Man shot, killed while attempting to rob two people in south St. Louis

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) – A man was shot and killed while trying to rob two others in south St. Louis Sunday morning, police say.

According to St. Louis Metropolitan Police, the shooting took place in the 3500 block of Minnesota Ave. around 3 a.m. Two men with a firearm approached two other people while they were sitting in their car, saying it was a robbery. One of the victims grabbed a firearm inside the car and shot one of the suspects. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. The man was later identified as Donta Stone, 34, of Jennings Station Road.

The two victims fled in their car and contacted police shortly after the incident.

The Homicide Division responded and assumed the ongoing investigation.

RIP
Tommy Smothers
Tom Smothers, half of the Smothers Brothers and the co-host of one of the most socially conscious and groundbreaking television shows in the history of the medium, has died at 86.

The National Comedy Center, on behalf of his family, said in a statement Wednesday that Smothers died Tuesday at home in Santa Rosa, California, following a cancer battle.

Gaston Glock
Gaston Glock, the reclusive engineer and tycoon who developed one of the world’s best-selling handguns, died on Wednesday aged 94, Austrian news agency APA said.

The Austrian won loyal followings among police and military across the world with the weapons that bore his name. Forbes estimated his and his family’s fortune at $1.1 billion in 2021.

How the Byzantines Saved Civilization.

There was a book a few years ago entitled “How the Irish Saved Civilization,” explaining how Irish monks preserved ancient manuscripts that became the basis for much of Western thought. To give credit where credit is due, however, it must also be acknowledged that when the classic works of ancient Greek thought that form the basis of Western philosophy, political thought, and even literature had vanished almost completely from Western Europe, they were brought there not just from Ireland, but from a place that many assume had vanished from the earth long before: the Roman Empire.

If schoolchildren today pause from their lessons in Critical Race Theory and gender fantasies to learn anything about history at all, they likely learn that the Roman Empire, which at its height comprised much of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, fell in the year 476 AD, when the Gothic chieftain Odoacer deposed the figurehead child emperor Romulus Augustulus. In fact, however, Odoacer immediately pledged his fealty to the Roman Emperor Zeno in Constantinople.

Two Roman emperors? Yes. Zeno was just as much emperor of the Romans as Romulus. The empire had in the third century been considered too large to be governed by one man, and so two capitals were established, Rome and Constantinople (“New Rome”), with two emperors. The empire centered in Constantinople considered itself, and was thought of by the world, as the Roman Empire just as much as the empire centered in Rome. It only came to be called the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire after it had fallen altogether; throughout its lifetime, its people thought of themselves solely as Romans

That lifetime was a long one. The Roman Empire in Constantinople lasted until 1453, when it finally succumbed to the Islamic jihadis who had been trying to destroy it for nearly eight hundred years. Besides bringing Plato and Socrates and others West, that is a second way in which the Romans (that is, the Byzantines, but if you’re confused on this point, go back and read the previous paragraph again) saved civilization. If they had not stood as a bulwark between Western Europe and Islam for all those centuries, the jihadis would certainly have swept over all of Europe, and the civilization that gave the world ideas that are now widely considered to be universal truths, such as the dignity of the human person, the equality of rights of all people before the law, the freedom of speech and more, would never have arisen.

The Byzantines, that is, Romans, saved civilization in numerous other ways as well. The jihadis against whom they were standing firm thought of representational art as idolatrous and blasphemous. In Constantinople and its empire, however, representational art, that is, art depicting actual people, in the form of religious icons was central to the practice of Christianity, the official religion of the empire. Some, however, under the influence of Islam that pressed against the empire so persistently, began to insist that the icons were indeed idolatrous, and had to be destroyed in order to turn away the divine wrath. The assumption was that God was blessing the warriors of Islam, and turning away from the Byzantines, because of his divine anger over representational art.

