December 19....
1154 Henry II of England is crowned at Westminster Abbey.
1606 The Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery depart England carrying settlers who founded, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.
1776 Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in The Pennsylvania Journal entitled "The American Crisis".
1777 American Revolutionary War: George Washington's Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
1907 Two hundred thirty-nine coal miners die in the Darr Mine Disaster in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.
1912 William Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum which caught fire and killed over one thousand people, is pardoned by U.S. President William Howard Taft after three-and-a-half-years in Sing Sing prison.
1924 The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.
1932 BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service.
1956 Irish-born physician John Bodkin Adams is arrested in connection with the suspicious deaths of more than 160 patients. Eventually he is convicted only of minor charges.
1967 Harold Holt, the Prime Minister of Australia, is officially presumed dead.
1972 Apollo program: The last manned lunar flight, Apollo 17, crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth.
1981 Sixteen lives are lost when the Penlee lifeboat goes to the aid of the stricken coaster Union Star in heavy seas.
1998 President Bill Clinton is impeached by the United States House of Representatives, becoming the second President of the United States to be impeached.
2001 A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Khφvsgφl, Mongolia.
2013 Spacecraft Gaia is launched by European Space Agency.
2016 Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov is assassinated while at an art exhibition in Ankara. The accused assassin, Mevlόt Mert Altıntaş, is shot and killed by Turkish guards. Just hours later, a vehicular attack in Berlin, Germany, kills and injures multiple people.
2016 More than 270 electors of the Electoral College vote for Donald Trump, confirming his status as President-elect of the United States, marking only the fifth time in US history that the winner of the popular vote did not win the general election.
Births
1899 Martin Luther King, Sr.; 1906 Leonid Brezhnev; 1915 Ιdith Piaf; 1920 Little Jimmy Dickens; 1940 Phil Ochs; 1942 "Mean Gene" Okerlund; 1944 Alvin Lee; 1944 Tim Reid; 1945 Elaine Joyce; 1945 John McEuen; 1946 Robert Urich; 1956 Phil Harris; 1961 Reggie White; 1963 Jennifer Beals; 1967 Criss Angel; 1970 Tyson Beckford; 1972 Alyssa Milano; 1972 Warren Sapp; 1980 Jake Gyllenhaal
Deaths
1848 Emily Brontλ; 1915 Alois Alzheimer; 1986 V. C. Andrews; 1997 Jimmy Rogers; 1998 Mel Fisher; 2003 Hope Lange; 2005 Vincent Gigante; 2008 Dock Ellis