Thursday 21st of December 1673

Double murderer Jeremiah Meacham is born in Salem, Massachusetts, United States.

Monday 21st of December 1682

Pirate captain John Rackham aka Calico Jack is born in Bristol, South West England, United Kingdom.

Tuesday 21st of December 1875

Murderer Henry Wainwright is executed by hanging by William Marwood in Newgate Prison, London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

On the scaffold Wainwright shouted: “Come to see a man die, have you, you curs?”.

Thursday 21st of December 1911

Société Générale bank messenger Ernest Caby is robbed and shot by 35-year-old Illegalist Jules Bonnot aka Le Bourgeois known from ‘La Bande à Bonnot’ and his gang in 148 rue Ordener, Paris, XVIIIe, Île-de-France, France.

The holdup was the first ever criminal use of a get-away car, a green-and-black 12CV Delaunay-Belleville 1910 model.

Friday 21st of December 1917

Writer Heinrich Theodor Böll is born in Köln, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Saturday 21st of December 1918

9th President of Austria Kurt Josef Waldheim is born in Sankt Andrä-Wördern, Niederösterreich, Austria.

Saturday 21st of December 1935

Journalist, satirist and writer Kurt Tucholsky aka Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel commits suicide by an overdose of sleeping pills at the age of 45 in Hindås, Västergötland, Sweden.

Monday 21st of December 1936

31-year-old Geisha, prostitute, actress and murderess Sada Abe is convicted of murder in the second degree and mutilation of a corpse in Tokyo, Kantō, Japan.

Tuesday 21st of December 1937

Actress, political activist and fitness guru Jane Fonda is born as Jayne Seymour Fonda in New York City, New York, United States.

Saturday 21st of December 1940

Musician and composer Frank Vincent Zappa known from the Mothers of Invention is born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

Saturday 21st of December 1940

Writer Scott F. Francis Key Fitzgerald dies of a heart attack at the age of 44 in 1443 North Hayworth Avenue, Hollywood, California, United States.

Friday 21st of December 1945

War leader George Smith Patton aka Old Blood and Guts dies of pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure at the age of 60 in US Army Meddac Hospital, Freiburger Str. 2, Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Patton had been thrown forward and smashed his head into a metal part when the Cadillac Model 75 he was sitting in crashed into a 2 1/2 ton military truck on a pheasant hunting trip on 8 December.

Friday 21st of December 1951

119 die in Orient No. 2 coal mine explosion in Orient No. 2, West Frankfort, Illinois, United States.

Sunday 21st of December 1952

Serial killer Larry Eyler aka The Leather Boy Killer is born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, United States.

Tuesday 21st of December 1954

After deliberating for four days the jury finds 31-year-old Presumed murderer Sam Samuel Holmes Sheppard guilty of second-degree murder in Cleveland, Ohio, United States.

Sheppard was sentenced to life in prison.

Thursday 21st of December 1967

Victim of Jeffrey Dahmer aka The Milwaukee Cannibal David C. Thomas is born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States.

Thursday 21st of December 1967

Louis Washkansky known for becoming the recipient of the world’s first human-to-human heart transplant dies of pneumonia at the age of 54 in Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, Cape Province, South Africa.

Washkansky lived eighteen days after the transplant.

Wednesday 21st of December 1977

38-year-old Serial killer Patrick Wayne Kearney aka The Freeway Killer aka The Trash Bag Killer is given twenty-one life sentences in Riverside, California, United States.

Kearney was charged with twenty-one counts of murder and as agreed pleaded guilty.

Wednesday 21st of December 1983

38-year-old Serial killer Dennis Andrew Nilsen aka Killing For Company is slashed across the cheek with razor by 21-year-old Albert Moffat in Wormwood Scrubs Prison, London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Nilsen needed 89 stitches.

Wednesday 21st of December 1988

270 die in Pan Am Boeing 747-121 Flight 103 bomb explosion in Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie, Scotland, United Kingdom.

The plane was sabotaged by Libyan terrorists. In 2001 Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was jailed for the bombing.

Tuesday 21st of December 1999

Fun with an art crew at a gift market in Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Central Thailand, Thailand.

Tuesday 21st of December 2010

41-year-old Serial killer Stephen Shaun Griffiths aka The Crossbow Cannibal is sentenced to life imprionment for three murders in Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.

Tuesday 21st of December 2021

Mass murderer Yasutaka Fujishiro is executed by hanging at the age of 65 in Tokyo Detention House, Tokyo, Katsushika, Kantō, Japan.

Fujishiro killed his 80-year-old aunt, two cousins and four others during a hammer and knife rampage in 2004.

Tuesday 21st of December 2021

Double murderer Tomoaki Takanezawa is executed by hanging at the age of 54 in Tokyo Detention House, Tokyo, Katsushika, Kantō, Japan.

Tuesday 21st of December 2021

Double murderer Mitsunori Onogawa is executed by hanging at the age of 44 in Tokyo Detention House, Tokyo, Katsushika, Kantō, Japan.