It took an ecumenical council of the Church (the Second Council of Nicaea in 787) and decades of controversy to settle the issue, but ultimately art depicting human beings was approved. This became the basis for a flowering of representational art in Western Europe, culminating in the magnificent works of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and so very many others. Had the council ruled the other way, those works would never have been commissioned, and the awe-inspiring artistic patrimony of the Western world would never have been known.

There is a great deal of more, all of it detailed in “Empire of God: How the Byzantines Saved Civilization.” John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were much influenced by the Byzantine legal code when they were helping to formulate the Constitution and basic laws of the United States. The architectural marvel of the great cathedral in Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, had enormous influence over the construction of buildings of breathtaking beauty (as opposed to today’s Brutalist monstrosities) all over the Islamic and Christian worlds. If the Roman Empire in Constantinople had never existed, or had fallen at the same time that its counterpart in Rome succumbed, our lives would be immeasurably poorer in ways that are so numerous as to defy listing.

In these days when our history and heritage are being aggressively stripped from us for malevolent ends, it is all the more important that we recover a healthy appreciation for those on whose broad shoulders we stand.

Seattle Homeowner Uses Rifle to Fend Off 4 Home Invaders in Early Morning Home Invasion Attempt

Remember, no one needs more than ten rounds of ammunition to protect themselves. If you think you do, you’re doing it wrong. We’ve been reliably informed of that fact by the Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex and all of the smartest people for years now on a regular basis. Magazine capacity limits are dubious in their effectiveness at best and are in the process of being swept into the ash heap of gun control history.

Still, though, they remain one of the primary footings on which the argument for civilian disarmament is based. And then things like this happen which, for some reason, don’t get quite as much coverage as the braying jackasses who know everything about “common sense gun safety.” Or something.

Let’s go now to the perpetually peaceful neighborhood of Beacon Hill Seattle which, we’re told, has been the location of a number of home invasions recently including one home that was the target of multiple attempts at illegal entry.

Shortly after 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, officers responded to the location for a report of an attempted home invasion robbery. Police spoke to the homeowner, who said three men tried to break down his door but were unsuccessful and fled the scene.

The SPD says the suspects tried a second time at around 12:25 a.m. the next morning. 

Authorities say four men returned to the house to try breaking the door down with a sledgehammer.

The homeowner told police he was sleeping and woke up to loud banging at the door. He armed himself with a rifle, and when the suspects tried getting inside, he shot at them. 

It isn’t clear from the report, but we’d guess the un-named rifle the homeowner armed himself with was an AR pattern rifle of some sort. Fending off four men takes a good amount of ammo, more than any 10-round capacity limit would confine you to.

Authorities say the suspects fired back at the homeowner before speeding off in a vehicle. It remains unknown whether the homeowner shot any of the suspects during the incident.

Detectives processing the scene say they located bullet damage in the living room and bedroom windows.

Never mind the obvious utility of having a 15- or 17- round mag in your handgun, or a full-30 compliment in your rifle when facing multiple attackers as the Seattle homeowner did. The state of Washington has a “high capacity” magazine ban, but if the homeowner was using an AR as we suspect, any 30-round magazines he may have had or used were likely grandfathered in.

If you want to get really nit-picky about it, there’s also the fact that objective examinations of “high capacity” magazine bans have shown they do little if anything about limiting “gun violence.”

Magazine restrictions do not have appreciable effects on crime or violence. In an oft‐​cited study, Christopher Koper analyzed the effects of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which banned new magazines of more than 10 rounds but did little more than drive up the price of already‐​existing magazines.

While presenting his findings at a Johns Hopkins summit on reducing gun violence in America, Koper was decidedly noncommittal on the ban’s utility.

In general, we found, really, very, very little evidence, almost none, that gun violence was becoming any less lethal or any less injurious during [the course of the Assault Weapon and Large Capacity Magazine (LCM) ban]. So on balance, we concluded that the ban had not had a discernible impact on gun crime during the years it was in effect.

But save your breath. Gun control zealots never waste their time with or allow themselves to be confused by facts. In the mean time, make sure you have the means and ability to defend yourself and your family against multiple attackers, just as this home owner did last week.

