Today in History: Texas Becomes the 28th State of the USA

December 29 is the 363th day of the year (364th in leap years) according to the Gregorian calendar. The number of days left until the end of the year is 2.

Railways

• 29 December 1897 During the Ottoman-Greek War, Dersaadet-Thessaloníki Peasant Line played an important role in the fever of soldiers and ammunition. Anatolia and Monastery Railway Company's government to get the 275.000 pound reached.
• 29 December 1943 The locomotives and freight wagons were brought back from Germany.

Events

• 1845 - Texas becomes the 28th state of the USA.
• 1890 - U.S. soldiers killed at least 62 Native Americans, 153 of them women and children, in what's known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.
• 1921 – Circassian Ethem, who did not accept to be under the command of İsmet Pasha, went on the offensive against the National Forces in Kütahya.
• 1941 – NBC started broadcasting in Turkish.
• 1976 – Production of Murat 131 started at Bursa TOFAŞ Automobile Factory.
• 1978 – Iran's opposition leader Shahpur Bakhtiyar becomes Prime Minister.
• 1982 – The 12nd execution of September 22: Halil Fevzi Uyguntürk, who went to the field where the girl worked and killed the girl, the girl's mother and another woman, was executed after the young girl he wanted to marry got engaged to someone else in 1975.
• 1982 – 12rd execution of September 23: Kazım Ergün, who killed the murderer, the murderer's wife and son in 1974, was executed after the murderer who killed his uncle was released from prison with the amnesty law enacted in 1975.
• 1982 – 12th execution of September 24: Muzaffer Öner, who killed his wife and brother-in-law who had left home in 1975, was executed.
• 1984 – Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was killed on 31 October in India, was succeeded by her son Rajiv Gandhi.
• 1985 – Ending the ten-year civil war in Lebanon peace treatywas signed by Muslim and Christian religious leaders in Damascus, the capital of Syria.
• 1989 - Writer Vaclav Havel is elected President of Czechoslovakia. First non-communist candidate in 40 years.
• The tram, which was decommissioned in 1990 – 1961, started to work on Istiklal Street.
• 1992 – The Culture and Art Grand Prize was given to the writer Yaşar Kemal.
• 1994 – Turkish Airlines plane named “Mersin” crashed while making its Van flight; 59 people died, 22 people were injured.
• 1995 – Kardak Crisis broke out between Turkey and Greece.
• 1996 – The 36-year-long civil conflict in Guatemala was ended with the agreement signed between the guerrilla forces and the government leaders.
• 1998 - Khmer Rouge leaders apologize for the 1970 genocide in Cambodia that claimed the lives of one million people.

Births

• 1692 – Franz Georg Hermann, German painter (d. 1768)
• 1709 – Yelizaveta, Empress of Russia from 1741 to 1762 (d. 1762)
• 1721 – Pompadour, French marquise (d. 1764)
• 1735 – Thomas Banks, English sculptor (d. 1805)
• 1788 – Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, Danish historian of antiquity (d. 1865)
• 1800 – Charles Goodyear, American inventor (d. 1860)
• 1808 – Andrew Johnson, American politician and 17th President of the United States (d. 1875)
• 1809 – William Ewart Gladstone, English politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1898)
• 1809 – Albert Pike, American poet, general, and 33rd Degree Grand Masonic (d. 1891)
• 1828 – Júlia Szendrey, Hungarian writer, poet, and translator (d. 1868)
• 1850 – Tomás Bretón, Spanish composer, violinist, and piano virtuoso (d. 1923)
• 1855 – William Thompson Sedgwick, American academic (d. 1921)
• 1859 – Venustiano Carranza, Mexican politician (d. 1920)
• 1861 – Necip Asım Yazıksız, Turkish linguist and historian (d. 1935)
• 1861 – Kurt Hensel, German mathematician (d. 1941)
• 1876 ​​– Pau Casals, Spanish cellist, composer, and director (d. 1973)
• 1895 – Jerzy Hryniewski, Prime Minister of Poland (d. 1978)
• 1896 – David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican painter and muralist (d. 1974)
• 1903 – Candido Portinari, Brazilian neo-realist painter (d. 1962)
• 1910 – Ronald Coase, British-American economist and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2013)
• 1910 – Gunnar Thoroddsen, Prime Minister of Iceland (d. 1983)
• 1911 – Klaus Fuchs, German theoretical physicist and atomic spy (d. 1988)
• 1913 – Pierre Werner, Prime Minister of Luxembourg (d. 2002)
• 1914 – Domènec Balmania, Spanish football player (d. 2002)
• 1915 – Jo Van Fleet, American stage, film, and television actress (d. 1996)
• 1918 – Leo J. Dulacki, American soldier (d. 2019)
• 1920 – Josefa Iloilo, President of Fiji (d. 2011)
• 1923 – Dina Merrill, American actress (d. 2017)
• 1924 – Freddy Buache, Swiss journalist, film critic, and historian (d. 2019)
• 1927 – Giorgio Capitani, Italian film director and screenwriter (d. 2017)
• 1927 – Yehoshua Glazer, Israeli football player (d. 2018)
• 1928 – Bernard Cribbins, English actor, voice actor, and musical comedian
• 1928 Piers Dixon, British politician (d. 2017)
• 1929 – Yaşar Güvenir, Turkish pianist, vocalist, composer and lyricist (d. 1998)
• 1936 – Mary Tyler Moore, American actress (d. 2017)
• 1938 – Jon Voight, American actor and winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor
• 1939 – Ed Bruce, American country music singer, songwriter, and actor (d. 2021)
• 1942 – Rajesh Khanna, Indian actor and filmmaker (d. 2012)
• 1947 - Ted Danson, American actor
• 1947 – Cozy Powell, English drummer (d. 1997)
• 1948 - Peter Robinson, former First Minister of Northern Ireland
• 1950 – Edip Akbayram, Turkish musician
• 1953 – Thomas Bach, German former national fencer
• 1957 – Brad Gray, American film and television producer (d. 2017)
• 1957 – Oliver Hirschbiegel, German director
• 1959 - Patricia Clarkson, American actress
• 1959 – Murat Yetkin, Turkish journalist and columnist
• 1962 – Carles Puigdemont, Spanish politician
• 1964 – Michael Cudlitz, American actor
• 1965 – Dexter Holland, American musician
• 1967 – Lilly Wachowski, American director
• 1969 – Jennifer Ehle, English-American actress
• 1970 – Enrico Chiesa, Italian national football player and manager
• 1972 – Leonor Varela, Chilean actor
• 1972 – Jude Law, English actress
• 1972 – Jaromír Blažek, Czechoslovak former football player
• 1974 – Mekhi Phifer, American actress
• 1976 - Katherine Moennig, American actress
• 1976 – Danny R. McBride, American actor, writer, and filmmaker
• 1978 – Kieron Dyer, English international football player
• 1978 – Danny Higginbotham, English-born Gibraltar national football player
• 1978 – Angelo Taylor, American athlete
• 1979 – Diego Luna, Mexican actor, singer, director and producer
• 1981 – Shizuka Arakawa, Japanese figure skater
• 1981 – Anna Woltz, Dutch writer
• 1981 – Berkay Şahin, Turkish singer
• 1982 - Alison Brie, American actress
• 1987 – Iain De Caestecker, Scottish actor
• 1988 – Agnes Szavay, Hungarian tennis player
• 1989 - Kei Nishikori, Japanese professional tennis player
• 1990 – Tadas Simaitis, Lithuanian football player
• 1994 - Keiya Sento, Japanese football player
• 1995 - Ross Lynch, American singer
• 1996 – Minatozaki Sana, Japanese singer and TV host active in South Korea
• 2000 – Eliot Vassamillet, Belgian singer

