On This Day - 18th December

1865 - The 13th amendment abolishing slavery is passed in the US
1886 - Ty Cobb born
1916 - Betty Grable born
1916 - Douglas Fraser born
1917 - Ossie Davis born
1943 - Keith Richards born
1946 - Steven Spielberg born
1950 - The Christmas edition of the Radio Times returns after an industrial dispute in time for the festive season and Leonard Maltin born
1963 - Brad Pitt born
1970 - Rob Van Dam and Earl "DMX" Simmons born
1974 - The Government says it will pay £42,000 compensation to relatives of the 13 men killed in the Bloody Sunday riots in Londonderry nearly three years ago.
1978 - Katie Holmes born
1980 - Christina Aguilera born
1985 - Two Australians are facing the death penalty after their appeal against a conviction for smuggling heroin was rejected by a Malaysian court.
1989 - The Labour Party abandons its policy on trade union closed shops in line with European legislation.
1997 - Scottish Secretary Donald Dewer unveils a blueprint for Scotland's new parliament.

On This Day - 17th December

1894 - Arthur Fiedler born
1903 - The first aircraft flight by the Wright Brothers
1929 - William Safire born
1930 - Bob Guccione born
1942 - Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden condemns the persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe.
1944 - Germany launches Ardennes Offensive (Battle of the Bulge). German tanks, aircraft and paratroops cross the Luxembourg and Belgian borders in massive counter-offensive.
1953 - Bill Pullman born
1958 - Mike Mills born
1968 - An 11-year-old girl Mary Bell, is sentenced to life in detention at Newcastle Assizes for killing two small boys.
1975 - Milla Jovovich born
1976 - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates reject Opec's recommended 15% oil price increase and choose to impose a lower price rise.
1979 - Ryan Key born
1983 - Three police officers and three members of the public are killed and many others injured after a car bomb attack near Harrods.
1996 - Six Red Cross workers are shot dead as they sleep in a hospital in Chechnya.
2003 - Former school caretaker Ian Huntley is convicted of the murders of 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

On This Day - 16th December

1770 - Ludwig van Beethoven born
1775 - Jane Austen born
1866 - Wassily Kandinsky born
1899 - Noel Coward born
1901 - Margaret Mead born
1916 - Rasputin is murdered
1917 - Arthur C. Clarke born
1939 - Liv Ullmann born
1941 - Lesley Stahl born
1943 - Steven Bochco born
1946 - Benny Andersson born
1949 - Billy Gibbons born
1955 - Her Majesty inaugurates "The Queen's Building", part of the new central terminal area built to accommodate increasing numbers of air passengers at London Airport (now Heathrow).
1962 - William "Refrigerator" Perry born
1963 - Benjamin Bratt born
1969 - MPs vote by a big majority for the permanent abolition of the death penalty for murder.
1971 - Michael McCary born
1977 - The Queen unveils the new underground link from central London to Heathrow - the first from a capital city to its major airport.
1984 - Mikhail Gorbachev, the man widely tipped as the next leader of the Soviet Union, holds five hours of talks with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
2001 - Thousands of countryside campaigners are on the streets of Edinburgh in the largest demonstration of its kind ever witnessed in Scotland.

On This Day - 15th December

1892 - J. Paul Getty born
1911 - Stan Kenton born
1918 - Jeff Chandler born
1928 - Friedensreich Hundertwasser born
1933 - Tim Conway born
1942 - Dave Clark born
1943 - Jazz pianist Fats Waller dies
1949 - Don Johnson born
1958 - British stars of the big screen take part in a fund-raising football match for the family of America actor Bonar Colleano, killed in a car crash earlier this year.
1961 - Nick Beggs born
1974 - British drivers are asked to adhere to reduced speed limits from midnight tonight as the government tries to save fuel.
1982 - Scenes of jubilation as the gates isolating the people of Gibraltar from Spain are to opened for the first time in 13 years.
1993 - The British and Irish prime ministers John Major and Albert Reynolds sign the historic Joint Declaration for Peace on the steps of Downing street.
1994 - Former 800m Commonwealth gold-medallist Diane Modahl is found guilty of taking a banned drug - but is cleared a year later on appeal.
2004 - The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, resigns after an email implicates him in using his position to grant favours to his ex-lover.
2010 - Blake Edwards, film director and husband of Julie Andrews dies aged 88.

On This Day - 14th December

1503 - Nostradamus born
1819 - Alabama becomes the 22nd State of the US
1861 - Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort dies
1911 - Spike Jones born
1914 - Morey Amsterdam born
1919 - Shirley Jackson born
1922 - Don Hewitt born
1932 - Charlie Rich born
1935 - Lee Remick born
1946 - Patty Duke born
1955 - The Labour party elects Hugh Gaitskell as its new leader to succeed Clement Attlee.
1959 - Archbishop Makarios is elected the first president of the future Cyprus Republic.
1962 - The unmanned spacecraft, Mariner 2, makes the first ever fly-by of the planet Venus and sends back radio signals over tens of millions of miles of space.
1972 - Apollo 17, the last manned space mission to the Moon, returns to Earth, bringing an end to America's programme of lunar exploration.
1979 - Michael Owen born
1984 - Miners' leader Arthur Scargill is found guilty of obstruction during a picket at a Yorkshire coal works earlier this year.
1995 - Leaders of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia sign the Dayton Accord in Paris to end more than three years of bitter conflict.
2003 - The ousted President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, is under arrest after being found by US soldiers hiding in a cellar.

On This Day - 13th December

1911 - Kenneth Patchen born
1913 - Archie Moore born
1925 - Dick Van Dyke born
1927 - Christopher Plummer born
1941 - John Davidson born
1948 - Ted Nugent born
1958 - The search for a small bushy-tailed monkey fired into space in the nose cone of a Jupiter rocket is called off. The squirrel monkey named Gordo survived a 300-mile journey into space and then travelled more than 1,500 miles in the rocket until it dropped in the South Atlantic.
1967 - Jamie Foxx born
1972 - More than 300 British victims of the Thalidomide drug are offered a compensation deal said to be worth £11.85m.
1973 - Christie Clark born
1975 - Tom DeLonge born
1981 - Military rulers in Poland declare a state of emergency after imposing martial law and placing leaders of the Solidarity trade union under arrest.
1995 - Hundreds of black and white youths take to the streets of Brixton, in south London attacking police, ransacking shops and burning cars after the death of a black man in police custody.
2001 - A group of gunmen break through tight security to attack the parliament building in the Indian capital, New Delhi.

On This Day - 12th December

1889 - Aurthor Robert Browning dies
1893 - Edward G. Robinson born
1915 - Frank Sinatra born
1918 - Joe Williams born
1923 - Bob Barker born
1923 - Bob Dorough born
1938 - Connie Francis born
1941 - Dionne Warwick born
1946 - Emerson Fittipaldi born
1952 - Cathy Rigby born
1957 - Sheila E. born
1962 - Tracy Austin born
1967 - Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones has a nine-month jail sentence overturned at the Court of Appeal in London.
1969 - Simultaneous bomb explosions in Milan and Rome leave at least 27 people dead and 100 injured.
1970 - Mädchen Amick and Jennifer Connelly born
1974 - Rey Mysterio born
1975 - A six-day siege ends peacefully in London after four IRA gunmen free their two hostages and give themselves up to police and Mayim Bialik born
1988 - Up to 35 people die and 100 others are injured after three trains are involved in a collision during morning rush hour at Clapham Junction, south London.
1992 - Princess Anne becomes Mrs Timothy Laurence after a small family wedding in Scotland.