Sunday 29 December 2024 Calendar with holidays, observances and special days

Holidays and observances

• Constitution Day in Ireland
• Mongolia Independence Day
• National “Get on the Scales” Day and National Pepper Pot Day in USA
• Texas Statehood Day (1845)
• The fourth day of Kwanzaa (United States)
• Tick Tock Day (urges us to make the most of this time to complete those tasks that can be done in that time)

Events

• 2006 – UK settles its Anglo-American loan, post-WWII loan debt.
• 1989 – Czech writer, philosopher and dissident Václav Havel is elected the first post-communist President of Czechoslovakia.
• 1949 – KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.
• 1916 – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the first novel by James Joyce, was first published as a book by an American publishing house B. W. Huebschis after it had been serialized in The Egoist (1914–15).
• 1890 – Wounded Knee Massacre on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 300 Lakota killed by the United States 7th Cavalry Regiment.
• 1874 – The military coup of Gen. Martinez Campos in Sagunto ends the failed First Spanish Republic and Prince Alfonso is proclaimed King of Spain.
• 1851 – The first American YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 1845 – In accordance with International Boundary delimitation, the United States annexes the Republic of Texas, following the manifest destiny doctrine. The Republic of Texas, which had been independent since the Texas Revolution of 1836, is thereupon admitted as the 28th U.S. state.
• 1835 – The Treaty of New Echota is signed, ceding all the lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States.
• 1778 – American Revolutionary War: Three thousand British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell capture Savannah, Georgia.

