History for December 26

History for December 26 - On-This-Day.com:
Charles Babbage 1792- Mathematician and inventor, he is regarded as the pioneer of modern computers., Goerge Dewey 1837, Mao Zedong (Tse-tung) 1893- Chinese statesman
  

Richard Widmark 1914 - Actor, Steve Allen 1921 - Comedian, actor, composer. First host of "The Tonight Show." Films: The Benny Goodman Story (1955), The Comic (1969), Casino (1995). Scores: A Man Called Dagger (1968) and the CBS musical Alice in Wonderland (1985)., Alan King 1927 - Actor, comedian, producer: Films: Enemies, A Love Story and Casino


1776 - The British suffered a major defeat in the Battle of Trenton during the American Revolutionary War.


1865 - The coffee percolator was patented by James H. Mason.


1956 - Fidel Castro attempted a secret landing in Cuba to overthrow the Batista regime. All but 11 of his supporters were killed.


1982 - The Man of the Year in "TIME" magazine was a computer. It was the first time a non-human received the honors.


1991 - The Soviet Union's parliament formally voted the country out of existence.


1996 - Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, CO.


2002 - The first cloned human baby was born. The announcement was made the December 27 by Clonaid.


2004 - Under the Indian Ocean, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake sent 500-mph waves across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal. The tsunami killed at least 283,000 people in a dozen countries, including Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Sumatra, Thailand and India.