Today in History in 1937 the first screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first feature-length animated movie.

The On This Day In History archives at “Simple English Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia” contains over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

December 21 is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 10 days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

69 – Vespasian becomes the fourth Roman Emperor in the Year of the four emperors.

640 - Muslim Arabs capture the Babylonian fortress in the Nile Delta after a seven-month siege.

1124 - Pope Honorius II is elected.

1361 - The Battle of Linuesa is fought during the Spanish Reconquista between forces of the Emirate of Granada and the combined army of the Kingdoms of Castile and Jaen, resulting in a Castilian victory.

1471 – The first European reaches the island of Sao Tome in the Gulf of Guinea.

1598 - Battle of Curalaba: The revolting Mapuche, led by Cacique Pelentaru, inflict a major defeat on the Spanish troops in Southern Chile.

1620 – The Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock

1780 – Great Britain declares war on The Netherlands in response to the Dutch joining the League of Armed Neutrality and for assisting French and American forces during the American Revolution.

1832 - Egyptian-Ottoman War: Egyptian forces decisively defeat Ottoman Empire troops in the Battle of Konya in present-day Turkey.

1859 – Sam Houston becomes Governor of Texas.

1861 – The Medal of Honor is first authorized.

1861 – Lord Lyons, the British minister to the United States, meets with United States Secretary of State William Seward concerning Confederate envoys arrested by the United States Navy in order to prevent war between the United States and the United Kingdom.

1872 – HMS Challenger sails from Portsmouth on the 4-year scientific expedition that would lay the foundation for the science of oceanography.

1879 - The first performance of Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House takes place in Copenhagen.

1880 – Isle of Man becomes first political entity that allows women to vote

1891 – The first basketball game is played.

1898 – Marie and Pierre Curie discover radium.

1907 - The Chilean army commits a massacre of at least 2,000 workers striking saltpeter miners in Iquique.

1910 - An underground explosion at Hulton Bank Colliery in Westhoughton, England, kills 344 miners.

1913 – First crossword puzzle is published in the New York World paper, created by Arthur Wynne.

1914 – First feature-length silent movie comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance, starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin, is released

1919 – Municipal elections held in Senegal (First round, second round is held December 28). The multiracial lists of the Independent Socialist Republican Party (PRSI) wins in all four municipalities.

1923 – Nepal changes from British protectorate to independent state.

1933 – Newfoundland becomes a crown colony.

1934 - President of Bolivia Daniel Salamanca is overthrown in a military coup.

1937 – First screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first feature-length animated movie.

1941 - A treaty of alliance is signed by Japan and Thailand.

1942 - Hundreds of workers striking for better pay and conditions at a tin mine in Bolivia are massacred.

1946 - The Nankaido earthquake in Japan kills over 1,300 people.

1958 – Charles de Gaulle is elected as the first President and establishes the Fifth Republic.

1962 – Rondane National Park, the first national park in Norway, is established.

1965 - The UN adopts the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

1967 - Louis Washkansky, who received the first successful heart transplant in Cape Town on December 3, dies 18 days after the operation.

1968 – Apollo 8 is launched.

1969 - The UN adopts the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

1978 - John Wayne Gacy is arrested for the killings of 33 boys and young men.

1979 – The United States government bails out the Chrysler Corporation

1979 – The Lancaster House Agreement was signed, effectively ending the white rule in Rhodesia under Ian Smith.

1984 - The Soviet Vega 2 probe is launched to the planet Venus.

1987 – The passenger ferry Doña Paz sinks after colliding with the oil tanker Vector 1 in the Philippines.

1988 – A terrorist bomb explodes and crashes Pan Am flight 103 a Boeing 747, over Lockerbie, Scotland killing 270, including 11 on the ground.

1991 - The former Soviet Union countries Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan join the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1994 – The Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico erupts.

1995 – Bethlehem goes from Israeli to Palestinian control.

1999 – Chadrika Kumaratunga is confirmed as Sri Lanka's Head of State.

1999 – The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a van loaded with 950 kg of explosives intended by ETA to blow down Torre Picasso.

2001 – Japanese television performer Masashi Tashiro got No. 1 temporarily in the Internet vote of Time's Person of the Year.

2002 – Vancouver, British Columbia city council declares "D.O.A. Day" in observance of the Canadian punk band D.O.A.'s decades of influence and accomplishments.

2005 - The United Kingdom introduces Civil Partnership for same-sex couples. Elton John and his partner David Furnish are among those who make use of this law on its first day.

2006 – Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov dies.

2007 – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary implement the Schengen Agreement.

2010 – A partial lunar eclipse occurs on the day of the December solstice.

2012 – The Long Count of the Maya calendar resets itself according to the most popular correlation. A minority argues that it does so on December 23, 2012. This has been central to various predictions about December 21, 2012, ranging from spiritual and transformative to apocalyptic.

2012 - Having been posted on YouTube in July, and becoming a worldwide hit, the video of PSY's Gangnam Style reaches the milestone of a billion views on the video-sharing website.

2014 - Klaus Iohannis becomes President of Romania.

2014 - Beji Caid Essebsi is elected President of Tunisia.

2015 - Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini are banned from football for 8 years over corruption at FIFA.

2017 - Catalonia holds regional elections, with the coalition of parties supporting Catalan independence keeping its majority.

2017 - Birmingham, England, is given the right to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games.