Thursday 22nd of December 1639

Dramatist Jean Baptiste Racine is born in La Ferté-Milon, Picardie, France.

Monday 22nd of December 1738

Prostitute Constantia Jones is executed by hanging at the age of 30 in Tyburn Tree, London, Tyburn, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Jones had stolen 36 shillings and a half-guinea from a client.

Friday 22nd of December 1826

Wilhelmine Rumpff is poisoned with arsenic by serial poisoner Gesche Gottfried aka Der Engel von Bremen in Bremen, Freie Hansestadt Bremen, Germany.

Wednesday 22nd of December 1858

Composer Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini is born in Corte San Lorenzo 9, Lucca, Toscana, Italy.

Friday 22nd of December 1876

Founder of the Futurist movement Filippo Tommaso Marinetti is born as Emilio Angelo Carlo Marinetti in Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt.

Saturday 22nd of December 1883

Composer Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse aka The Stratospheric Colossus of Sound is born in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Thursday 22nd of December 1892

Mistress of Henri Désiré Landru aka Le Barbe-Bleue de Gambais Fernande Ernestine Marcelline Segret is born in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Monday 22nd of December 1902

Psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing known for Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie dies of unknown causes at the age of 62 in Graz, Steiermark, Austria.

Monday 22nd of December 1924

Serial killer and cannibal Karl Denke aka Papa Denke commits suicide by hanging in his cell at the age of 64 in Münsterberg, Niederschlesien, Germany.

Denke was arrested after attacking Vincenz Oliver with a hackblade during dinner. When police searched his house at Teichstraße 10, they found drums with salted meat and written notes about 20 years of murder and cannibalism.

Wednesday 22nd of December 1926

48-year-old Elizabeth Beard is raped and strangled by serial killer Earle Leonard Nelson aka The Gorilla Murderer in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States.

Tuesday 22nd of December 1936

Victim of The Manson Family Wojciech Frykowski is born in Łódź, Łódź Voivodeship, Poland.

Friday 22nd of December 1939

186 die in D-Zug D 10 and D 180 collision in Bahnhof, Genthin, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany.

Sunday 22nd of December 1946

Wife of Jim Morrison Pamela Susan Courson is born in Weed, California, United States.

Tuesday 22nd of December 1953

Double murderer Alfred Charles Whiteway known for the Towpath murders is executed by hanging at the age of 22 in Wandsworth Prison, London, Wandsworth, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Sunday 22nd of December 1963

128 die in TSMS Lakonia cruise-liner fire and sinking in the North Atlantic Ocean.

The Lakonia departed Southampton on 19 December 1963 for an 11-day 'Christmas Cruise' of the Canary Islands.

Thursday 22nd of December 1966

5-year-old Ilona Harke is sexually assaulted and drowned by serial killer Joachim Kroll aka Jockel aka Der Ruhrkannibale in Feldbachtal, Hückeswagen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Harke disappeared in Wuppertal and was found four days later.

Monday 22nd of December 1969

Film director Josef von Sternberg dies of a heart attack at the age of 75 in Hollywood, California, United States.

Wednesday 22nd of December 1971

Seven members of die Rote Armee Fraktion aka Baader-Meinhof Gruppe rob a bank of 134.000 DM in Bayerische Hypotheken- und Wechselbank, Fackelstraße 29, Kaiserslautern, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany.

32-year-old policeman Herbert Schoner was shot dead when he tried to caution the getaway car for unlawful parking.

Wednesday 22nd of December 1971

66-year-old Murderess Winnie Ruth Judd aka The Trunk Murderess is released on parole after 39 years imprisonment in Arizona State Hospital, 2500 E. Van Buren, Phoenix, Arizona, United States.

Wednesday 22nd of December 1971

46-year-old Ida Van Isacker-Smeets is raped, tortured and strangled by serial killer Gustaaf Van Eyken aka De Vampier van Muizen in Dijleoever, Mechelen, Hanswijk, Antwerpen, Belgium.

Van Eyken wanted to rape Van Isacker but he couldn't so he strangled her. Then he went home to eat. Upon returning to finally rape her she was still alive. Van Eyken mutilated and strangled her again.

Friday 22nd of December 1972

16 survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force twin turboprop Fairchild FH-227D Flight 571 plane crash are found in the Andes || Glaciar de las Lágrimas, the Andes.

They fed on the dead passengers who had been preserved in the snow after their plane crashed on 13 October 1972.

Friday 22nd of December 1972

Singer, model and actress Vanessa Chantal Paradis is born in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Île-de-France, France.

Sunday 22nd of December 1974

Victim of Arthur Gary Bishop aka The Mormon Murderer Alonzo C. Daniels is born in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States.

Sunday 22nd of December 1974

42-year-old David Perez is stabbed to death by serial killer Vaughn Greenwood aka The Skid Row Slasher in Los Angeles, California, United States.

Monday 22nd of December 1975

Suzanne Bach is attacked by serial killer Bernd Bopp aka Der Hammermörder in Weinheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Bach survived.

