December 19

### Up to 1900

- 324 – Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor.
- 1154 – Henry II of England is crowned at Westminster Abbey.
- 1187 – Pope Clement III is elected.
- 1490 – Anne, Duchess of Brittany marries Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor by proxy.
- 1666 – Lund University in southern Sweden is founded.
- 1732 – Benjamin Franklin publishes _Poor Richard's Almanack_
- 1777 – George Washington's army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
- 1783 – At age 24, William Pitt the Younger becomes the youngest–ever Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- 1828 – John C. Calhoun pens _South Carolina Exposition and Protest_, protesting the Tariff of 1828.
- 1835 – The _Toledo Blade_ newspaper begins publishing.
- 1842 – The United States recognizes the independence of Hawaii.

### 1901 – 2000

- 1907 – 239 coal miners die in a mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.
- 1909 – The German football club Borussia Dortmund is founded.
- 1912 – William H. Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum which killed over 1,000 people was pardoned by President Taft after  years in Sing Sing prison .
- 1916 – The Battle of Verdun ended during World War I.
- 1920 – King Constantine I of Greece is restored as King of the Hellenes after the death of his son, Alexander of Greece, and a vote.
- 1927 – Indian activists Ashfaqulla Khan, Ram Prasad Bismil and Roshan Singh are executed by British colonial authorities.
- 1928 – First autogiro flight in the United States.
- 1932 – The BBC World Service begins broadcasting, as the BBC Empire Service.
- 1941 – World War II: Limpet mines placed by Italian divers sink the HMS _Valiant_ and HMS _Elizabeth_ in Alexandria harbor.
- 1944 – The Soviet Union completely occupies Estonia (Ruhnu island).
- 1944 – French newspaper _Le Monde_ is founded.
- 1945 – Austria becomes a republic for the second time, the first having been founded in 1918 and interrupted by the Austro-fascist dictatorship from 1934 onwards and the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938.
- 1946 – Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi.
- 1956 – Irish–born physician John Bodkin Adams is arrested in connection with the suspicious deaths of over 160 patients. Eventually, he is only convicted of minor charges.
- 1961 – The Indian Army invades the Portuguese province of Estado da India Portuguesa (Portuguese State of India) which will become part of India.
- 1962 – Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
- 1963 – Zanzibar received its independence from the United Kingdom to become a constitutional monarchy under the sultan.
- 1964 – The South Vietnamese military junta of Nguyen Khanh dissolves the High National Council and arrest some of the members.
- 1965 – Prisoners Ronald Ryan and Peter Walker escape from HM Prison Pentridge, Melbourne. During the escape a guard is killed. Ryan would hang for his death, in 1967.
- 1967 – Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt is declared dead, two days after going missing.
- 1972 – Apollo 17, the last manned lunar flight, returns to Earth.
- 1974 – The Altair 8800, the first personal computer, goes on sale.
- 1975 – John Paul Stevens is appointed as a justice of the United States Supreme Court.
- 1980 – Anguilla is made a dependency of the United Kingdom separate from Saint Kitts and Nevis.
- 1982 – A tanker fire in Tacoa, Venezuela, kills 150 people.
- 1983 – The Jules Rimet FIFA World Cup trophy is stolen from the Headquarters of the Brazilian Football Federation in Rio de Janeiro and is never seen again.
- 1984 – The United Kingdom and People's Republic of China sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which handed Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
- 1984 – Ted Hughes becomes Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.
- 1986 – Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev releases Andrei Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, from exile in Gorky.
- 1997 – A Silkair Boeing 737–300 crashes into the Musi River, in Sumatra, Indonesia killing 104
- 1997 – _Titanic_ (the highest–grossing movie ever as of 2005) opens in U.S. theaters.
- 1998 – The U.S. House of Representatives passes articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.
- 2000 – The Leninist Guerrilla Units attack a party office of the far–right MHP in Istanbul, Turkey. One MHP member is killed and several wounded.

