On this day: December 14
George Washington dies, a spacecraft flies by Venus for the first time, Bob Dylan releases his first single, and President George W. Bush ducks flying shoes in Iraq, all on this day.
1503: Nostradamus, a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide, is born in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, France.
1503: Nostradamus, a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide, is born in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, France.
1751: The Theresian Military Academy in Austria is founded as the first military academy in the world.
1799: George Washington, the first U.S. president, dies at the age of 67 at Mount Vernon, Va.
1819: Alabama becomes the 22nd U.S. state.
1896: Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, an aviation pioneer who earned the Medal of Honor as commander of the Doolittle Raid, the first retaliatory air raid on Japan following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, is born in Alameda, Calif.
1911: Roald Amundsen's team, comprising himself, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel and Oscar Wisting, becomes the first to reach the South Pole.
1922: Don Hewitt, a television news producer and executive best known for creating "60 Minutes," is born in New York City.
1932: Country singer Charlie Rich, best remembered for a pair of 1973 hits, "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl," is born in Colt, Ark.
1943: John Harvey Kellogg, an American physician and health-food pioneer whose development of dry breakfast cereals with his brother William K. Kellogg was largely responsible for the creation of the flaked-cereal industry, dies at the age of 91 in Battle Creek, Mich.
1946: The United Nations General Assembly votes to establish its headquarters in New York City.
1946: Actress Patty Duke, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 1962's "The Miracle Worker" and then starred in her own sitcom, "The Patty Duke Show," in the mid-1960s, is born in Elmhurst, Queens, New York. She's seen here in "The Patty Duke Show," in which she played a dual role as identical cousins.
1949: Baseball player Bill Buckner, who hit more than 2,700 hits in his 20-year MLB career but is most remembered for a fielding error for the Boston Red Sox during Game 6 of the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets, is born in Vallejo, Calif.
1962: NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.
1962: Bob Dylan's first single, "Mixed-Up Confusion," is released.
1963: Grammy-winning singer Dinah Washington, who had 34 top 10 hits on the Billboard R&B charts, dies of a drug overdose at the age of 39 in Detroit, Mich.
1964: In the Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, the United States Supreme Court rules that the U.S. Congress could use the Constitution's Commerce Clause power to force private businesses to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Heart of Atlanta motel was a large, 216-room motel in Atlanta, Ga., which refused to rent rooms to black patrons, in direct violation of the terms of the act.
1967: The movie "In Cold Blood," based on Truman Capote's book of the same name, premieres in theaters. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Director, Original Score, Cinematography and Adapted Screenplay.
1969: The Jackson 5 make their first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Led by a 10-year-old Michael Jackson, they sing Sly and the Family Stone's "Stand," Smokey Robinson's "Who's Loving You" and their own hit single "I Want You Back."
1972: Eugene Cernan is the last person to walk on the moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final extra-vehicular activity of the Apollo 17 mission. To date this is the last manned mission to the moon.
1979: The album "London Calling" by the Clash is released in the United Kingdom. The band's third studio album, it would be released in the United States in January 1980. It would reach the top 10 in the United Kingdom, with its lead single, "London Calling," a top-20 single, and sell more than five million copies worldwide.
1979: The comedy "The Jerk," starring Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, M. Emmet Walsh and Jackie Mason, premieres in theaters. The movie would prove to be a box office hit, earning more than $73 million.
1981: Israel's Knesset passes The Golan Heights Law, extending Israeli law to the area of the Golan Heights, the area captured and occupied by Israel from Syria in the Six-Day War. The move, which was considered annexation by its critics, would be condemned internationally and determined null and void by United Nations Security Council Resolution 497.
1984: Howard Cosell retires from "Monday Night Football" after 15 seasons. He had been a broadcaster for the series since its inception in 1970.
1985: Roger Maris, whose 61 home runs during the 1961 season for the New York Yankees broke Babe Ruth's single-season record and would stand for 37 years, dies of Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 51 in Houston, Texas.
1988: Singer and actress Vanessa Hudgens, who rose to prominence playing Gabriella Montez in the "High School Musical" series, is born in Salinas, Calif.
1998: Actor Norman Fell, most famous for his role as landlord Mr. Roper on the sitcom "Three's Company" and its spin-off, "The Ropers," dies of cancer at the age of 74 in Los Angeles.
2004: The Millau Viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world, opens near Millau, France. The top of one of the bridge's mast rises 1,125 feet above its base.
2007: The sci-fi action-thriller "I am Legend," starring Will Smith and based on the Richard Matheson novel of the same name, premieres in theaters. The movie opened to the largest ever box office for a non-Christmas film released in the U.S. in December, becoming the seventh-highest grossing film of the year and earning a worldwide total of $585 million.
2008: President George W. Bush is almost struck by two shoes thrown at him by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi during a news conference in Baghdad, Iraq. In March 2009, he would be sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a foreign head of state during an official visit. The sentence was later reduced to one year and al-Zaidi was released on Sept. 15, 2009, for good behavior after serving nine months of the sentence.
