Today in History

From wikipedia.org:

Events
1545 - Council of Trent begins
1577 - Sir Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, on his round-the-world voyage
1642 - Abel Janszoon Tasman reaches New Zealand
1978 - First Susan B. Anthony dollar enters circulation
1981 - General Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland
2003 - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit
2004 - A moderate 5.4 Richter Scale earthquake is felt all over Portugal, with its epicenter in the Atlantic Ocean, southwest of São Vicente’s Cape (Algarve), with no losses reported
2004 - Scott Peterson was sentenced to the death penalty in the murder case of his wife, Laci Peterson, and unborn son, Connor

Births
1813 - David Spangler Kaufman, American politician, first Jewish Congressman from Texas (d. 1851)
1816 - Werner von Siemens, engineer, inventor and industrialist (d. 1892)
1818 - Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States (d. 1882)
1854 - Thomas Watson, telephone pioneer
1887 - Alvin York, U.S. soldier of World War I, known as ‘Sergeant York’ (d. 1964)
1903 - Carlos Montoya, guitarist (d. 1993)
1925 - Dick Van Dyke, actor, comedian
1927 - Christopher Plummer, actor

Deaths
1124 - Pope Callixtus II
1784 - Samuel Johnson, essayist
1961 - Grandma Moses, artist (b. 1860)
2004 - David Wheeler, Computer Scientist (b. 1927)

Holidays & observances
Catholicism - Saint Lucy’s day
In the Irish calendar the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following the Feast of Saint Lucy were observed as Quarter tense
St. Lucia Day in Sweden