On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Plans to visit Pope
new quake, Salinas, Calif, region; tremors, Cape Town, South Africa
N Y Film Critics broadcast plans confused by NBC's temporary banning of LaGuardia
Wheeler-Hill arrested after grand jury hands up perjury indictment
HELSINKI, Finland, Friday, Dec. 29--Finnish troops were reported officially today to be pressing deeper into Russian territory toward the Soviet's important Repola base.
1939Ed Bruce, American country music singer-songwriter (died 2021)[†]
William Edwin Bruce Jr. was an American country music songwriter, singer, and actor. He was known for writing the 1975 song "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" and recording the 1982 country number-one hit "You're the Best Break This Old Heart Ever Had". He also co-starred in the television series Bret Maverick with James Garner during the 1981–1982 season.
1939Kelly Miller, American mathematician, sociologist, essayist, newspaper columnist and author (born 1863)[†]
Kelly Miller was an African-American mathematician, sociologist, essayist, newspaper columnist, author, and an important figure in the intellectual life of black America for close to half a century. He was known as "the Bard of the Potomac".
1939Madeleine Pelletier, French psychiatrist, feminist and political activist (born 1874)[†]
Madeleine Pelletier was a French psychiatrist, first-wave feminist, and political activist. Born in Paris, Pelletier frequented socialist and anarchist groups in her adolescence. She became a doctor in her twenties, overcoming a large educational gap, and was France's first woman to receive a doctorate in psychiatry. Pelletier joined freemasonry, the French Section of the Workers' International, and came to lead a feminist association. She set out to join the October Revolution but returned disillusioned. In France, she continued to advocate for feminist and communist causes, and wrote numerous articles, essays, and literary works, even following a stroke in 1937 which made her hemiplegic. Pelletier was charged with having performed an abortion in 1939 despite her condition precluding her ability to perform this act. She was placed in a mental asylum where her health deteriorated and she died of a second stroke later that year.