An earlier discussion here of the Sodder case: Can a house fire completely cremate a human body? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
In play:
December 26, 1861: In the conclusion of the Trent Affair, Confederate envoys James Murray Mason and John Slidell are freed by the United States government after having been seized from a Royal Mail steamer, thus heading off a possible war between the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
December 26, 2003: The Bam Earthquake in Iran kills over 26,000.
December 26, 2004: A 9.3 magnitude earthquake creates a tsunami causing devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and edges of the Indian Ocean, killing 230,000 people. (We felt the windows in our Bangkok condo, far from the Andaman Coast in the South, rattle and buzz from the earthquake. Thought it must be someone in the building doing some work. Then the reports started coming in a few hours later.)
December 27, 1939: The Erzinkan earthquake hits Turkey at just past 1am local time. 20,000 die. Another 13,000 perish due to exposure and injury during the blizzards and flooding that tragically follow.
December 27, 1932: Radio City Music Hall opens in New York City. Locals refer to it as “radi-AH-city”.
December 27, 537 – The Hagia Sophia is completed.
December 27, 1904: PETER PAN premiered at the Duke of York Theater in London. An immediate success, it became the Harry Potter sensation of its day. Among its fans was war hero and scouting founder Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, who was so taken with it that he named his son Peter and nicknamed one of his daughters Wendy. (BP did not marry until he was in his 50s, and had an unusual marriage- whenever weather permitted he slept on his wife’s balcony.)
December 28, 1908: Another terrible late December earthquake was the Messina Quake. The earthquake and resulting tsunamis killed 200,000 by some estimates. This is considered the worst earthquake ever to occur in Europe.
December 28, 1895: The Lumière brothers perform for their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines, marking the debut of the cinema.
December 28, 1832: John Calhoun becomes the first US vice president to resign, differences with President Jackson being the reason.
December 29, 1890: The Wounded Knee Massacre results in the killings of 150 to 300 Sioux Indians by the U.S. 7th Calvary. Nearly half of the dead are women and children.
December 29, 1997: Hong Kong begins to kill all the nation’s 1.25 million chickens to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.
December 30, 1903: The Iroquois Theatre Fire, the deadliest single building fire in U.S. history, occurs in Chicago. More people died (600+) in this Wednesday afternoon fire then in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
December 30, 2006: Former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein is executed.
The wife and I were in Hong Kong that month. The international press was reporting panic, but really the people there were pretty calm albeit concerned.
December 30, 1703: Tokyo is hit by an earthquake, killing 37,000.
The panic must have been by the chickens.
December 31, 1853: A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London, England.
1943 = Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. born. He would take the stage name John Denver and become famous, and die tragically in an airplane crash age 53/
December 31, 1904: Times Square (then Longacre Square) in New York City sees its first New Year’s Eve celebration.
December 31, 1942: The German destroyer* Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt * is sunk by the British during the Battle of the Barents Sea. All 341 on board die.
January 1, 1738: A Dutch West India Slave Ship, *The Leusden * runs aground in a storm. Fearing the slaves might overrun the few available lifeboats, the ship’s captain orders them to be locked below deck. While the captain and crew escape in the lifeboats, the 664 African slaves trapped below all drown.