‘Christianity Today’ Has a New Take on Jesus’ Ethnicity, and Internet Erupts

We’re suddenly seeing a lot of hot takes about Jesus for Christmas, with many of those takes seemingly trying to make him “Palestinian.” This seems in reaction to the Israel-Hamas war and mostly coming from the left to try to culturally appropriate Jesus to fit their political agenda. You even had people who were clergy spouting this stuff, along with a bunch of other things showing they lacked understanding around the Christmas story of Jesus.

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You even had a priest claiming Jesus was a “Palestinian Jew.”

But the take from Christianity Today posted to X on Christmas Eve had a lot of people reacting as again there seemed to be another take trying to make Jesus something other than what he was — a Jew from Judea.

“Jesus was born in Asia. He was Asian. The artists in this photo essay bring him back to Asia—but not to ancient Israel. These nine artworks “proclaim the expansiveness of Christ’s kingdom,’” the outlet shared.

The author Victoria Emily Jones said in the article that “by representing Jesus as Japanese, Indonesian, or Indian,” artists wanted to convey the universality of Jesus for their own communities.

I get the artistic interpretation and the universality point of the artists. And also geographically, yes technically, the continent is Asia, although we generally don’t think about it like that today, we think of the Middle East as a distinct area. But that’s different from suggesting he was, in fact, Asian in the sense of being Japanese, Indonesian, or Indian.

Once again seems to be trying to move him away from being a Middle Eastern Jew.

The claim that he was Asian got a lot of reaction from people. Some noted mockingly that perhaps we should call him “Roman” or Italian since he was born in the Roman Empire.

Senior pastor of Western Ave Baptist Church Ekkie Tepsupornchai also responded to the article writing, “I am Asian. Jesus was not. Nevertheless, Jesus is my Lord. And His sacrifice granted me the right to become a child of God. That is all that matters to me.”

That’s also a great point to make in today’s game of identity politics. It’s important to acknowledge that Jesus was a Jew and where he was born was important because he was born into the House of David. But, regardless of origin, he was born for and died for everyone.

December 27

537 – The construction of the second Hagia Sophia Church, the first being destroyed 5 years earlier, in Constantinople is completed.

1512 – The Spanish Crown issues the Laws of Burgos, governing the conduct of settlers with regard to native Indians in the New World.

1657 – The residents (none of them Quakers but conscientious of tolerance) of the small settlement of Flushing, (now the Flushing neighborhood in Queens, New York) petition Director-General of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, for an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship, which is considered as the first time in North American history that freedom of religion is put forth as a fundamental right.

1845 – Ether anesthetic is used for childbirth for the first time by Dr. Crawford Long in Jefferson, Georgia.
Journalist John L. O’Sullivan, writing in his newspaper the New York Morning News, argues that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country “by the right of our manifest destiny”.

1929 – Soviet General Secretary Stalin orders the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” in Russia, and beginning the ‘Holodomor‘ in Ukraine.

1932 – Radio City Music Hall opens in New York City.

1968 – Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon.

1979 – The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. Interesting that the cost of the invasion and occupation and later retreat is considered a prime cause of the Soviet collapse a decade later.

1985 – Moslem terrorists kill 18 people inside the airports of Rome and Vienna.

2004 – Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar neutron star SGR 1806-20 in the constellation of Sagittarius, reaches Earth. It is the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on the planet.

2012 – General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. dies, age 78, at Tampa, Florida.

2016 – Actress Carrie Fishe dies, age 60, at the UCLA Medical Center, after suffering from a cardiac arrest while flying from London to Los Angeles, 4 days earlier.

Analysis: A New Twist on the ‘Dangerous and Unusual’ Standard for Gun Bans

A Massachusetts federal judge upheld the commonwealth’s ban on AR-15s and similar rifles this week. His rationale for doing so relied on an idiosyncratic understanding of the rifle’s purported lethality and defensive utility.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV denied a motion for preliminary injunction against Massachusetts’ ban on “assault weapons” and ammunition magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds. He did so by putting a new twist on an old argument. He determined that modern laws banning AR-15s fit within the country’s historical tradition of regulating “dangerous and unusual” weapons.

