On This Day - 31st December

1869 - Henri Matisse born
1880 - George C. Marshall born
1908 - Simon Wiesenthal born
1930 - Odetta born
1937 - Anthony Hopkins born
1941 - Sarah Miles born
1943 - Ben Kingsley and John Denver born
1945 - Barbara Carrera born
1948 - Donna Summer born
1951 - The British Prime Minister sets off on his trip to America aboard the Queen Mary after more than 24 hours delay.
1959 - Val Kilmer born
1964 - Donald Campbell breaks the world water speed record, the only man to break both land and water speed records in the same year.
1972 - Joe McIntyre born
1987 - People who displayed heroism during the Zeebrugge ferry disaster are recognised in the New Year's Honours List.
1999 - Boris Yeltsin has resigned as Russian president and says Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will take over immediately. Also Britain gears up to join a global party with a spectacular array of revelries to welcome in the third millennium.

On This Day - 30th December

1865 - Rudyard Kipling born
1914 - Bert Parks born
1920 - Jack Lord born
1928 - Bo Diddley born
1934 - Russ Tamblyn born
1935 - Sandy Koufax born
1937 - Noel Paul Stookey born
1939 - Del Shannon born
1942 - Michael Nesmith born
1945 - Davy Jones born
1946 - Patti Smith born
1957 - Matt Lauer born
1958 - Thousands die in the bloodiest fighting in Cuba's history as rebels led by Fidel Castro threaten to overthrow the military regime of President Batista.
1959 - Tracey Ullman born
1971 - Some of the approximately 60,000 Iranian men, women and children expelled from Iraq in the past few days try to make their way home.
1975 - Tiger Woods born
1977 - Laila Ali born
1986 - More than 200 canary birds are to be phased out of Britain's mining pits and replaced by hand-held gas detectors.
1994 - Two women are shot dead and at least five others injured after a gunman opens fire at two neighbouring abortion clinics in Boston.
2002 - Singer Diana Ross is stopped by the police for drinking and driving after her car is seen swerving across a road.

On This Day - 29th December

1800 - Charles Goodyear born
1808 - Andrew Johnson born
1845 - Texas becomes the 28th state of the US
1936 - Mary Tyler Moore born
1938 - Jon Voight born
1946 - Marianne Faithfull born
1947 - Ted Danson born
1954 - Ed Autry born
1966 - Bryan "Dexter" Holland born
1972 - Jude Law born
1975 - Radical new legislation introducing a woman's right to equal pay and status comes into force in the UK.
1984 - Rajiv Gandhi claims a massive victory for his assassinated mother's Congress Party in the Indian general election.
1986 - Lord Stockton, the former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, dies aged 92.
1998 - Six people have died after mountainous seas smashed into yachts taking part in the prestigious Sydney to Hobart race.
2000 - A blanket of snow descends on the country as Arctic conditions disrupt travel.

On This Day - 28th December

1846 - Iowa becomes the 29th state of the US
1856 - Woodrow Wilson born
1905 - Earl "Fatha" Hines born
1905 - Cliff Arquette born
1908 - Lew Ayres born
1911 - Sam Levenson born
1918 - British Women vote for the first time in a General Election
1921 - Johnny Otis born
1933 - Nichelle Nichols born
1934 - Maggie Smith born
1940 - Don Francisco born
1946 - Edgar Winter born
1954 - Denzel Washington born
1957 - One of Britain's largest abattoirs closes down after foot-and-mouth disease is found in cattle waiting to be slaughtered.
1979 - Passengers retrace a fatal journey on the 100th anniversary of a train plunging from the Tay Bridge into icy waters.
1993 - British customs officials seize £70m of Colombian cocaine thought to be linked to the Mafia.
1980 - A shake-up of broadcasting franchises paves the way for breakfast television.
2003 - The British Government announces plans to tighten airline security by allowing armed guards on some British flights to the USA.