Deaths

• 1703 – II. Mustafa, 22nd Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (b. 1664)
• 1724 – Pavlo Polubotok, Kazakh hetman (b. 1660)
• 1772 – Ernst Johann von Biron, Duke of Courland and Semigallia (b. 1690)
• 1825 – Jacques-Louis David, French painter (b. 1748)
• 1829 – Henrietta (Nassau-Weilburg), wife of Archduke Karl, Duke of Teschen (b. 1797)
• 1891 – Leopold Kronecker, German mathematician and logician (b. 1823)
• 1919 – William Osler, Canadian physician (b. 1849)
• 1924 – Carl Spitteler, Swiss poet, author, and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1845)
• 1926 – Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian poet (b. 1875)
• 1929 – Wilhelm Maybach, German engine designer and industrialist (b. 1846)
• 1935 – II. Photios, 264th Ecumenical Patriarch (b. 1874)
• 1941 – Hüseyin Şadi Karagözoğlu, Turkish theater artist (b. 1890)
• 1941 – Tullio Levi-Civita, Italian mathematician (b. 1873)
• 1953 – Fahri Bük, Turkish politician (b. 1897)
• 1956 – Baba Salim Öğütçen, Turkish folk poet (b. 1887)
• 1963 – Aleksander Ładoś, Polish diplomat, consular officer, journalist, and politician (b. 1891)
• 1972 – Joseph Cornell, American sculptor (b. 1903)
• 1986 – Harold Macmillan, British politician and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1894)
• 1986 – Andrey Tarkovsky, Russian film director, writer, and actor (b. 1932)
• 1987 – Emin Barın, Turkish calligrapher and bookbinder (b. 1913)
• 1988 – Sıtkı Yırcalı, Turkish politician (b. 1908)
• 1989 – Süreyya Ağaoğlu, Turkish lawyer and writer (Turkey's first female lawyer) (b. 1903)
• 2007 – Phil O'Donnell, English football player (b. 1972)
• 2018 – Yehoshua Glazer, Israeli national football player (b. 1927)
• 2020 – Hatem Ali, Syrian actor and director (b. 1962)
• 2020 – Claude Bolling, French jazz pianist, composer, arranger and actor (b. 1930)
• 2020 – Pierre Cardin, Italian-French fashion designer (b. 1922)
• 2020 – Richard Choruma, former Zimbabwe national football player (b. 1978)
• 2020 – Josefina Echánove, Mexican actress, model and journalist (b. 1927)
• 2020 – Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Machado, Mexican politician (b. 1960)
• 2020 – Alexi Laiho, Finnish musician (b. 1979)
• 2020 – Luke Letlow, American politician (b. 1979)
• 2020 – Corrado Olmi, Italian actor and comedian (b. 1926)
• 2020 – Serafim Papacostas, Greek Orthodox archbishop of Greece (b. 1959)
• 2020 – Luigi Snozzi, Swiss architect (b. 1932)