“The banned weapons are ‘dangerous,’ because they are unreasonably dangerous for ordinary purposes of self-defense due to their extreme lethality and high potential for collateral harm,” Saylor, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in Capen v. Campbell, “and they are ‘unusual,’ because it would be unusual for an ordinary citizen to carry such a weapon on his person on the street for self-defense, or to use it in the home to confront invaders or to protect against personal violence.”

While Saylor is certainly not the first to uphold a hardware ban since the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, his analytical framework for doing so stands out among the rest for its emphasis on the “dangerous and unusual” standard and his understanding of how AR-15s fit in.

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Gun deaths rise along with gun control grade

Gun control advocates should have reason to celebrate. The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence upgraded Colorado’s grade on the “annual gun law scorecard” from a C+ in 2021, to a B in 2022 and an A- this year.

As reported in Gazette sister publication Colorado Politics, Colorado earned its A- for imposing waiting periods, banning “ghost” guns, enacting legislation on victims’ legal access, increasing the minimum age to purchase firearms and investing $1 million in community violence intervention.

The grade would deserve accolades — if it correlated with a decrease in gun violence. It does not. The year Colorado moved from a C to a B was the year Colorado’s rate of gun deaths reached a 40-year high. It is also the year Colorado set a record for the most people injured in mass shootings in a single year.

Since the Columbine High School massacre of 1999, Colorado has understandably pursued more gun regulation. The state enacted background checks at gun shows in 2000. It later passed a 15-round limit on bullet magazines. In 2013, Colorado required universal background checks.

From there, the state passed a red flag law in 2019. The next year, it enacted mandatory reporting for lost or stolen firearms and a safe firearm storage law.

Despite a 23-year gun-control effort, gun sales and gun crimes have risen.

Colorado’s gun sales in 2022 were 26% higher than in 2019. Early indicators suggest this year’s Colorado holiday gun sales will set a record.

An A- for gun control — after a significant rise in gun crimes — amounts to accolades for policies that don’t work.

It frustrates Colorado’s political leaders. Gov. Jared Polis and state’s Attorney Gen. Phil Weiser want to spend $600,000 to hire outside lawyers. They would lend the attorneys to the federal government to prosecute gun crimes.

If federal enforcement saves lives, this proposal could pay off. Properly written and enforced, gun regulations should allow guns in the hands of stable, sober, law-abiding adults.

It should keep guns from substance abusers, criminals, domestic abusers, severe mental illness patients, and others given due process and deemed likely to misuse them.

If Colorado subsidizes enforcement of federal gun laws, Polis and Weiser should take similar action regarding federal drug laws.

Colorado has undermined federal drug laws and enforcement for years, even as fentanyl became the number 1 killer of young adults. We legalized recreational pot in 2012. More recently, our state decriminalized fentanyl, heroin, crack cocaine and other deadly street drugs.

Likewise, Colorado has consistently undermined federal immigration laws. The combined chaos of immigration, rising crime, drug deaths, homelessness and needles in parks probably led to escalating gun ownership in Colorado and the rest of the country.

“There are many communities with sustained levels of crime that have not abated,” said National Shooting Sports Foundation spokesperson Mark Oliva, as quoted in Gazette sister publication The National Examiner.

“Those concerns, along with the punishing anti-gun measures by the Biden administration and threats of more gun control promised by the Biden-Harris reelection campaign, cannot be discounted as contributing factors (to rising gun sales).

“Americans have demonstrated month after month and year after year, (that) Second Amendment rights matter, and they are investing their hard-earned dollars to exercise their right to lawfully possess firearms before the right can be further infringed (upon).”

Reducing gun violence means more and better mental health care. It means restoring harsh penalties for crimes. It means controlling the border. It means enforcing drug laws and offering help for addiction. It means more looking out for those who suffer.

