1792–France’s King Louis XVI goes on trial, accused of high treason and crimes against the state. 1911 – Egyptian novelist and screenplay writer Naguib Mahfouz, the first Arabic writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in Cairo. 1913– “Mona Lisa” recovered 2 years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum 1931– Statute of Westminster gives complete legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland (Free State), and Newfoundland (not then part of Canada). 1941 – Adolf Hitler declared that Germany was at war with the United States following the Japanese attacks on the U.S., British, and Dutch positions in the Pacific and in East Asia. 1946 – In the aftermath of World War II, the General Assembly of the United Nations votes to establish the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), an organization to help provide relief and support to children living in countries devastated by the war. 1936 – Edward VIII announces in a radio broadcast that he is abdicating the British throne to marry Wallis Simpson. 1946 – UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) established (Nobel 1965). 1978 – Nearly $6 million in cash and jewels was stolen from the air cargo building of the German airline Lufthansa at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City; at the time, the Lufthansa heist, as it became known, was the largest-ever cash theft in the United States. 1997– Delegates from 150 industrial nations attending a UN climate conference in Kyoto, Japan, reach an agreement to control heat-trapping greenhouse gases. 2012 – British physicist, Stephen Hawking, wins the $3 million Fundamental Physics Prize, the most lucrative academic prize in the world. 2018 - Time Magazine Person of the Year 2018 is “the Guardians” journalists targeted for their work, including Jamal Khashoggi.
Film:1967 – “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, premieres in NYC (Hepburn – Academy Award for Best Actress 1968).
Music:1946– Hank Williams begins to record on Sterling label.