Monday 22nd of December 1975

29-year-old Connie Jo Claborn Bronzich and 26-year-old Laurent Ormond Carrière is drugged and stabbed to death by serial killer Charles Sobhraj aka Bad Blood in Kathmandu, Bagmati, Nepal.

Friday 22nd of December 1978

9-year-old Yelena Zakotnova is raped, stabbed and strangled by serial killer Andrei Chikatilo aka The Rostov Ripper in Grushevskiy most, Shakhty, Rostov Oblast, Russia.

Zakotnova was Chikatilo's first victim. Other suspects for the murder were 25-year-old Alexander Kravchenko and 50-year-old Anatoly Grigoriev. On 8 January 1979 Grigoriev hanged himself. On 5 July 1983 Kravchenko was executed for the murder.  

Friday 22nd of December 1978

36-year-old Serial killer John Wayne Gacy aka The Killer Clown is placed under arrest as a suspect in the abduction of Robert Piest in 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States.

Friday 22nd of December 1978

Start of the excavations in the house of 36-year-old Serial killer John Wayne Gacy aka The Killer Clown in 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States.

Between 22 and 29 December, 27 bodies were recovered from Gacy's property, 26 of which were found buried in his crawl space, with one additional victim, John Butkovitch, being found buried beneath the concrete floor of his garage precisely where Gacy had marked the youth's grave with a can of spray paint.

Saturday 22nd of December 1984

37-year-old Bernhard Hugo Goetz aka The Subway Vigilante shoots 19-year-old Troy Canty, 19-year-old Darrel Cabey, 19-year-old Barry Allen and 18-year-old Jimmy Ramseur who attempted to rob him in the Broadway - Seventh Avenue Line express subway train in IRT 14th Street Station, New York, New York, United States.

On 31 December 1984 Goetz walked into the Concord, New Hampshire police headquarters and told the officer on duty "I am the person they are seeking in New York." At the civil trial years later Goetz said "I was trying to get as many of them as I could."

Saturday 22nd of December 1984

Noise music band Club Moral perform 'Here Lives My House' as their 41st concert in V2, Vughterstraat 234, Den Bosch, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands.

Monday 22nd of December 1986

Terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab aka Omar Farooq al-Nigeri aka The Underwear Bomber is born in Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria.

Tuesday 22nd of December 1987

47-year-old Mass murderer Ronald Gene Simmons kills his 46-year-old wife Rebecca, his children, 29-year-old Gene, 17-year-old Loretta, 14-year-old Eddy, 11-year-old Marianne and 8-year-old Rebecca Becky, and his granddaughter (or daughter) 3-year-old Barbara by shooting, strangling and drowning in Mockingbird Hill, Dover, Arkansas, United States.

Four days later Simmons killed another seven members of his family.

Friday 22nd of December 1989

Writer and playwright Samuel Barclay Beckett known for Waiting for Godot dies of respiratory failure at the age of 83 in Résidence Tiers Temps, 24 Rue Rémy Dumoncel, Paris, XIVe, Île-de-France, France.

Tuesday 22nd of December 1992

157 die in Libyan Arab Airlines Boeing 727-2L5 Flight 1103 and a Libyan Air Force MiG-23 mid-air collision in Tripoli International Airport, Tripoli, Greater Tripoli, Libya.

Sunday 22nd of December 1996

33-year-old Jacqueline Leclercq is abducted, killed and cut to pieces by unidentified serial killer Le Dépeceur de Mons aka The Trash Bag Killer in Rue Malapert, Hyon, Hainaut, Belgium.

On 22 March 1997 several parts of Leclercq's body were found in trash bags in Cuesmes.

Monday 22nd of December 1997

Start of the trial against 48-year-old Serial killer Ahmad Suradji aka The Sorcerer in Medan, Sumatera Utara, Indonesia.

Suradji stood trial for the murders of 42 women whom he ‘treated’ as a sorcerer, this involved the drinking of their saliva, and strangling them while half buried.

Wednesday 22nd of December 1999

The clerk at the post-office across the Royal Palace who at first refused to gave me a postbox address but completely changed his mind when I came back with Sutee and gave me one at the office in Banglamphu in Bangkok, Central Thailand, Thailand.

Saturday 22nd of December 2001

28-year-old Terrorist Richard Colvin Reid aka The Shoe Bomber aka Abdel Rahim aka Abdul Rof attempts to blow up the American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami Boeing 767 by use of PETN explosives hidden in his shoe in Logan International Airport, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

The rainy weather along with Reid's foot perspiration caused the fuse to be too damp to ignite.

Saturday 22nd of December 2007

61-year-old Serial killer Peter William Sutcliffe aka The Yorkshire Ripper is stabbed in the face by fellow inmate Patrick Sureda with a metal cutlery knife while shouting "You fucking raping, murdering bastard, I'll blind your fucking other one" in Broadmoor Hospital, Crowthorne, Berkshire, United Kingdom.

Sutcliffe, already blind in one eye after a previous attack, flung himself backwards and the blade missed his right eye, instead stabbing him in the cheek.

Monday 22nd of December 2014

Singer and musician Joe John Robert Cocker dies of lung cancer at the age of 70 in Crawford, Colorado, United States.