TODAY IN HISTORY

DECEMBER 19

1843: "God bless us, everyone!" Charles Dickens' novella A Christmas Carol is published by Chapman & Hall in London.

1942: Flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, a decorated veteran of World War I, is given a hero's welcome in Washington, D.C., after he is rescued along with six others from the Pacific Ocean, where they were adrift in life boats for 22 days after bailing out of a faulty B-17D Flying Fortress. The men survived on rainwater and a seagull that had landed on Rickenbacker's head. Rickenbacker, who was aboard the plane in order to deliver a secret message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to General Douglas MacArthur, succeeds on passing on the message to the general.

1972: Astronauts Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt return to Earth after a 12-day mission aboard Apollo 17, the last of NASA's program of manned landings on the Moon.


1983:The original FIFA World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is stolen from the headquarters of Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro.

1971:Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" movie premieres

1924:The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England

1918:Robert Ripley began his Believe It or Not feature in The New York Globe.

1961: India annexes Daman and Diu, part of Portuguese India.