Sadly, it seems we don’t save lives by simply churning out gun laws — even if handed a medal for doing so.

The Gazette Editorial Board

Israeli Strike In Damascus Takes Out Top Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander Reza Mousavi.

Close friend and confidant to Qassem Soleimani, eliminated almost 4 years ago to the day in a U.S. strike. Mousavi was “the central figure in everything related to the Iranian weapons corridor to Syria and Lebanon.”

On January 3, 2020 (local time), a U.S. airstrike took out Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. Soleimani was the leader of the the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and the architect of Iran’s war on the West and Israel.

The assassination shook the world, and Iran threatened (and is still threatening) retaliation. Trump was not impressed with the threats: If Iran attacks, we will hit 52 Iranian sites “representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago”.

As we approached the anniversary of Soleimani’s demise, Israeli just took out one of his key aides, Reza Mousavi.

 

Mousavi reportedly was “a senior commander in IRGC Quds Force, he was responsible for IRGC logistical & financial channels in Syria,” which explains his presence in Damascus, and “a long time and close friend of Qassem Soleimani.”

Mousavi was a key Iranian figure:

He served as Iran’s logistical liaison (Revolutionary Guards/Quds Force) in Syria and was active in Syria for many years, possibly since the 1990s. Mousavi was actually the central figure in everything related to the Iranian weapons corridor to Syria and Lebanon, which includes the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Shiite militias in Syria. It is also possible that he was involved in arms smuggling (with an emphasis on “status violating” arms) from Syria, through Jordan towards the terrorist organizations in Judea and Samaria.

 

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No tax on bullets? Why one SC lawmaker wants to eliminate sales tax for some ammunition

If you’re a South Carolina gun owner, there’s a chance you could be able to buy ammunition without a sales tax in the future, if a new proposal becomes a law.

State Rep. Ashley Trantham, R-Greenville, filed a bill ahead of the legislative session that begins in January that would eliminate the sales tax on small arms ammunition. This would include ammunition for any “portable firearm,” which could include “rifles, shotguns, pistols and revolvers with no barrel greater than an internal diameter of .50 caliber or a shotgun of ten gauge or smaller,” the bill reads.

Small arms ammunition is normally what gun owners keep in a purse, by their bedside or in their vehicle, Trantham said. These weapons are used for personal protection, she added, which is why she is pushing to eliminate the sales tax only for for small arms ammunition and not bigger guns used for hunting or other uses.

“We have open borders, and more than ever, we just don’t know who we’re going to come across,” Trantham said. “When we’re out shopping, when we’re even in our homes. I’m seeing cases where there’s home invasions, things like that happening, more rapid than I can remember in the past ever seeing it.”

Trantham said she filed the bill based on a request from a constituent. South Carolina, Trantham said, should “definitely” not pursue gun control laws that she said would make it harder for people to protect themselves.

“This was specifically just to make sure that people that obviously can legally own a firearm have access to it, and it can be a little bit more affordable,” Trantham said. “I honestly don’t believe that we should be taxing a constitutional right.”

The South Carolina state sales tax rate is 6%. Dozens of items are exempted from sales tax in the state, from hearing aids to erectile dysfunction medication to materials used to assemble missiles.

In the past year, another state sales tax exemption was proposed: feminine hygiene products, including menstrual pads and tampons. Advocates for that proposal argued that those items are medical necessities and should not be taxed in South Carolina. That bill passed the House and remains sitting in the hands of the Senate finance committee.

Trantham, who is a S.C. House Freedom Caucus member, said she believes eliminating the tax on small arms ammunition is a “no-brainer,” but it’s not yet clear whether the General Assembly will choose to make the bill a priority.