On This Day - 27th December

1822 - Louis Pasteur born
1879 - Sydney Greenstreet born
1901 - Marlene Dietrich born
1906 - Oscar Levant born
1939 - John Amos born
1943 - Cokie Roberts born
1948 - Gérard Depardieu born
1960 - The French move a step closer to developing a compact nuclear bomb after a third test in the Sahara desert.
1965 - Four men are dead and nine are still missing after Britain's first North Sea drilling rig 'Sea Gem' capsizes.
1975 - Heather O'Rourke born
1977 - Thousands of people flock to UK cinemas to watch the long-awaited blockbuster, Star Wars.
1985 - At least 16 people are killed and more than 100 injured during twin terrorist attacks in Rome and Vienna.
1997 - A leading protestant paramilitary, Billy Wright, is shot dead at the maximum security Maze prison in Northern Ireland.
2004 - Ukraine's "orange revolutionaries" celebrate as opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko is declared winner of the presidential election.

On This Day - 26th December

1791 - Charles Babbage born
1891 - Henry Miller born
1893 - Mao Tse-tung born
1914 - Richard Widmark born
1921 - Steve Allen born
1927 - Alan King born
1940 - Phil Spector born
1945 - John Walsh born
1947 - Carlton Fisk born
1954 - Ozzie Smith born
1963 - Lars Ulrich born
1970 - British Olympic medallist Lillian Board MBE has died after losing her battle against a virulent form of cancer.
1979 - A group of Patriotic Front guerrillas receive a joyous welcome as they arrive back in Rhodesia to help monitor the ceasefire.
1988 - Crash investigators uncover wreckage which may hold the key to the Lockerbie air disaster.
1990 - Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said the death sentence on writer Salman Rushdie for alleged blasphemy will remain in force.
2004 - An 8.9 magnitude earthquake under the sea near Aceh, north Indonesia, at 0759 local time (0059 GMT) generated the biggest tsunami the world has seen for at least 40 years. The tsunami killed more than 200,000 people in 13 countries. At least 128,000 people died in Indonesia alone.

On This Day - 25th December

1642 - Sir Isaac Newton born
1821 - Clara Barton born
1893 - Robert Ripley born
1899 - Humphrey Bogart born
1907 - Cab Calloway born
1918 - Anwar Sadat born
1924 - Rod Serling born
1925 - Carlos Castaneda born
1932 - King George V makes the first ever Christmas day royal broadcast
1945 - Gary Sandy born
1946 - Jimmy Buffett born
1948 - Barbara Mandrell born
1949 - Sissy Spacek and Ron Foos born
1952 - British and Commonwealth listeners hear the Queen's first Christmas broadcast since her accession to the throne.
1954 - Annie Lennox born
1958 - Rickey Henderson born
1971 - Dido born
1974 - The Australian city of Darwin is wrecked by a powerful cyclone (Tracey) that leaves thousands of people homeless.
1977 - Charlie Chaplin, the comic genius of silent films, dies at his home in Switzerland at the age of 88.
1989 - Deposed Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena are shot after being found guilty of crimes against the state.
1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union for almost seven years, steps down from office.
2003 - Scientists fail to make contact with British-built Mars probe Beagle 2, which should have landed on the Red Planet earlier today.

On This Day - 24th December

1809 - Kit Carson born
1880 - Johnny Gruelle born
1905 - Howard Hughes born
1922 - Ava Gardner born
1929 - Mary Higgins Clark born
1962 - More than 1,000 men taken prisoner at the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba return to the United States in time for Christmas.
1968 - The Apollo 8 spacecraft and its crew of three astronauts (Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders) become the first manned space mission to orbit the Moon.
1971 - Ricky Martin born
1974 - Former UK minister John Stonehouse has been found in Australia after apparently faking his own death.
1979 - The first European-built rocket, Ariane 1, successfully blasts off into space.
1988 - Three North Sea oil fields are shut down after a giant floating storage vessel, the Medora, broke free of its moorings in gale-force winds.
1997 - The son of an unnamed Cabinet minister (later identified as Jack Straw) is arrested on suspicion of selling drugs.

On This Day - 23rd December

1862 - Connie Mack born
1867 - Madame C.J. Walker born
1873 - Author William Makepeace Thackeray dies
1918 - Jose Greco born
1943 - Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap, The Simpsons) born
1948 - Susan Lucci born
1956 - The United Nations Emergency Force takes over in Egypt after British and French forces withdraw from Port Said and Port Fuad ending the Suez Crisis.
1964 - Dr Richard Beeching who instigated major and controversial changes to the rail network will quit, says the government. Also Eddie Vedder born
1971 - Corey Haim born
1972 - Ten thousand people are feared dead after a two-hour earthquake rips through the Nicaraguan capital, Managua.
1986 - The Soviet Union's most prominent dissident, Andrei Sakharov, has returned to Moscow after almost seven years of internal exile.
1992 - The BBC investigates a leak which led to the Queen's Christmas speech being published in a national newspaper.

