History for December 20

History for December 20 - On-This-Day.com:
Samuel Mudd 1833 - Physician that set John Wilkes Booth's leg after the assissination of President Lincoln, Harvey Firestone 1868 - Founder Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Walter Adams 1876 - Astronomer



Max Lerner 1902, George Roy Hill 1922 - Director, Uri Geller 1946


1606 - The "Susan Constant," "Godspeed" and "Discovery" set sail from London. Their landing at Jamestown, VA, was the start of the first permanent English settlement in America.


1699 - Peter the Great ordered that the Russian New Year be changed from September 1 to January 1.


1860 - South Carolina became the first state to secede from the American Union.


1880 - New York's Broadway became known as the "Great White Way" when it was lighted by electricity.


1892 - Alexander T. Brown and George Stillman patented the pneumatic tire.


1946 - The Frank Capra film "It's A Wonderful Life" had a preview showing for charity at New York City's Globe Theatre, a day before its "official" world premiere. James Stewart and Donna Reed star in the film.


1989 - General Noriega, Panama's former dictator, was overthrown by a United States invasion force invited by the new civilian government. The project was known as Operation Just Cause.


1990 - The world's first website and server go live at CERN. The first website was http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.