### From 2001

- 2001 – _The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring_, the first movie in Peter Jackson's _The Lord of the Rings_ movie trilogy, opens in theaters.
- 2001 – A new world–record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is set at Tosontsengel, Hövsgöl Aymag, Mongolia.
- 2001 – The Argentine economic crisis bursts into street riots after the announcement by the economy minister of the measures of holding back the bank deposits.
- 2005 – Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon suffers a minor stroke.
- 2007 – Marcus Stephen becomes President of Nauru.
- 2007 – Lee Myung-bak is elected President of South Korea.
- 2011 – North Korean state television announces that Kim Jong-il died two days earlier. His son Kim Jong-un has been named as his successor, as North Korea's leader.
- 2012 – Park Geunhye is elected President of South Korea, as the first woman elected to lead South Korea.
- 2016 – Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov is assassinated at an art gallery in Ankara by an off–duty police officer.
- 2016 – A lorry is driven into a crowd at a Christmas market in central Berlin, killing at least 12 people.

### Up to 1900

- 1343 – William I, Margrave of Meissen (d. 1407)
- 1498 – Andreas Osiander, German theologian (d. 1552)
- 1554 – Philip William, Prince of Orange (d. 1618)
- 1587 – Dorothea Sophia, Abbess of Quedlinburg (d. 1645)
- 1594 – Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden (d. 1632)
- 1683 – King Philip V of Spain (d. 1746)
- 1699 – William Bowyer, printer (d. 1777)
- 1714 – John Winthrop, American astronomer (d. 1779)
- 1753 – John Taylor Gilman, Governor of New Hampshire (d. 1828)
- 1778 – Marie Thérèse of France (d. 1851)
- 1784 – Marcus Morton, 16th and 18th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1864)
- 1790 – William Parry, English admiral and polar explorer (d. 1855)
- 1796 – Manuel Breton de los Herreros, Spanish playwright (d. 1873)
- 1813 – Thomas Andrews, chemist (d. 1885)
- 1815 – Edwin M. Stanton, American politician (d. 1869)
- 1816 – Franz Sacher, Austrian confectioner (d. 1907)
- 1817 – James J. Archer, American lawyer and general (d. 1864)
- 1819 – James Spriggs Payne, 4th and 8th President of Liberia (d. 1882)
- 1820 – Mary Ashton Livermore, women's rights activist (d. 1905)
- 1838 – Ghedrub Gyatso, 11th Dalai Lama (d. 1856)
- 1845 – Henri Joseph Perrotin, French astronomer (d. 1904)
- 1852 – Albert Abraham Michelson, Prussian–born physicist (d. 1931)
- 1854 – Marcel Brillouin, French physicist (d. 1948)
- 1861 – Italo Svevo, Italian writer (d. 1928)
- 1865 – Minnie Maddern Fiske, stage actress (d. 1932)
- 1875 – Mileva Maric, Serbian–Swiss scientist, was married to Albert Einstein (d. 1948)
- 1875 – Carter G. Woodson, American historian, author and journalist (d. 1950)
- 1876 – Enrique Pla y Deniel, Archbishop of Toledo, Spain (d. 1968)
- 1879 – Beals Wright, American tennis player (d. 1961)
- 1882 – Walter Braunfels, German composer (d. 1954)
- 1884 – Antonin Zapotocky, Czech politician (d. 1957)
- 1885 – Joe "King" Oliver, jazz musician (d. 1938)
- 1888 – Fritz Reiner, Hungarian conductor (d. 1963)
- 1891 – Edward Raczynski, Polish diplomat and politician (d. 1993)
- 1894 – Ford Frick, American commissioner of baseball (d. 1978)
- 1899 – Martin Luther King, Sr., father of Martin Luther King, Jr. (d. 1984)
- 1900 – Géza von Cziffra, movie director (d. 1989)

