Drum artist Harry Judd

Events in 1985 and 23-12

Events in the world in the birth year of Harry Judd

• Soviet leader Chernenko dies at 73 and is replaced by Mikhail Gorbachev, 54 (March 11). Under the slogans of glasnost and Perestroika, Gorbachev initiates a broad program of reform and liberalization. Background: Rulers of Russia since 1533
• Two Shi'ite Muslim gunmen capture TWA airliner with 133 aboard, 104 of them Americans (June 14); 39 remaining hostages freed in Beirut (June 30).
• PLO terrorists hijack Achille Lauro, Italian cruise ship, with 80 passengers, plus crew (Oct. 7); American, Leon Klinghoffer, killed (Oct. 8); Italian government toppled by political crisis over hijacking (Oct. 16).
• Reagan and Gorbachev meet at summit (Nov. 19); agree to step up arms control talks and renew cultural contacts (Nov. 21). Background: nuclear disarmament
• Terrorists seize Egyptian Boeing 737 airliner after takeoff from Athens (Nov. 23); 59 dead as Egyptian forces storm plane on Malta (Nov. 24).

Birthday Harry Judd (23-12) in history

• Day 23-12 year 1783: George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Army.
• Day 23-12 year 1788: Maryland voted to cede a 100-square-mile area for the District of Columbia.
• Day 23-12 year 1823: The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ("'Twas the night before Christmas"), written by either Clement C. Moore or Maj. Henry Livingston, Jr., was published in the Troy Sentinel of New York.
• Day 23-12 year 1913: President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the Federal Reserve System.
• Day 23-12 year 1947: The transistor was unveiled by American physicists John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William Shockley.
• Day 23-12 year 1948: Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese war leaders were executed.
• Day 23-12 year 1986: Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager completed the first non-stop, around-the-world flight without refueling aboard the experimental airplane Voyager.