 On
a December 25:
2307 Solar eclipse,
the first one on this date since 2000.
2002 The twice-weekly Powerball lottery jackpot (tickets
sold in 23 US states, DC, and the Virgin Islands) is announced to reach
$314.9, a deceptive figure since it would be payed in 30 yearly instalments.
Instead the winner or winners may choose a lump sum payment of $170 before
takes, $111 after. Then the drawing comes up with the winning numbers 5-14-16-29-53
and Powerball 7. There is a single winner, but he realizes it only on 26
December. He is Andrew Jackson Whittaker Jr., 55 [photo >],
a contractor from Scott Depot, West Virginia, who chooses the lump sum payment.
He had bought $100 of tickets.
2001
Russian interior forces, special services, the military commandant office,
the police, and puppet Chechen law enforcement agencies, blockade the village
of Chechen-Aul in the Grozny rural of Chechnya and search all houses and
other buildings for Chechen resistance fighters, weapons, ammunition, and
explosives.
2001 In Makhachkala, Russian Dagestan's
Supreme Court on Tuesday sentences Chechen “terrorists” (i.e.
patriot fighters) Salman Raduyev to life imprisonment in a high-security
correction colony, Turpalli Atgeriyev to 15 years, Husein Gaisumov to 8
years, and Aslanbek Alkhazurov to 5 years, for their role in a raid on the
Dagestani town of Kizlyar in January 1996 (which was intended to prevent
or delay an impending Russian aggression against Chechnya).
2001
At noon Buffalo, New York, registers a 24-hour snowfall of 64 cm, second
only to a record 96 cm in 1998.
2001 The New
York Times reports
that archeologists excavating the ancient city of Gordion in Anatolia have
discovered artifacts and human and animal remains confirming that the place
was settled by Hellenized Celts, the Galatai, who practiced human sacrifices
(such as for the druids to divine the future from the last movements of
the victims). Gordion is otherwise known as the capital of Phrygian King
Midas (8th century BC) and where Alexander the Great cut a knot (332 BC).
According to the Roman historian Livy a king in Anatolia hired Celts as
mercenaries to re-enforce his own army. They arrived in 278 BC, 20'000 of
them, including provisioners and merchants as well as their families, in
a caravan of 2000 baggage wagons.
2000 Partial eclipse
of the sun, maximum at about 16:30 UT, visible in parts of North America.
2000 Vishwanathan Anand es proclamado en Teherán campeón
mundial oficial de ajedrez tras derrotar al ajedrecista español de origen
letón Alexéi Shírov.
1998 Los presidentes de Rusia,
Boris Nikolaievich Yeltsin, y de Bielorrusia, Alexandr Lukashenko, firmaron
una serie de documentos dirigidos a profundizar sus lazos y formar un Estado
unificado (previo referéndum), con leyes y moneda comunes.
1996 Buffett goes on cruise
that inspires A Pirate Looks at Fifty
One of only a handful of writers to
top both the fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists, singer-songwriter
Jimmy Buffett departs with his family on a three-week cruise around
the Southern Hemisphere that will inspire his book A Pirate Looks
at Fifty (1998). After achieving great popularity as a musician,
Buffett released his first book, Tales from Margaritaville, in 1996.
The book spent six months on the bestseller list. His next book, Where
Is Joe Merchant?, about a seaplane pilot investigating the disappearance
of a rock star in the Caribbean, topped the fiction lists. He turned
to nonfiction when he realized his book contract called for another
book, but not specifically a novel. So, he turned to nonfiction and
began a memoir about the cruise, interspersed with memories about
his Catholic upbringing and his adventures as a singer. The book hit
No. 1, putting him in the company of Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck,
William Styron, Irving Wallace, and Dr. Seuss as a writer topping
both the fiction and the nonfiction lists. |
1995 Navidad histórica en Belén por la presencia del líder
palestino Yasser Arafat y su esposa Suha, musulmanos, en la tradicional
Misa del Gallo de la iglesia franciscana de Santa Catalina. Haré
lo mismo cada año hasta 2000, pero en 2001 los ocupantes israelies
lo tienen bloqueado en Ramallah y le prohiben ir a Belén.
1992
In the US, Christmas shopping season retail sales are up 8% over the year
before.
1992 El neocomunista Slobodan Milosevic es
reelegido presidente de Serbia.
1991 Last USSR ruler resigns
because no more USSR.
Mikhail
Gorbachev announces that he is resigning as president of the Soviet
Union. In truth, there was not much of a Soviet Union from which to
resign--just four days earlier, 11 of the former Soviet republics
had established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), effectively
dismembering the USSR. The Soviet Union, for all intents and purposes,
had already ceased to exist.
In his televised farewell speech to the nation, Gorbachev indicated
that the recent establishment of the CIS was the primary motive for
his resignation, claiming he was "concerned about the fact that the
people in this country are ceasing to become citizens of a great power
and the consequences may be very difficult for all of us to deal with.
“ In words that were sometimes prideful, sometimes resentful,
Gorbachev stated that he stood on his record of achievement. He had,
he claimed, overseen the Soviet Union's trip down the "road of democracy.
“ His reforms "steered" the communist economy "toward the market
economy. “ He declared that the Russian people were "living in
a new world" in which an "end has been put to the Cold War and to
the arms race. “ Admitting "there were mistakes made," Gorbachev
remained adamant that he "never had any regrets" about the policies
he pursued.
In reality, Gorbachev
had lost much of his power and prestige in the Soviet Union even before
the establishment of the CIS. The economy was unstable. No one seemed
pleased by Gorbachev-some opponents demanded even more political freedom
while hard-liners in his government opposed any movement toward reform.
In August 1991, he survived a coup attempt only through the assistance
of Russian Federation president Boris Yeltsin. Following the failed
attempt, Yeltsin became a vocal critic of the slow pace of economic
and political reforms in the country. As Gorbachev's power slipped
away, Yeltsin took over the Kremlin and other Soviet government facilities
and replaced the Soviet flag with the flag of Russia. After over 70
years of existence, the Soviet Union-America's archenemy in the Cold
War-was gone.
As the Soviet
Union crumbles, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev announces his
resignation as the eleventh and final leader of Communist Russia,
and the hammer-and-sickle flag over the Kremlin in Moscow is replaced
with the traditional white, blue, and red Russian flag. Gorbachev
became a full member of the Politburo in 1980 and in 1985 replaced
Konstantin U. Chernenko as the general secretary of the Communist
party. In 1988, Gorbachev was elected president of a USS.R. plagued
with serious economic problems, and in 1990 was given the new title
of executive president. Gorbachev introduced liberal policies such
as glasnost, or "openness," and perestroika, or "restructuring," in
an attempt to revitalize Soviet socialism and society. In foreign
affairs, he vastly improved relations with the United States and ended
the Soviet Union's ten-year military involvement in Afghanistan. Beginning
in 1989, Gorbachev chose not to interfere with the rapid movement
for democratization in Eastern Europe, a peaceful gesture that, along
with his decision to order the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan,
won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. In August of 1991, Communist
hard-liners in the Soviet government staged a coup against him, but
popular protest led by Russian President Boris Yeltsin forced Gorbachev's
safe return. In the aftermath of the failed coup, Gorbachev resigned
as general secretary of the Communist Party. Control of the government
shifted to the democracy-minded and popularly elected Yeltsin, who
officially took over as the sole Russian leader following Gorbachev's
resignation in late December of the same year. |
|
1989
Japanese scientists achieve -271.8ºC, coldest temp ever recorded
Finnish
troops enter Soviet territory.. 
1900
Antoni Zygmund