### 1901 – 1950

- 1901 – Rudolf Hell, German inventor (d. 2002)
- 1902 – Ralph Richardson, English actor (d. 1983)
- 1903 – George Davis Snell, American geneticist (d. 1996)
- 1905 – Irving Kahn, American businessman (d. 2015)
- 1906 – Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet politician (d. 1982)
- 1910 – Jean Genet, French writer (d. 1986)
- 1913 – Juan Landazuri Ricketts, Archbishop of Lima (d. 1997)
- 1915 – Claudia Testoni, Italian athlete (d. 1998)
- 1915 – Édith Piaf, French singer and actress (d. 1963)
- 1916 – Manoel de Barros, Brazilian poet (d. 2014)
- 1916 – Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, German publicist (d. 2010)
- 1918 – Professor Longhair, American musician (d. 1980)
- 1920 – Little Jimmy Dickens, American country music singer (d. 2015)
- 1920 – Alexander McAllister, Scottish cricketer
- 1920 – David Susskind, movie, stage, and television producer (d. 1987)
- 1922 – Eamonn Andrews, Irish radio and television host (d. 1987)
- 1923 – Gordon Jackson, Scottish movie, stage and television actor (d. 1990)
- 1924 – Michel Tournier, French writer (d. 2016)
- 1925 – Tankred Dorst, German dramatist (d. 2017)
- 1925 – Robert B. Sherman, American songwriter (d. 2012)
- 1925 – Rabah Bitat, President of Algeria (d. 2000)
- 1926 – Fikret Otyam, Turkish painter and journalist (d. 2015)
- 1927 – Remo Capitani, Italian actor (d. 2014)
- 1929 – Lorenzo Buffon, Italian footballer
- 1929 – Bob Brookmeyer, American musician (d. 2011)
- 1930 – Georg Stollenwerk, German footballer (d. 2014)
- 1932 – Thomas Hunter, American actor (d. 2017)
- 1932 – Bernhard Vogel, German politician
- 1933 – Cicely Tyson, American actress
- 1934 – Rudi Carrell, Dutch entertainer (d. 2006)
- 1934 – Al Kaline, American Baseball Hall of Famer
- 1934 – Pratibha Patil, former President of India
- 1935 – Bobby Timmons, American jazz pianist (d. 1974)
- 1936 – Marian McKnight, American model
- 1938 – Karel Svoboda, Czech composer (d. 2007)
- 1940 – Phil Ochs, singer, songwriter (d. 1976)
- 1941 – Maurice White, American musician (d. 2016)
- 1941 – Lee Myung-bak, former President of South Korea
- 1942 – Cornell Dupree, American musician (d. 2011)
- 1943 – Sam Kelly, English actor (d. 2014)
- 1944 – Richard Leakey, Kenyan anthropologist (d. 2022)
- 1944 – Alvin Lee, British musician (d. 2013)
- 1946 – Robert Urich, American actor (d. 2002)
- 1947 – Jimmy Bain, Scottish musician (d. 2016)
- 1949 – Jupp Kapellmann, German footballer
- 1949 – Nasser Hejazi, Iranian footballer (d. 2011)
- 1949 – Claudia Kolb, swimmer
- 1949 – Carlos Gomes Junior, former Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau
- 1950 – Walter Frosch, German footballer (d. 2013)

### 1951 – 1975

- 1951 – Mohammed Reza Aref, 2nd Vice President of Iran
- 1952 – Walter Murphy, American songwriter and musician
- 1955 – Rob Portman, American politician
- 1956 – Jens Fink-Jensen, Danish writer
- 1957 – Kevin McHale, American basketball player
- 1957 – Cyril Collard, French actor, director and composer (d. 1993)
- 1957 – Michael E. Fossum, American astronaut
- 1957 – John Gulager, American actor, cinematographer and director
- 1958 – José Aguilar, Cuban boxer (d. 2014)
- 1959 – Ivan Vallejo, Ecuadorean footballer
- 1960 – Mike Lookinland, actor
- 1961 – Eric Allin Cornell, American physicist
- 1961 – Reggie White, American football player (d. 2004)
- 1963 – Til Schweiger, German actor
- 1963 – Jennifer Beals, American actress
- 1964 – Arvydas Sabonis, Lithuanian basketball player
- 1964 – Béatrice Dalle, French actress
- 1965 – Jessica Steen, Canadian actress
- 1965 – Chito Martinez, Belizean baseball player
- 1966 – Alberto Tomba, Italian skier
- 1967 – Criss Angel, American illusionist
- 1968 – Ken Marino, American actor and comedian
- 1968 – Kristina Keneally, 42nd Premier of New South Wales
- 1969 – Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, Azerbaijani composer, pianist and singer
- 1969 – Kristy Swanson, American actress
- 1969 – Richard Hammond, British television presenter
- 1971 – Tiffany Towers, American actress
- 1972 – Alyssa Milano, American actress
- 1972 – Warren Sapp, American football player
- 1974 – Jake Plummer, American football player
- 1974 – Ricky Ponting, Australian cricketer