Births

• 1988 – Christen Press, American footballer. Christen Annemarie Press (born December 29, 1988) is an American soccer player for the Utah Royals FC of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the highest division of women's professional soccer in the United States, and the United States women's national soccer team.
• 1988 – Eric Berry, American football player. He was then drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs fifth overall in the 2010 NFL Draft.
• 1983 – Jessica Andrews, American singer-songwriter. At age 15 in mid-1999, she made her debut on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) charts with the single "I Will Be There for You", from her debut album Heart Shaped World, released in 1999 on DreamWorks Records Nashville.
• 1982 – Alison Brie, American actress and singer. She also voices Diane Nguyen on the animated comedy series BoJack Horseman (2014–present) and plays Ruth Wilder in the comedy series GLOW (2017–present), for which she received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series.
• 1981 – Shaun Suisham, American football player. He played college football at Bowling Green.
• 1977 – Jimmy Journell, American baseball player. James Richard Journell (born December 29, 1977), is an American former Major League Baseball pitcher.
• 1976 – Danny McBride, American actor, producer, and screenwriter. He has also starred in films, such as The Foot Fist Way (2006), Pineapple Express (2008), Tropic Thunder (2008), Up in the Air (2009), Your Highness (2011), This Is the End (2013), and Alien: Covenant (2017).
• 1975 – Jaret Wright, American baseball player. He played all or part of eleven seasons in Major League Baseball for the Cleveland Indians, San Diego Padres, Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees, and Baltimore Orioles, primarily as a starting pitcher.
• 1975 – Shawn Hatosy, American actor. Shawn Wayne Hatosy (born December 29, 1975) is an American film and television actor and director.
• 1974 – Mekhi Phifer, American actor and producer. Greg Pratt on NBC's long-running medical drama ER and had a co-starring role opposite Eminem in the feature film 8 Mile.
• 1974 – Richie Sexson, American baseball player and coach. Richmond Lockwood Sexson (born December 29, 1974) is a former Major League Baseball first baseman who played for five teams from 1997 to 2008.
• 1973 – Theo Epstein, American businessman. Theo Nathaniel Epstein (born December 29, 1973) is an American baseball executive who is currently the President of Baseball Operations for the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball (MLB).
• 1969 – Jennifer Ehle, American actress. For her work on Broadway, she won the 2000 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for The Real Thing, and the 2007 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The Coast of Utopia.
• 1967 – Ashleigh Banfield, Canadian-American journalist, was a host and legal expert at the HLN TV network. She is a former host of Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield and Early Start on CNN.
• 1967 – Evan Seinfeld, American bass player, actor, and director. Since leaving the band in May 2011 for personal reasons, he has joined the band Attika7 as a vocalist.
• 1965 – Dexter Holland, American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Bryan Keith "Dexter" Holland, Ph.D (born December 29, 1965) is an American musician who is best known as the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and primary songwriter of the American rock band The Offspring.
• 1964 – Michael Cudlitz, American actor. Michael Cudlitz (born December 29, 1964) is an American actor and director, known for portraying John Cooper on the TNT drama series Southland for which he won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2013, Sergeant Denver "Bull" Randleman on the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, and Sergeant Abraham Ford on the AMC horror series The Walking Dead.
• 1963 – Sean Payton, American football player and coach. Patrick Sean Payton (born December 29, 1963) is an American football coach and former player who is the current head coach of the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL).
• 1961 – Kevin Granata, American engineer and academic (d. 2007). Granata (December 29, 1961 – April 16, 2007) was an American professor in multiple departments including the Departments of Engineering, Science and Mechanics (in which he was tenured) and Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, Virginia.
• 1960 – Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Congolese militia leader, founded the Union of Congolese Patriots. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (born 29 December 1960) is a convicted war criminal from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the first person ever convicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
• 1959 – Patricia Clarkson, American actress. Her accolades include one Academy Award nomination, two Golden Globe Award nominations, four Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, one Tony Award nomination, two Primetime Emmy Awards, two National Society of Film Critics Awards, and one British Independent Film Award.
• 1959 – Paula Poundstone, American comedian and author. She provided backstage commentary during the 1992 presidential election on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
• 1958 – Nancy J. Currie, American colonel, engineer, and astronaut. Nancy Jane Currie-Gregg (former married name Sherlock, born December 29, 1958) is an engineer, United States Army officer and a NASA astronaut.
• 1957 – Brad Grey, American screenwriter and producer (d. 2017), was an American television and film producer. He co-founded the Brillstein-Grey Entertainment agency, and afterwards became the chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, a position he held from 2005 until 2017.
• 1957 – Paul Rudnick, American author, playwright, and screenwriter. His plays have been produced both on and off Broadway and around the world, and Ben Brantley, when reviewing Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told in The New York Times, wrote that, "Line by line, Mr.
• 1956 – Katy Munger, American writer. Katy Munger, who has also written under the names Gallagher Gray and Chaz McGee, is an American writer known for writing the Casey Jones and Hubbert & Lil series.
• 1953 – Charlayne Woodard, American actress and playwright. She has played supporting roles in a number of films, include One Good Cop (1991), The Crucible (1996), Unbreakable (2000), and Glass (2019).
• 1953 – Kate Schmidt, American javelin thrower and coach. She qualified for the 1980 Olympics, but did not compete due to the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott.
• 1953 – Stanley Williams, American gang leader, co-founded the Crips (d. 2005), was an American gangster, known as one of the original founders and leaders of the Crip gang in Los Angeles, California. In 1971, Williams and Raymond Washington formed an alliance establishing the Crips as the first major African-American street gang in South Central Los Angeles.
• 1952 – Gelsey Kirkland, American ballerina and choreographer. She was promoted to soloist in 1969, and principal in 1972.
• 1947 – Richard Crandall, American physicist and computer scientist (d. 2012). Crandall (December 29, 1947 – December 20, 2012) was an American physicist and computer scientist who made contributions to computational number theory.
• 1947 – Ted Danson, American actor and producer. Edward "Ted" Bridge Danson III (born December 29, 1947) is an American actor and producer who played the lead character Sam Malone on the NBC sitcom Cheers, Jack Holden in the films Three Men and a Baby and Three Men and a Little Lady, and Dr.
• 1943 – Bill Aucoin, American talent manager (d. 2010), was an American band manager, well known for his work with the rock band Kiss.
• 1943 – Molly Bang, American author and illustrator. Announced June 2015, her 1996 picture book Goose is the 2016 Phoenix Picture Book Award winner – that is, named by the Children's Literature Association the best English-language children's picture book that did not win a major award when it was published twenty years earlier.
• 1939 – Ed Bruce, American country music singer-songwriter. He also co-starred in the television series Bret Maverick with James Garner during the 1981-82 season.
• 1938 – Jon Voight, American actor and producer. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards and has so far been nominated for eleven.
• 1937 – Wayne Huizenga, American businessman, founded AutoNation, was an American businessman and entrepreneur. He founded AutoNation, Waste Management, Inc. and was the owner or co-owner of Blockbuster Video, the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League, the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League, and the Florida Marlins (now the Miami Marlins) of Major League Baseball.
• 1936 – Mary Tyler Moore, American actress and producer (d. 2017), was an American stage, film, and television actress, as well as a producer and social advocate. She was widely known for her prominent television sitcom roles in The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977).
• 1936 – Ray Nitschke, American football player (d. 1998), was a professional American football middle linebacker who spent his entire 15-year National Football League (NFL) career with the Green Bay Packers. Enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1978, he was the anchor of the defense for head coach Vince Lombardi in the 1960s, leading the Packers to five NFL championships and victories in the first two Super Bowls.
• 1934 – Ed Flanders, American actor (d. 1995). He is best known for playing Dr.
• 1932 – Inga Swenson, American actress and singer. Inga Swenson (born December 29, 1932; Omaha, Nebraska) is an American actress.
• 1929 – Matt Murphy, American guitarist. Matthew Murphy (born 1984) is an English musician.
• 1927 – Andy Stanfield, American sprinter (d. 1985), was an American sprinter and Olympic gold and silver medallist.
• 1925 – Pete Dye, American golfer and architect, was an American golf course designer and a member of a family of course designers. He was married to fellow designer and amateur champion Alice Dye.
• 1924 – Joe Allbritton, American businessman and publisher, founded the Allbritton Communications Company (d. 2012), was an American banker, publisher and philanthropist.
• 1923 – Dina Merrill, American actress, game show panelist, socialite, heiress, and businesswoman (d. 2017), was an American actress, heiress, socialite, businesswoman, and philanthropist.
• 1923 – Morton Estrin, American pianist and educator, was an American classical pianist. His career began in 1949 with a well-received recital at Town Hall.
• 1922 – Little Joe Cook, American singer-songwriter (d. 2014), was an American rhythm and blues singer and songwriter. He is best known as the lead singer of Little Joe & The Thrillers, whose song "Peanuts" reached No. 22 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1957.
• 1922 – William Gaddis, American author and academic (d. 1998), was an American novelist. The first and longest of his five novels, The Recognitions, was named one of TIME magazine's 100 best novels from 1923 to 2005 and two others, J R and A Frolic of His Own, won the annual U.S.
• 1920 – Viveca Lindfors, Swedish-American actress, singer and poet (d. 1995), was a Swedish-born American stage and film actress, and singer.
• 1919 – Alfred de Grazia, American political scientist and author (d. 2014). He developed techniques of computer-based social network analysis in the 1950s, developed new ideas about personal digital archives in the 1970s, and defended the catastrophism thesis of Immanuel Velikovsky.
• 1915 – Bill Osmanski, American football player and coach (d. 1996). He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and in 1977 he was inducted into the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame.
• 1915 – Jo Van Fleet, American actress (d. 1996), was a theatre, film, and television actress from the United States. Known primarily for playing roles older than she was, her career spanned over three decades, and she won an Oscar as well as a Tony Award.
• 1915 – Robert Ruark, American hunter and author (d. 1965), was an American author, syndicated columnist, and big game hunter.
• 1914 – Billy Tipton, American pianist and saxophonist (d. 1989), was an American jazz musician, bandleader, and talent broker. For decades, Tipton assumed a male gender identity.
• 1910 – Ronald Coase, English-American economist, author, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2013), was a British economist and author. He was the Clifton R.
• 1881 – Jess Willard, American boxer (d. 1968), was a world heavyweight boxing champion known as the Pottawatomie Giant who knocked out Jack Johnson in April 1915 for the heavyweight title. He was known for his great strength and ability to absorb tremendous punishment, although today he is also known for his controversial title loss to Jack Dempsey.
• 1879 – Billy Mitchell, American general and pilot (d. 1936), was a United States Army general who is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force.
• 1844 – Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee, Indian barrister and was the first president of Indian National Congress. (d. 1906), was an Indian barrister and was the co-founder and first president of Indian National Congress.
• 1808 – Andrew Johnson, American general and politician, 17th President of the United States (d. 1875), was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson assumed the presidency as he was vice president of the United States at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
• 1800 – Charles Goodyear, American chemist and engineer (d. 1860), was an American self-taught chemist and manufacturing engineer who developed vulcanized rubber, for which he received patent number 3633 from the United States Patent Office on June 15, 1844.
• 1766 – Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist and the inventor of waterproof fabric (d. 1843). The Mackintosh raincoat (the variant spelling is now standard) is named after him.

