December 21: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1620 - Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and theMayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
2. 1861 - Medal of Honor: Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.
3. 1872 - Challenger expedition: HMS Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sails from Portsmouth, England.
4. 1913 - Arthur Wynne's "word-cross", the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World.
5. 1937 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world's first full-length animated feature, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theatre.
6. 1968 - Apollo program: Apollo 8 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.
7. 1969 - The United Nations adopts the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
8. 1973 - The Geneva Conference on the Arab-Israeli conflict opens.
9. 1994 - Mexican volcano Popocatépetl, dormant for 47 years, erupts gases and ash.
10. 1995 - The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.
11. Famous Birthdays: Thomas Graham (Scottish chemist), George W. Fuller (American engineer), Sewall Wright (American biologist), Hermann Joseph Muller (American geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate), Jeffrey Katzenberg (American film producer, co-founded DreamWorks Animation)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: December 20

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: December 22

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.