide regular cinema attendance, dances, dolls, comic books and toys were created in his image.

A colourful personal life combined with Left wing leanings during the Cold War led to him being virtually expelled from America in 1952.

He was awarded a special Oscar 20 years later but lived out the rest of his life in Switzerland where he died.


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Charlie Chaplin's film career spanned more than 50 years





In Context
The comedian was buried two days later about a mile from his home in Corsier near Lausanne, Switzerland, in a cemetery overlooking Lake Geneva and the Alps.
International figures from politics, film and the arts, including Sir Laurence Olivier, paid tribute to the comic.

In 2002 confidential Foreign Office papers from 1956 released by the Public Record Office in Britain revealed the comic's knighthood had been delayed because of his "communist" sympathies and worries about his morals.

Charlie Chaplin's body was stolen from his grave and was missing for 11 weeks until recovered in May 1978.

Two men were convicted of the theft and trying to extort money from the Chaplin family.


Stories From 25 Dec
1989: Romania's 'first couple' executed
1974: Cyclone Tracy leaves Darwin devastated
1991: Gorbachev resigns as Soviet Union breaks up
1952: Queen makes first Christmas speech
1977: Silent film legend Chaplin dies
2003: Mars space probe disappears

1492 - Christopher Columbus established the first Spanish settlement in the Americas on the island of Hispaniola, now Haiti.

1860 – The first ever inter-club football match takes place between Hallam F.C. and Sheffield F.C. at the Sandygate Road ground in Sheffield, England.

1874 - Boxing Day was officially recognized in Britain as a Bank Holiday. The name originates from the custom of Christmas boxes being given to a lord's serfs and dates back to the middle ages.

1898 - Scientists Pierre Curie and Marie Curie announced their discovery of the radioactive element radium.

1900 - A relief crew arrived at the the lighthouse on the Flannan Isles, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, only to find that the previous crew of three lighthouse keepers had all disappeared without a trace. The mystery has never been resolved, but rumours and myths still abound.

1966 - The first Kwanzaa celebration was organized in Los Angeles, California, by Dr. Maulana Karenga, chairman of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach. Kwanzaa is a non-religious African-American holiday that celebrates family, community, and culture for seven days.

2001 - A man captured as he tried to ignite explosives hidden in his trainers aboard an American Airlines jet was identified as Richard Reid, a 28-year old unemployed British citizen.

2004 – A 9.3 magnitude earthquake creates a tsunami causing devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean, killing over 230,000 people including over 1700 on a moving train.

1831 - English naturalist Charles Darwin sailed from Plymouth on board his ship, HMS Beagle. His scientific voyage of discovery lasted five years and led to the publication (in 1859) of his highly controversial book The Origin of Species which fuelled the 'creation versus evolution' debate.

1904 - The first performance in London of James Barrie's most famous work, Peter Pan.

1932 - Radio City Music Hall opened in New York City.

1939 – Erzincan, Turkey is hit by an earthquake, killing 30,000.

1945 - Twenty-eight nations signed an agreement to create the World Bank. The International Monetary Fund and the Bank for Reconstruction and Development were created.

1968 – Apollo Program: Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon.

1975 - The Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts came into effect in Britain.

1977 - Thousands of people flocked to UK cinemas to watch the long-awaited blockbuster, Star Wars.

1978 – Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship.

2004 – Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar SGR 1806-20 reaches Earth. It is the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on the planet.

2007 – Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated.