On Dec. 22, 1858, composer Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy.
In 1864 during the Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman sent a message to President Abraham Lincoln: “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.”
In 1894 French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggered worldwide charges of anti-Semitism. (Dreyfus eventually was vindicated.)
In 1912 Claudia Alta Taylor, who would become Lady Bird Johnson as the wife of future President Lyndon Johnson, was born in Karnack, Texas.
In 1917 Mother Maria Frances Xavier Cabrini, the Italian immigrant and first U.S. citizen canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, died in Chicago.
In 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe replied “Nuts!” when the Germans demanded that the Americans surrender.
In 1984, fearing robbery, New York resident Bernhard Goetz shot four youths on a Manhattan subway.
In 1989 Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, the last of East Europe’s hard-line communist rulers, was toppled from power in a popular uprising. Also, playwright Samuel Beckett died in Paris; he was 83.
In 1991 the body of Lt. Col. William Higgins, an American hostage murdered by his captors, was found dumped along a highway in Lebanon.
In 1995 actress Butterfly McQueen, who portrayed the slave Prissy in “Gone With the Wind,” died; she was 84.
In 2000 President Bill Clinton granted Christmastime clemency to 62 people, including former U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski.
In 2001 Richard Reid, a passenger on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, tried to ignite explosives in his shoes, but was subdued by flight attendants and fellow passengers.
In 2002 Joe Strummer, former lead singer of the seminal British punk band The Clash, died in Broomfield, England; he was 50.