Deaths

• 2016 – Keion Carpenter, American football defensive back (b. 1977)
• 2016 – LaVell Edwards, American football head coach (b. 1930)
• 2013 – C. T. Hsia, Chinese-American critic and scholar (b. 1921)
• 2013 – Connie Dierking, American basketball player (b. 1936)
• 2013 – Paul Sally, American mathematician and academic (b. 1933)
• 2012 – Bruce Stark, American cartoonist (b. 1933)
• 2012 – Edward Meneeley, American painter and sculptor (b. 1927)
• 2009 – Steven Williams, American professional wrestler (b. 1960)
• 2008 – Freddie Hubbard, American trumpet player and composer (b. 1938)
• 2004 – Julius Axelrod, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1912)
• 2004 – Ken Burkhart, American baseball player and umpire (b. 1915)
• 2000 – Adele Stimmel Chase, American sculptor and painter (b. 1917)
• 1972 – Joseph Cornell, American sculptor and director (b. 1903)
• 1970 – Marie Menken, American director and painter (b. 1909)
• 1967 – Paul Whiteman, American violinist, composer, and conductor (b. 1890)
• 1952 – Fletcher Henderson, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (b. 1897)
• 1949 – Tyler Dennett, American historian and author (b. 1883)
• 1937 – Don Marquis, American journalist, author, and playwright (b. 1878)
• 1929 – Wilhelm Maybach, German engineer and businessman, founded Maybach (b. 1846)
• 1897 – William James Linton, English-American painter, author, and activist (b. 1812)
• 1890 – Spotted Elk, American tribal leader (b. 1826)