What are the important events that happened on December 19? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.

December 19: Facts & Myths About This Day

December 19 is the 353^rd day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 12 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Friday.

Under the Julian calendar, this day is December 6, 2025 – a Friday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?

When this day started, 29,435,040 minutes has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.

Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘trihectapentacontatrigon’ day.

Sagittarius is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Turquoise is the modern birthstone for this month. Onyx is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 60 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.

The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,746 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.

December 19 Historical Events

• 211 –
  Publius Septimius Geta, co-emperor of Rome, is lured to come without his bodyguards to meet his brother Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla), to discuss a possible reconciliation. When he arrives the Praetorian Guard murders him and he dies in the arms of his mother Julia Domna.
• 1776 –
  Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in the Pennsylvania Journal titled The American Crisis.
• 1843 –
  Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol goes on sale.
• 1912 –
  William H. Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum which caught fire and killed over 1,000 people, is pardoned by U.S. President William Howard Taft after three-and-a-half-years in Sing Sing prison.
• 1920 –
  King Constantine I is restored as King of the Hellenes after the death of his son Alexander I of Greece and a plebiscite.
• 1932 –
  BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service
• 1946 –
  Start of the First Indochina War.
• 1963 –
  Zanzibar gains independence from the United Kingdom as a constitutional monarchy, under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah.
• 1967 –
  Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt is officially presumed dead.
• 1983 –
  The original FIFA World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro.

Who were born on December 19?

• 1683 –
  Philip V of Spain (d. 1746)
• 1899 –
  Martin Luther King, Sr., American Baptist minister and father of Civil Rights activist, Martin Luther King, Jr. (d. 1984)
• 1903 –
  George Davis Snell, American geneticist, Nobel laureate (d. 1996)
• 1944 –
  Mitchell Feigenbaum, American mathematical physicist
• 1946 –
  Robert Urich, American actor (d. 2002)
• 1958 –
  Steven Isserlis, English cellist
• 1970 –
  Tyson Beckford, American model
• 1979 –
  Kevin Devine, American musician
• 1980 –
  Marla Sokoloff, American actress
• 1988 –
  Alexis Sánchez, Chilean footballer

Who died on December 19?

• 1745 –
  Jean-Baptiste van Loo, French painter (b. 1684)
• 1944 –
  Rudolph Karstadt, German entrepreneur (b. 1856)
• 1993 –
  Michael Clarke, American drummer (The Byrds) (b. 1946)
• 1997 –
  Masaru Ibuka, Japanese industrialist (Sony) (b. 1908)
• 2000 –
  Pops Staples, American singer (The Staple Singers) (b. 1915)
• 2000 –
  Rob Buck, American guitarist (10,000 Maniacs) (b. 1958)
• 2002 –
  Arthur Rowley, English footballer (b. 1926)
• 2003 –
  Peter Carter-Ruck, English lawyer (b. 1914)
• 2004 –
  Herbert C. Brown, English-born American chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1912)
• 2005 –
  Keith Duckworth, English mechanical engineer (Cosworth) (b. 1933)