DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Thursday, Dec. 9, the 343rd day of 2021. There are 22 days left in the year.
On this date in:
1911: An explosion inside the Cross Mountain coal mine near Briceville, Tennessee, killed 84 workers. (Five were rescued.)
1917: British forces captured Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks.
1965: “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the first animated TV special featuring characters from the “Peanuts” comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, premiered on CBS.
1987: The first Palestinian intefadeh, or uprising, began as riots broke out in Gaza and spread to the West Bank, triggering a strong Israeli response.
1990: Solidarity founder Lech Walesa won Poland’s presidential runoff by a landslide.
1992: Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation. (The couple’s divorce became final in August 1996.)
2000: The U.S. Supreme Court ordered a temporary halt in the Florida vote count on which Al Gore pinned his best hopes of winning the White House.
2001: The United States disclosed the existence of a videotape in which Osama bin Laden said he was pleasantly surprised by the extent of damage from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
2006: A fire broke out at a Moscow drug treatment hospital, killing 46 women trapped by barred windows and a locked gate.
2013: Scientists revealed that NASA’S Curiosity rover had uncovered signs of an ancient freshwater lake on Mars.
2014: U.S. Senate investigators concluded the United States had brutalized scores of terror suspects with interrogation tactics that turned secret CIA prisons into chambers of suffering and did nothing to make Americans safer after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Ten years ago: The European Union said 26 of its 27 member countries were open to joining a new treaty tying their finances together to solve the euro crisis; Britain remained opposed. A jury in New Haven, Connecticut, condemned Joshua Komisarjevsky to death for killing a woman and her two daughters during a night of terror in their suburban Cheshire home. (The other defendant in the case, Steven Hayes, had also been condemned to death; both punishments were changed to life in prison after Connecticut abolished the death penalty in 2015.) A fire at a hospital in Kolkata, India, claimed the lives of at least 93 people.
Actor Judi Dench is 87. Actor Beau Bridges is 80. Football player-turnedactor Dick Butkus is 79. Actor Michael Nouri is 76. Singer Joan Armatrading is 71. Actor Michael Dorn (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”) is 69. Actor John Malkovich is 68. Country singer Sylvia is 65. Singer Donny Osmond is 64. Bassist
Nick Seymour of Crowded House is 63. Comedian
Mario Cantone (“Sex and the City”) is 62. Actor
David Anthony Higgins (“Malcolm in
the Middle,” “Ellen”) is 60. Actor Joe Lando (“Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”) is 60. Actor Felicity Huffman (“Desperate Housewives,” “Sports Night”) is 59. Keyboardist Jerry Hughes of Yankee Grey is 56. Singer-guitarist Thomas Flowers of Oleander is 54.