“I would think that it would be easy,” Trantham said. “But then again, when you have people in Columbia that campaign one way and then vote another, it’s hard to say what they’ll grab a hold on. If the people decide it’s priority, they have the power, which is beautiful. That’s that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

The Wonderful Truth Behind Recent Concealed Carry Statistics

Across the United States, fewer US citizens applied for new concealed carry permits. That is what the numbers say, and it is true from a certain perspective. It is also true that more people are legally carrying concealed firearms than ever before. That may seem like a contradiction, but it is also very good news.

What the headline doesn’t say is that we’ve seen a considerable number of states recently adopt constitutional carry laws. Those laws typically state that you don’t need a license to carry a concealed firearm if as long as you would have qualified to get one. That means you don’t have a criminal record, so you don’t need to get a permission slip from the state to carry concealed in public. Even with Constitutional carry in your state, you’ll often want a carry permit if you often drive to another state and want to carry there.

Back to the report from John Lott, we now have a record number of people legally carrying a personal firearm, but fewer of them had to apply for and pay for a state license in order to do so. That might be good news, and in fact it is fantastic news.

People who don’t have a carry permit often worry that more people are carrying a gun but they don’t have the training that the state previously required. That sounds obvious, but let me show you one flaw in that thinking.

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OhMyGosh a SNIPER RIFLE!™ Aauugghh!

Sen. Susan Collins Pushing Gun Control for U.S. Troops

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is putting together legislation to require the U.S. military to adhere to state-level red and yellow flag laws for troops.

A red flag law allows family, friends, and others, to seek a court order to have guns removed from someone they view as a danger to himself or others. A yellow flag law is more narrow, allowing law enforcement to seek the court order for firearm removal.

Collins bill comes in response to the October 25, 2023, Lewiston, Maine, attacks, which were carried out by a member of the U.S. Army Reserve.

The attacker used a sniper rifle which was legally purchased.

Maine has a yellow flag law, but although police were alerted that the Maine shooter could “snap and commit a mass shooting” in September, according to CNN, no yellow flag action was pursued.

Moreover, Breitbart News noted on October 26, 2023, police in New York took Card to a West Point hospital for an evaluation in mid-July 2023.

Card had caught the attention of military officials after “acting erratically in mid-July” while taking part in training at West Point, the Associated Press reported. Police in New York were called and Card was taken to West Point’s Keller Army Community Hospital.

New York has a red flag law and the involvement of police in the West Point incident raised questions as to why the law did not come into play.

On December 22, 2023, WMTW pointed out that Collins “is working on a bill that would require branches of the military to utilize state-level weapons restriction laws, when appropriate, if they believe a service member poses a threat of harm to themselves or others.”

2024—the Year of our Reckoning
Will we meet the challenges or ensure the ongoing decline?

We should remember the now modern proverb of Nixon-era economic advisor Herb Stein to the effect that what cannot go on (without destroying the nation), simply will not go on.

In some sense, the country for recent years has been cruising on the fumes from prior and likely better wiser generations and institutions. In 2024, the tab for our current apathy, toxic politics, and incompetence will come due.

So next year we will likely see the climax to a number of current dangerous ideas, events, and forces, which finally will either overwhelm us or be addressed and remedied. We live in a Neronian age but can recover if we first understand how we got here and the nature of the suicide we are committing.

In 2023, it became clear, to even the most loyal supporters of the Biden administration, that the U.S. has simply lost or indeed forfeited American deterrence abroad. Our enemies do not fear us; our friends do not trust us; and neutrals do not care either way.

After the 2021 Kabul debacle, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the 2023 brazen Chinese spy balloon’s uncontested trajectory over the United States, the recent Hamas invasion of Israel, the serial Iranian-fueled terrorist attacks on U.S. installations in the Middle East, and the terrorist Houthis’ veritable absorption of the Red Sea, many of America’s opportunistic enemies drew conclusions and adopted strategies that would have been previously unthinkable.

Either adversaries will be so emboldened to start regional wars—an impotent Iran now brags it will block the entire Mediterranean—or a United States will be shocked into action and have to deter Iran, the Houthis, and Islamic terrorism, while dealing with an opportunistic China eager to annex Taiwan, and Russia determined to finish off Ukraine.

