That's it, the last day of the year, all she wrote, as they say

World History this day

1600 – The British East India Company was chartered
1857 – Queen Victoria picked Ottawa to be Canada's capitol
1951 – The Marshall Plan expired
1963 – The Central African Federation collapsed into Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.
1965 – Bokassa started a coup against the Central African Republic
1981 – A coup overthrew the government of Ghana
1983 – A coup ended the Second Nigerian Republic.
1992 – Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved
1999 – Yeltsin, resigned making Putin acting President of Russia

US History this day

1862 – Lincoln admitted West Virginia into the Union, partitioning Virginia
1946 – Truman proclaimed the end of WWII
1983 – The AT&T - Bell monpoly was broken up
1999 – The US gave control of the Panama Canal and the Canal Zone to Panama. *****
***** Subject to the fact that the US will invade and overthrow any government it disapproves of at its sole discretion.

Science & Technology this day

1878 – Karl Benz filed for a patent on his two-stroke gas engine
1879 – Edison publicly demonstrated incandescent lighting for the first time
2011 – NASA put the first of the two GRAIL satellites in lunar orbit

The Arts this day

Misc. this day
1759 – Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease and started brewing Guinness, that's optimism

Birthdays of Note this day

1491 – Jacques Cartier, navigator and explorer
1514 – Andreas Vesalius, physician and anatomist
1763 – Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, Napoleon's admiral at Trafalgar
1830 – Isma'il Pasha, Egyptian ruler, cost them the canal
1869 – Henri Matisse, painter
1880 – George Marshall, general and politician
1905 – Helen Dodson Prince, astronomer
1905 – Jule Styne, composer
1909 – Jonah Jones, trumpet and sax player
1917 – Evelyn Knight, singer
1925 – Daphne Oram, composer and electronic music creator
1928 – Ross Barbour, pop singer (4 Freshmen)
1930 – Odetta, singer, songwriter and guitarist
1940 – Mani Neumeier, drummer
1942 – Andy Summers, guitarist and songwriter
1943 – John Denver, guitarist, singer and songwriter
1943 – Pete Quaife, kinky bass player
1947 – Burton Cummings, singer, songwriter and keyboards player
1947 – Rita Lee, singer and composer
1948 – Donna Summer, singer and songwriter
1951 – Tom Hamilton, bass player
1972 – Joey McIntyre, singer and songwriter

Deaths of Note this day

1384 – John Wycliffe, philosopher and theologian
1691 – Robert Boyle, chemist and physicist
1719 – John Flamsteed, astronomer
1877 – Gustave Courbet, painter
1948 – Malcolm Campbell, speed freak
1968 – George Lewis, clarinet player and composer
1980 – Marshall McLuhan, philosopher and media theorist
1985 – Ricky Nelson, singer, songwriter, guitarist, actor, party goer
1997 – Floyd Cramer, singer, songwriter and pianist
2008 – Donald E. Westlake, author and screenwriter
2015 – Natalie Cole, singer, songwriter and actress

Photo: The Fremont Street Experience. Las Vegas by Bernard Spragg. NZ; public domain
Bernard Spragg. NZ

It's an open thread, so do your thing

I have a bunch of stuff to do today, so I might not be around much.

edited at 8:06 am to fix mucho typos.