Once Upon A Time – December 12 – 1901 – Guglielmo Marconi Sends First Transatlantic Radio Signal From Poldhu, Cornwall To Newfoundland, Canada

627 Battle at Nineveh: Byzantine Emperor Heraclius beats Sassanid forces during Byzantine-Sassanid War

1901 Guglielmo Marconi sends the first transatlantic radio signal, from Poldhu in Cornwall to Newfoundland, Canada

1925 Last Qajar Shah of Iran deposed; Rezā Shāh Pahlavi takes over

1946 UN accepts 6 Manhattan blocks as a gift from John D. Rockefeller Jr.

2000 US Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore, settling the recount dispute in Florida’s 2000 presidential election in George W. Bush’s favor and thus handing him the presidency

2015 COP21 climate change summit in Paris reaches a deal between 195 countries to limit the rise in the global average temperature to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels

2019 British General Election won by Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in landslide win with 80 seat majority. Scottish National Party also wins 48 of 59 seats in Scotland.

Historical Events Today

Today in Film & TV

1966 “A Man for All Seasons” based on the play by Robert Bolt, directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Paul Scofield premieres in New York (Best Picture 1967)

Today in Music

1792 In Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven (22) receives 1st lesson in music composition from Franz Joseph Haydn

Today in Sport

1930 Baseball Rules Committee greatly revises the rule book, ball bouncing into stands not a HR, now a double

MORE FACTS….

2019 Deepest point on land on earth identified under Denman Glacier, east Antarctica at 3.5km (11,500ft) below sea level

1957 Willem J Kolff and his team at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic removed the heart from a dog and replaced it with a pneumatic pump which kept the dog alive for 90 minutes, proving the viability of the artificial heart

Famous Weddings

1666 Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (26), marries his niece and cousin Margaret Theresa of Spain (15), the celebrations last almost two years

1957 American piano playing singer Jerry Lee Lewis (21) weds his cousin Myra Gale Brown (13) while still married to his 2nd wife Jane Mitcham; legalize marriage in 1958; divorce in 1970

1991 Actor Richard Gere (42) weds supermodel Cindy Crawford (25) in Las Vegas