### From 1976

- 1978 – Patrick Casey, American screenwriter and actor
- 1979 – Gareth Williams, Welsh rugby player
- 1980 – Jake Gyllenhaal, American actor
- 1980 – Billy O'Sullivan, American actor
- 1980 – Marla Sokoloff, actress
- 1982 – Tero Pitkamaki, Finnish javelin thrower
- 1983 – Matt Stajan, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1985 – Neil Kilkenny, Australian footballer
- 1985 – Gary Cahill, English footballer
- 1985 – Lady Sovereign, English musician
- 1985 – Dan Logan, English bass player
- 1986 – Ryan Babel, Dutch footballer
- 1987 – Karim Benzema, French footballer
- 1988 – Alexis Sanchez, Chilean footballer
- 1989 – Yong Jun-hyung, South Korean singer, rapper and actor
- 1991 – Declan Galbraith, English singer
- 1991 – Edwin Jackson, American football player (d. 2018)
- 1991 – Jorge Blanco, Mexican actor and singer
- 1992 – Iker Muniain, Spanish footballer
- 1993 – Leonardo Bittencourt, German footballer
- 1994 – Michele Bravi, Italian singer
- 1994 – Estelle Balet, Swiss snowboarder (d. 2016)
- 1995 – Brandur Olsen, Faroese footballer
- 1998 – Frans Jeppsson Wall, Swedish singer

### Up to 1900

- 211 – Geta, Roman Emperor
- 401 – Pope Anastasius I
- 1075 – Edith of Wessex, queen of Edward the Confessor of England
- 1111 – Al-Ghazali, Persian theologian and philosopher
- 1123 – Saint Berardo, Italian bishop
- 1327 – Agnes of France, Duchess of Burgundy
- 1370 – Pope Urban V (b. 1310)
- 1475 – Louis de Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol (b. 1418)
- 1737 – James Sobieski, Crown Prince of Poland (b. 1667)
- 1741 – Vitus Bering, Danish–born explorer (b. 1681)
- 1745 – Jean-Baptiste van Loo, French painter (b. 1684)
- 1749 – Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (b. 1672)
- 1751 – Louise of Great Britain, queen of Frederick V of Denmark (b. 1724)
- 1807 – Friedrich Melchior, baron von Grimm, German writer (b. 1723)
- 1813 – James McGill, Scottish–Canadian businessman and philanthropist (b. 1744)
- 1814 – Joseph Bramah, English inventor and locksmith (b. 1748)
- 1819 – Sir Thomas Fremantle, English naval officer and politician (b. 1765)
- 1848 – Emily Brontë, English writer (b. 1818)
- 1851 – J. M. W. Turner, English painter (b. 1775)
- 1859 – Mirabeau B. Lamar, American politician and President of Texas (b. 1798)
- 1860 – Konstantin Aksakov, Russian writer (b. 1817)
- 1899 – Henry Ware Lawton, American Civil War general (b. 1843)