On This Day - 22nd December

1912 - Lady Bird Johnson born
1917 - Gene Rayburn born
1922 - Barbara Billingsley born
1943 - Beatrix Potter dies
1945 - Diane Sawyer born
1948 - Steve Garvey born
1949 - Robin and Maurice Gibb born
1972 - The Chilean Air Force finds 14 survivors two months after their plane crashed in the Andes.
1974 - Terrorists bomb the home of the Conservative leader and former Prime Minister Edward Heath.
1989 - Berlin's most famous landmark, the Brandenburg Gate, opens for the first time in nearly 30 years.
1997 - An independent inquiry into the BSE "disaster" and the devastation it wreaked on British farming is announced.
2000 - The American superstar marries British film maker Guy Ritchie at an exclusive ceremony in a Scottish castle hours after their son is christened.
2003 - Guerrillas in Colombia release the Briton Mark Henderson and four Israelis who were kidnapped in September.

On This Day - 21st December

1844 - The worlds first cooperative society if formed in Rochdale
1879 - Joseph Stalin born
1922 - Paul Winchell born
1926 - Joe Paterno born
1935 - Phil Donahue born
1937 - Jane Fonda born
1940 - Frank Zappa born
1948 - Samuel L. Jackson born
1954 - Chris Evert born
1955 - Jane Kaczmarek born
1957 - Ray Romano born
1958 - General Charles de Gaulle is elected President of France with an overwhelming majority.
1959 - Florence Griffith Joyner born
1962 - President Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan agree the UK will buy nuclear missiles from the US to form a multilateral Nato nuclear force.
1965 - Andy Dick born
1966 - Kiefer Sutherland born
1969 - Jack Noseworthy born
1977 - The TUC General Council narrowly votes to reject firemen's demands for a public campaign against a 10% limit on wage increases.
1988 - A Pan Am jumbo jet with 259 passengers crashes on to the town of Lockerbie near the Scottish borders after a bomb explodes onboard. All passengers onboard are killed as well as an additional 11 on the ground.
2001 - Police storm a cargo ship in the English Channel after an intelligence tip-off.

On This Day - 20th December

1830 - Belguim gains independence
1835 - The Republic of Texas is proclaimed
1868 - Harvey Firestone born
1898 - Irene Dunne born
1915 - The Allies evacuate Galipoli
1922 - George Roy Hill born
1924 - Hitler is released from prison
1945 - Peter Criss born
1946 - Uri Geller born
1955 - The United Nations General Assembly elects Yugoslavia to the hotly-contested temporary seat on the Security Council.
1957 - Billy Bragg born
1973 - The Spanish Prime Minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, is killed in a car bomb attack in Madrid.
1979 - It is announced that more than five million council house tenants in Britain are to be given the right to buy their home.
1981 - Mousehole lifeboat lost at see with crew
1989 - President George Bush orders the invasion of Panama but US troops fail to capture dictator Manuel Noriega.
1995 - The Queen has urged the Prince and Princess of Wales to seek "an early divorce".

On This Day - 19th December

1902 - Ralph Richardson born
1920 - David Susskind born
1933 - Cicely Tyson born
1934 - Al Kaline born
1944 - Tim Reid, Alvin Lee born and Louis Leakey born
1946 - Robert Urich born
1956 - At least six people die and several others are injured in road accidents in thick fog.
1963 - Jennifer Beals born
1965 - Jessica Steen born
1971 - Amy Locane and 1971 Tyson Beckford born
1972 - Ugandan leader General Idi Amin gives British workers an ultimatum to accept reduced pay or be expelled. Also Alyssa Milano born
1979 - Kristanna Loken born
1984 - It is announced that the British colony of Hong Kong is to be returned to China in 1997 after an historic agreement is signed.
1997 - Conservative party leader William Hague marries his fiancée Ffion Jenkins at ceremony in Westminster.
2003 - Libya makes a surprise announcement that it will destroy its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

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.