^B{^#!16!4 December^N! Feast day of St Maruthas, St Bernard of Parma, St Sola, St Osmund, St Anno, St Barbara, virgin-martyr, and St John of Damascus.
^B{1154^B} The only Englishman to become a pope, Nicholas Breakspear, became Adrian IV. ^B{1791^B} Britain's oldest Sunday paper, the ^I{Observer^I}, was first published. ^B{1798^B} William Pitt the Younger first introduced income tax in Britain, to finance the wars with revolutionary France. ^B{1808^B} Napoleon abolished the Inquisition in Spain. ^B{1829^B} Under British rule, suttee (whereby a widow commits suicide by joining her husband's funeral pyre) was made illegal in India. ^B{1947^B} The first performance of Tennessee Williams' ^I{A Streetcar Named Desire^I} starring Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy, in New York. ^B{1961^B} Birth control pills became available on the NHS. ^B{1991^B} News correspondent Terry Anderson, the longest-held Western hostage in Lebanon (2,454 days in captivity), was freed by Islamic Jihad.
^B{^I{^#!14!Born ^N}Thomas Carlyle, Scottish author, ^B{1795^B}; Edith Cavell, English nurse, ^B{1865^B}; Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet, ^B{1875^B}; Francisco Franco, Spanish dictator, ^B{1892^B}; Ronnie Corbett, British comedian, ^B{1930^B}; Jeff Bridges, US film actor, ^B{1949^B}.
^B{^I{^#!14!Died ^N}Cardinal Richelieu, French politician, ^B{1642^B}; John Gay, English poet and dramatist, ^B{1732^B}; Luigi Galvani, Italian physiologist, ^B{1798^B}; Jack Payne, British bandleader, ^B{1969^B}; Benjamin Britten, English composer, ^B{1976^B}.
