December 21

• 1719 - The first U.S. newspaper (the Boston Gazette) is published
• 1861 - The Congressional Medal of Honor first authorized
• 1861 - Lord Lyons, the British minister to the United States, meets with United States Secretary of State William Seward concerning Confederate envoys James Mason and John Slidell, arrested by the United States Navy aboard the British mail steamer Trent in order to prevent war between the United States and the United Kingdom.
• 1872 - HMS Challenger sails from Portsmouth on the 4 year scientific expedition that would lay the foundation for the science of oceanography
• 1880 - Isle of Man becomes first political entity that allows women to vote
• 1891 - First basketball game played
• 1898 - Marie and Pierre Curie discover radium
• 1913 - First crossword puzzle published
• 1914 - First feature-length silent film comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance, starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin, is released
• 1923 - Nepal changes from British protectorate to independent state
• 1933 - Newfoundland becomes a crown colony
• 1935 - First screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
• 1958 - Charles de Gaulle is elected as the first President of the Fifth Republic
• 1968 - Apollo 8 launched
• 1979 - The United States government bails out the Chrysler Corporation
• 1988 - A terrorist bomb explodes and crashes Pan Am flight 103 a Boeing 747, over Lockerbie, Scotland killing 270, including 11 on the ground
• 2002 - Vancouver, British Columbia city council declares "D.O.A. Day" in observance of the Canadian punk band D.O.A.'s decades of influence and accomplishments.
• 2012 - The Mayan calendar comes to an end... maybe. Experts disagree on whether this happens today or December 23, 2012.

• 1118 - Thomas Becket, lord chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1170)
• 1804 - Benjamin Disraeli, British politician, writer (d. 1881)
• 1815 - Thomas Couture French painter and teacher (d. 1879)
• 1843 - Thomas Bracken, New Zealand poet, author of God's Own Country (d. 1898)
• 1859 - Gustave Kahn, French Symbolist poet (d. 1936)
• 1876 - Jack Lang, Australian politician (d. 1975)
• 1879 - Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader (d. 1953)
• 1878 - Jan Łukasiewicz, philosopher, mathematician (d. 1956)
• 1889 - Sewall Wright, biologist (d. 1988)
• 1892 - Walter Hagen, golf champion (d. 1969)
• 1892 - Rebecca West, writer (d. 1983)
• 1908 - Pat Weaver, television pioneer (d. 2002)
• 1914 - Ivan Generalić, painter naive art, Croatia (d. 1992)
• 1917 - Heinrich Böll, author, Nobel laureate 1972 (d. 1985)
• 1918 - Donald Regan, Chief of Staff and U.S. Treasury Secretary (d. 2003)
• 1918 - Kurt Waldheim, United Nations Secretary-General
• 1921 - Vampira, actress
• 1922 - Paul Winchell, ventriloquist
• 1926 - Joe Paterno, American football coach
• 1935 - Jane Fonda, actress, activist, exercise guru
• 1935 - Phil Donahue, talk show host
• 1935 - John G. Avildsen, director, editor
• 1940 - Frank Zappa, musician (d. 1993)
• 1942 - Reinhard Mey, singer
• 1946 - Carl Wilson, musician (The Beach Boys)
• 1947 - Paco de Lucia, musician
• 1948 - Samuel L. Jackson, actor
• 1950 - Jeffrey Katzenberg, producer
• 1954 - Chris Evert, tennis player
• 1957 - Tom Henke, baseball relief pitcher
• 1957 - Ray Romano, comedian, actor
• 1959 - Florence Griffith Joyner, track and field champion (d. 1998)
• 1961 - Francis Ng, actor
• 1965 - Andy Dick, actor, comedian
• 1967 - Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgian politician, President of the Republic of Georgia since January 4, 2004.
• 1969 - Julie Delpy, actress
• 1974 - Karrie Webb, golf champion

• 1375 - Giovanni Boccaccio, writer (b. 1313)
• 1807 - John Newton cleric, songwriter (Amazing Grace) (b. 1725)
• 1940 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, writer (b. 1896)
• 1945 - George S. Patton, U.S. general (b. 1885)
• 1935 - Kurt Tucholsky, German journalist and satirist (b. 1890)
• 1958 - Lion Feuchtwanger, writer
• 2001 - Dick Schaap, sports journalist
• 2002 - Giò Pomodoro, Italian sculptor

• The winter solstice, sometimes known as Yule, occurs on or very close to this date. It is an important festival in the Chinese calendar.