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December 26

1723 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performances of his first Christmas Cantata; Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes,  – For this the Son of God appeared – in the 2 main churches in Leipzig; Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche

1776 – Successfully crossing the Delaware river under cover of darkness during Christmas night, troops of the Continental Army under General Washington attack and defeat a garrison of Hessian forces at Trenton, New Jersey.

1799 – Representative Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee III’s Eulogy to George Washington in Congress Assembled, declares him as “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen”

1811 – A theater fire in Richmond, Virginia kills 72 people among them, the Governor of Virginia George William Smith and former Senator, Abraham B. Venable.

1862 – Four nuns serving as volunteer nurses on board USS Red Rover are the first female nurses on a U.S. Navy hospital ship.

1898 – Marie and Pierre Curie announce the isolation of radium.

1941 – President Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the United States.

1944 – The U.S. 3rd Army’s 4th Armored Division, under General George Patton breaks the encirclement of surrounded U.S. forces at Bastogne, Belgium.

1972 – During Operation Linebacker II, 120 American B-52 Stratofortress bombers attack Hanoi, including 78 launched from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the largest single combat launch in Strategic Air Command history.

1989 – United Express Flight 2415, a BAe Jetstream 31, crashes on approach to the Tri-Cities Airport in Pasco, Washington, killing all 6 passengers and crew on board.

1991 – The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union meets and formally dissolves the Soviet Union

1994 – Four armed moslem hijackers seize control of Air France Flight 8969. When the plane lands at Marseille, a French Gendarmerie assault team boards the aircraft and kills them.

1996 – JonBenét Ramsey is found murdered in the basement of her home in Boulder Colorado.

2004 – A 9.3 Mw  earthquake in the Indian Ocean hits northern Sumatra and causes one of the largest observed tsunamis, affecting coastal Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, killing over 227,000 people.

2015 – A tornado outbreak strikes the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, with multiple tornadoes from EF2 to EF4 power, killing 12 people and causing heavy damage to the suburb of Rowlett.

 

~4BC – Forced to stay in the equivalent of a modern stable due to all the inns in the city of Bethlehem being full up because of a census and taxing ordered by the Romans, Mariam, the wife of Yosef ben Yakov gives birth to a son they name Yeshua.

336 – Christmas is  celebrated in Rome for the first time.

508 – Clovis I, King of the Franks, is baptized at Reims, France by Bishop Remigius.

597 – Augustine of Canterbury baptizes more than 10,000 Anglo Saxons at Kent, England.

800 – Charlemagne is crowned Holy Roman Emperor at the ‘Old’ St. Peter’s Basilica in  Rome

1000 – Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by King Stephen I

1025 – Mieszko II Lambert is crowned king of Poland at the Gniezno Cathedral

1046 – Henry III is crowned Holy Roman Emperor at ‘Old’ St. Peter’s Basilica in  Rome

1066 – William the Conqueror is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey

1100 – Baldwin of Boulogne is crowned the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem.

1130 – Count Roger II is crowned the first King of Sicily at Palermo.

1758 – Halley’s Comet is sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley’s prediction of its passage, the first passage of a comet predicted ahead of time.

1776 – George Washington leads 2400 members of the Continental Army across the Delaware River, Christmas night to attack Hessian mercenary forces serving Great Britain at Trenton, New Jersey, the next day.

1814 – Rev. Samuel Marsden holds the first Christian service on land in New Zealand at Rangihoua Bay.

1868 – President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans.

1941 – Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command as Commander in Chief U.S. Pacific Fleet.

1968 – Apollo 8 performs the first successful Trans Earth Injection (TEI) maneuver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit.

1989 – Deposed Romanian President Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena, are arrested, condemned to death after a summary trial, and executed by firing squad.

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union.

2020 – Anthony Quinn Warner blows himself and his RV to bits in downtown Nashville, Tennessee injuring 8 more people.

2021 – NASA launches thehe James Webb Space Telescope