Dec 31 in History
192 — Lucius Commodus, 31, Emperor of Rome (180-192), is murdered. His mistress Marcia, Chamberlain Eclectus, and praetorian prefect Laetus hired the wrestler Narcissus to strangle Commodus after they found their names on an imperial execution list.
1600 — Queen Elizabeth I charters the British East India Company to carry on trade in the East Indies in competition with the Dutch. A company of 218 merchants is granted a monopoly to trade east of the Cape of Good Hope.
1687 — The first Huguenots depart France for the Cape of Good Hope.
1908 — Simon Wiesenthal, survivor of the Nazi Holocaust who dedicates his life to tracking down former Nazis, is born in Buchach, Ukraine.
1937 — Sir Anthony Hopkins, actor (Oscar winner as Hannibal Lecter in “Silence of the Lambs”), is born in Margam, Wales.
1943 — John Denver (Henry John Deutschendorf jnr), singer-songwriter, (“Take Me Home, Country Roads”) record producer, actor, activist, and humanitarian, is born in Roswell, New Mexico. 1943 — Sir Ben Kingsley (Krishna Pandit Bhanji), actor (Oscar winner as Mahatma Gandhi in “Gandhi”), is born in Snainton, England.
1967 — Daredevil Evel Knievel, 29, fails in his attempt to jump Caesar’s Palace Fountain in Las Vegas. The takeoff is perfect, but he comes up short on the landing. The handlebars are ripped out of his hands. He tumbles over them onto the pavement and skids into the Dunes parking lot. Knievel suffers a crushed pelvis and femur, fractures to his hip, wrist and both ankles and a concussion that keeps him in a coma for 29 days. 1970 — Paul McCartney files a lawsuit in London to dissolve the Beatles’ partnership.
1985 — Singer, songwriter and actor Ricky
Nelson, 45, and six other people are killed when a fire breaks out aboard the DC-3 taking the group to a New Year’s Eve performance in Dallas.
1987 — Robert Mugabe is sworn in as Zimbabwe’s first executive president.
1997 — Michael L Kennedy, 39-year-old son of the late US Senator Robert F Kennedy, is killed in a ski accident at Aspen, Colorado.
1997 — Pianist Floyd Cramer, 64, dies in Nashville, Tennessee.
1997 — Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, 73, — accused of engineering an unsuccessful coup attempt in October and in jail since Christmas — is released and placed under house arrest.