December 23, 1936

1936Frederic Forrest, American actor (died 2023)^[†]

Frederic Fenimore Forrest Jr. was an American actor. A figure of the New Hollywood movement, Forrest was best known for his collaborations with director Francis Ford Coppola, playing featured roles in The Conversation (1974), Apocalypse Now (1979), One from the Heart (1982), and Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988). He was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Huston Dyer in the musical drama The Rose (1979).

1936Bobby Ross, American football player and coach^[†]

Robert Joseph Ross is an American former football coach. He served as the head football coach at The Citadel (1973–1977), the University of Maryland, College Park (1982–1986), Georgia Tech (1987–1991), and the United States Military Academy (2004–2006), compiling a career college football coaching record of 103–101–2. Ross was also the head coach of the National Football League's San Diego Chargers from 1992 to 1996 and the Detroit Lions from 1997 to 2000, tallying a career NFL mark of 77–68. He guided his 1990 Georgia Tech squad to the UPI national championship and coached the 1994 San Diego Chargers to an appearance in Super Bowl XXIX.

1936Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.^[†]

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela to the east and northeast, Brazil to the southeast, Peru and Ecuador to the south and southwest, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and Panama to the northwest. Colombia is divided into 32 departments. The Capital District of Bogotá is also the country's largest city hosting the main financial and cultural hub. Other major urban areas include Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Cúcuta, Ibagué, Villavicencio and Bucaramanga. It covers an area of 1,141,748 square kilometers and has a population of around 52 million. Its rich cultural heritage—including language, religion, cuisine, and art—reflects its history as a colony, fusing cultural elements brought by immigration from Europe and the Middle East, with those brought by the African diaspora, as well as with those of the various Indigenous civilizations that predate colonization. Spanish is the official language, although Creole, English and 64 other languages are recognized regionally.

1936Spanish Civil War: The Spanish Republic legalizes the Regional Defence Council of Aragon.^[†]

The Spanish Civil War was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic and included socialists, anarchists, communists, and separatists. The opposing Nationalists who established the Spanish State were an alliance of fascist Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and led by a military junta among whom General Francisco Franco quickly achieved a preponderant role. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war was variously viewed as class struggle, a religious struggle, or a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, or between fascism and communism. The Nationalists won the war, which ended in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.