19 December History
- 1154 - Henry II is crowned king of England.
- 1562 - The French Wars of Religion between the Huguenots and the Catholics begins with the Battle of Dreux.
- 1793 - French troops recapture Toulon from the British.
- 1862 - Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest begins tearing up the railroads in Union generals Grant and Rosecrans rear, causing considerable delays in the movement of Union supplies.
- 1900 - The French Parliament votes amnesty for everyone involved in the Dreyfus Affair.
- 1909 - American socialist women denounce suffrage as a movement of the middle class.
- 1941 - Japanese land on Hong Kong and clash with British troops.
- 1941 - Adolf Hitler assumes the position of commander in chief of the German army.
- 1942 - The British advance 40 miles into Burma in a drive to oust the Japanese from the colony.
- 1944 - During the Battle of the Bulge, American troops begin pulling back from the twin Belgian cities of Krinkelt and Rocherath in front of the advancing German Army.
- 1945 - Congress confirms Eleanor Roosevelt as U.S. delegate to the United Nations.
- 1950 - The North Atlantic Council names General Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander of Western European defense forces.
- 1959 - Reputed to be the last civil war veteran, Walter Williams, dies at 117 in Houston.
- 1974 - Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as vice president of the United states after a House of Representatives vote.
- 1982 - Four bombs explode at South Africa's only nuclear power station in Johannesburg.
- 1984 - British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang sign an agreement that committed Britain to return Hong Kong to China in 1997 in return for terms guaranteeing a 50-year extension of its capitalist system. Hong Kong was leased by China to Great Britain in 1898 for 99 years.
- 1998 - President Bill Clinton is impeached. The House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against President Clinton, charging him with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton was the second president in American history to be impeached.
19 December Birthdays
- 1683 - Philip V, the first Bourbon King of Spain.
- 1820 - Mary Ashton Livermore, a temperance worker, women's rights activist, lecturer, and writer. Founded her own suffrage paper, the Agitator, in 1869.
- 1906 - Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet General Secretary of the Communist party and President of the Supreme Soviet from 1964 until 1982.
- 1915 - Edith Piaf, internationally famous French cabaret singer, best remembered for her songs "La Vie en rose" and "Non, je ne regrette rein."
- 1933 - Cicely Tyson, actress, best remembered for her role in The Autobiography of Ms. Jane Pittman.