- Poinsettia Day
- National Ambrosia Day
- National Ding-A-Ling Day
- Official Lost and Found Day
- Gingerbread House Day
- National Cocoa Day
- Ugly Christmas Sweater Day
- Constitution Day-Russia
- Guadalupe Day-Mexico
- Neutrality Day-Turkmenistan
- Agou/Arroyo-Haiti
- Jamhuri and Uhuru Day-Kenya
- On This Day
- 1787 --- Pennsylvania was ratifed on this day as the second of the United States of America. Also one of the original 13 colonies, Pennsylvania is geographically located in the keystone position in relation to the other 12 colonies, earning the nickname, the Keystone State.
- 1806 --- Confederate General Stand Watie is born near Rome, Georgia. Watie, a Cherokee Indian, survived the tribe's Trail of Tears in the 1830s and became the only Native American to achieve the rank of general during the Civil War.
- 1897 --- The comic strip"The Katzenjammer Kids" (Hans and Fritz), by Rudolph Dirks, appeared in the New York Journal for the first time.
- 1901 --- Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message--simply the Morse-code signal for the letter "s"--traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada.
- 1913 --- Two years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Mona Lisa is recovered inside Italian waiter Vincenzo Peruggia's hotel room in Florence. Peruggia had previously worked at the Louvre and had participated in the heist with a group of accomplices dressed as Louvre janitors on the morning of August 21, 1911.
- 1917 --- In Omaha, Nebraska, Father Edward J. Flanagan, a 31-year-old Irish priest, opens the doors to Boys Home, a place for troubled and neglected children, and six boys enter to seek a better life. Flanagan, who previously ran the Workingmen's Hotel, a haven for down-and-out workers in Omaha, understood that mistreated or orphaned children were at high risk of turning to delinquency and crime in later years.
- 1937 --- The Federal Communications Commission was a bit upset with NBC radio. The FCC scolded the radio network for a skit that starred Mae West. The satirical routine was based on the biblical tale of Adam and Eve and, well, it got a bit out of hand. So, following its scolding by the FCC, NBC banned Miss West from its airwaves for 15 years.
- 1957 --- Disc Jockey Al Priddy of KEX, Portland, Oregon, was fired for playing Elvis Presley's rendition of "White Christmas." He had violated the radio station's ban against the song.
- 1965 --- Gale Sayers of the Chicago Bears scores six touchdowns during a single game against the San Francisco 49ers at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, tying the National Football League (NFL) record for most touchdowns in a single game.
- 1967 --- Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, a groundbreaking movie about an interracial romantic relationship starring Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton, opens in theaters.
- 1968 --- "Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Circus" was recorded. It was not shown publicly until its release in late 1996.
- 1970 --- "Tears Of A Clown" gives Smokey Robinson & The Miracles their first #1 pop hit.
- 1975 --- Sara Jane Moore pleaded guilty to trying to kill President Gerald R. Ford.
- 1980 --- Oil tycoon Armand Hammer bought a notebook of writings by Leonardo da Vinci for $5.28 million at auction in London. It was the highest price ever paid for a manuscript. It was 36 pages long and dated back to 1508.
- 1982 --- 20,000 women encircled Greenham Common air base in Britain in protest against proposed cite of U.S. Cruise missiles there.
- 1984 --- The group known as Band Aid -- 38 of Britain’s top rock musicians – recorded ”Do They Know It’s Christmas?” for Ethiopian famine victims. Despite the best of intentions, much of the food raised never got to the starving Ethiopians. In fact, much of it was found rotting on docks, not fit for human consumption. More than a Band-Aid was needed to fix that political mess.
- 1989 --- Leona Helmsley, nicknamed the "Queen of Mean" by the press, receives a four-year prison sentence, 750 hours of community service, and a $7.1 million tax fraud fine in New York. For many, Helmsley became the object of loathing and disgust when she quipped that "only the little people pay taxes."
- 1998 --- The House Judiciary Committee rejected censure, and approved the final article of impeachment against U.S. President Clinton. The case was submitted to the full House for a verdict.
- 2000 --- The Supreme Court found that the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election was unconstitutional. U.S. Vice President Al Gore conceded the election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush the next day.
2001 --- Winona Ryder was arrested at Saks Fifth Avenue for shoplifting and possessing pharmaceutical drugs without a prescription. The numerous items of clothing and hair accessories were valued at $4,760.
- Birthdays
- Frank Sinatra
- Connie Francis
- Dionne Warwick
- Justice John Jay
- Ed Koch
- Stand Watie
- Edvard Munch
- Tracy Austin
- Mayim Bialik
- Edward G Robinson
- Henry Armstrong
- Gustav Flaubert
- Joe Williams
- Grover Washington Jr.
- Dickey Betts
- Paul Rodgers
- Jennifer Connelly
- 346th Day of 2014 / 19 Remaining
- Winter Begins in 9 Days
- Sunrise:7:16
- Sunset:4:51
- 9 Hours 35 Minutes
- Moon Rise:10:57pm
- Moon Set:11:18am
- Moon Phase:66%
- Full Moon January 4 @ 8:54pm
- Wolf Moon
- Old Moon
- Moon After Yule
Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.
- Tides:
- High Tide:3:20am/2:02pm
- Low Tide:9:04am/8:51pm
- Rainfall
- This Year to Date:9.28
- Last Year:2.09
- Avg YTD:6.19
- Annual Avg:23.80