Today is Wednesday, December 19, the 353rd day of 2007. There are 12 days left in the year.
401 _ St. Anastasius I ends his reign as Catholic pope
1055 _ Seldjuken under Toghril Beg occupy Baghdad
1154 _ King Henry II of England crowned
1686 _ Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Defoe)
1788 _ Chinese troops occupy capital Thang Long Vietnam
1842 _ U.S. recognizes independence of Hawaii
1843 _ Charles Dickens publishes ``A Christmas Carol" in England
1884 _ Italy recognizes King Leopold II's Congo Free State
1946 _ War breaks out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi
1950 _ General Eisenhower named NATO commander
1950 _ Tibet's Dalai Lama flees Chinese invasion
1961 _ Indonesian President Sukarno proclaims general mobilization
1963 _ Zanzibar becomes independent from U.K.
1984 _ China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor
1984 _ U.K. signs agreement with China to return Hong Kong to China in 1997
1986 _ The USSR frees dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile
1991 _ Boris Yeltsin takes control of Kremlin