December 22

December 22 is the 356nd day of the year (357nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 9 days remaining.

Events:

• 1989 - After weeks of bloody demonstrations, Ion Illiescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceaucescu's communist dictatorship.

Births:

• 1639 - Jean Racine, dramatist (other sources report december 21st as his birth date).
• 1723 - Karl Friedrich Abel, German baroque composer.
• 1858 - Giacomo Puccini, composer (+ 1924).
• 1866 - Käthe Paulus, Germany's first femal parachutist (+ 1935).
• 1874 - Franz Schmidt, composer
• 1876 - Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, poet and editor (+ 1944).
• 1887 - Srinivasa Aaiyangar Ramanujan, Indian mathematician (+ 1920).
• 1899 - Gustav Gründgens, actor and film director (+ 1963).
• 1905 - Pierre Brasseur, actor (+ 1972).
• 1917 - Gene Rayburn, television host (+ 1999).

Deaths:

• 1828 - William Hyde Wollaston, noted English chemist
• 1989 - Samuel Beckett, writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 1969

Holidays and Observances:

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See Also:

December 21 - December 23 - November 22 - January 22 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December