### 1901 – 2000

- 1915 – Alois Alzheimer, German neuroscientist (b. 1864)
- 1916 – Thibaw Min, King of Burma (b. 1859)
- 1927 – Ashfaqulla Khan, Indian activist (b. 1900)
- 1927 – Ram Prasad Bismil, Indian activist (b. 1897)
- 1927 – Roshan Singh, Indian activist (b. 1892)
- 1932 – Yoon Bong-Gil, Korean resister against Japanese occupation (executed) (b. 1908)
- 1933 – George Jackson Churchward, English engineer (b. 1857)
- 1939 – Hans Langsdorff, German naval officer (b. 1894)
- 1944 – Abbas II of Egypt (b. 1874)
- 1944 – Rudolph Karstadt, German entrepreneur (b. 1856)
- 1946 – Paul Langevin, French physicist (b. 1872)
- 1953 – Robert Millikan, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1868)
- 1967 – Harold Holt, seventeenth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)
- 1968 – Norman Thomas, American socialist (b. 1884)
- 1976 – Giuseppe Caselli, Italian painter (b. 1893)
- 1977 – Nellie Tayloe Ross, Governor of Wyoming (b. 1876)
- 1982 – Dwight Macdonald, American philosopher, author and critic (b. 1906)
- 1988 – Robert Bernstein, American author and playwright (b. 1919)
- 1989 – Stella Gibbons, English writer (b. 1902)
- 1993 – Michael Clarke, American drummer (b. 1946)
- 1996 – Marcello Mastroianni, Italian actor (b. 1924)
- 1997 – Masaru Ibuka, Japanese industrialist (b. 1908)
- 1998 – Mel Fisher, American treasure hunter (b. 1922)
- 1999 – Desmond Llewelyn, Welsh actor (b. 1914)
- 2000 – Pops Staples, American singer (b. 1915)
- 2000 – John Lindsay, 103rd Mayor of New York City (b. 1921)
- 2000 – Rob Buck, American guitarist and songwriter (b. 1958)

### From 2001

- 2003 – Peter Carter-Ruck, British lawyer (b. 1914)
- 2003 – Hope Lange, American actress (b. 1941)
- 2004 – Herbert C. Brown, English–born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1912)
- 2004 – Renata Tebaldi, Italian soprano (b. 1922)
- 2008 – Carol Chomsky, American linguist and educator (b. 1930)
- 2009 – Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Iranian cleric (b. 1922)
- 2009 – Kim Peek, American megasavant, inspiration for the movie Rain Man (b. 1951)
- 2012 – Peter Struck, German politician (b. 1943)
- 2012 – Robert Bork, American judge and scholar (b. 1927)
- 2013 – Herb Geller, American–German saxophonist and composer (b. 1928)
- 2013 – Ned Vizzini, American writer (b. 1981)
- 2014 – Igor Rodionov, Russian general and politician (b. 1936)
- 2014 – Philip Bradbourn, English politician (b. 1951)
- 2014 – Arthur Gardner, American movie and television producer (b. 1910)
- 2015 – Jimmy Hill, English footballer and pundit (b. 1928)
- 2015 – Kurt Masur, German conductor (b. 1927)
- 2015 – Greville Janner, British politician (b. 1928)
- 2015 – Karin Söder, Swedish politician (b. 1928)
- 2015 – Dickie Moore, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1931)
- 2015 – Selma Reis, Brazilian actress and singer (b. 1960)
- 2016 – Andrei Karlov, Russian diplomat, Ambassador to Turkey (b. 1954)
- 2017 – Lito Cruz, Argentine actor (b. 1941)
- 2017 – Clifford Irving, American author (b. 1930)
- 2017 – Hiep Thi Le, Vietnamese–American actress (b. 1971)
- 2018 – Tömür Dawamat, Chinese Uighur politician; (b. 1927)
- 2018 – Mel Hutchins, American basketball player; (b. 1928)
- 2018 – Geetha Salam, Indian actor; (b. 1948)
- 2019 – Ricardo de Aparici, Argentine lawyer and politician; (b. 1940)
- 2019 – Francisco Brennand, Brazilian sculptor; (b. 1927)
- 2019 – Jules Deelder, Dutch poet; (b. 1944)
- 2019 – Jan de Laval, Swedish actor; (b. 1948)
- 2019 – Ward Just, American journalist and writer; (b. 1935)
- 2019 – George Metallinos, Greek priest; (b. 1940)
- 2019 – Yoshio Mochizuki, Japanese politician; (b. 1947)
- 2019 – Shahdon Winchester, Trinidadian footballer
- 2019 – Alba Zaluar, Brazilian anthropologist; (b. 1942)

## Observances

- Liberation Day (Goa)
- National Heroes and Heroines Day (Anguilla)