Today is Monday, Dec. 31, the 365th and final day of 2018.
Today’s highlight: On Dec. 31, 1972, Major League baseball player Roberto Clemente, 38, was killed when a plane he chartered and was traveling on to bring relief supplies to earthquake-devastated Nicaragua crashed shortly after takeoff from Puerto Rico.
On this date:
In 1759, Arthur Guinness founded his famous brewery at St. James’s Gate in Dublin.
In 1775, during the Revolutionary War, the British repulsed an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at Quebec; Montgomery was killed.
In 1879, Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light by illuminating some 40 bulbs at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
In 1904, New York’s Times Square saw its first New Year’s Eve celebration, with an estimated 200,000 people in attendance.
Today’s birthdays: TV producer George Schlatter is 89. Actor Sir Anthony Hopkins is 81. Actor Tim Considine (TV: “My Three Sons”) is 78. Actress Sarah Miles is 77.
Thought for today: “Though the past haunt me as a spirit, I do not ask to forget.” — Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans, English poet (1793-1835).
— Associated Press
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