December 21 ...

In 1620 the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock, MA. In 1898 scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium. In 1913 the New York World Sunday edition included the first crossword puzzle published in a newspaper. In 1925 Sergei Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin was first shown in Moscow. In 1937 Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs made its debut. In 1945 US Gen. George S. Patton died in Heidelberg, Germany, of injuries from a car accident. In 1958 Charles de Gaulle was elected to a seven-year term as the first president of the Fifth Republic of France. In 1968 Apollo 8 was launched on a mission to orbit the moon. In 1971 the UN Security Council chose Kurt Waldheim to succeed U Thant as secretary-general. In 1988 270 people were killed when terrorists blew up a Pan Am Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland. In 1990 Saddam Hussein declared in a German television interview that he would not withdraw from Kuwait by the UN deadline. In 1991 eleven of the 12 former Soviet republics proclaimed the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States.