Cyclone Althea was a severe tropical cyclone that devastated parts of North Queensland just before Christmas during the 1971–72 Australian region cyclone season. The fourth system and second severe tropical cyclone of the season, Althea was one of the strongest storms ever to affect the Townsville area. After forming near the Solomon Islands on 19 December and heading southwest across the Coral Sea, the storm reached Category 4 on the Australian cyclone scale, peaking with 10-minute average maximum sustained winds of 165 km/h (105 mph). At 09:00 AEST on Christmas Eve, Althea struck the coast of Queensland near Rollingstone, about 50 km (30 mi) north of Townsville. While moving ashore, Althea generated wind gusts as high as 215 km/h (134 mph) that damaged thousands of homes and destroyed many. On nearby Magnetic Island almost all of the buildings were affected. Three people were killed, and damage totalled A$120 million. (Full article...)

The Cloughmore Stone

• ... that the Cloughmore Stone (pictured) in Kilbroney Park is said to have been thrown there by Finn Mac Cool?
• ... that in 1901, Charlotte Reeve Conover led the Young Women's League in taking over publication for a day of the Dayton Daily News?
• ... that optically stimulated luminescence thermochronometry determines when rocks cooled, by measuring light released from energy stored in minerals?
• ... that anime musician Yuiko Ōhara was selected as a brand ambassador of Japan's Baseball Challenge League?
• ... that the United States Army's new "Army greens" uniform was influenced by the "pinks and greens" uniform of the 1920s?
• ... that Adruti Laxmibai introduced free education for girls in the Indian state of Odisha?
• ... that sales of the video game Night Trap were initially boosted following the 1993 US congressional hearings on video game content ratings because it was one of the games under discussion?
• ... that supporters of armed group leader Din Minimi portrayed him as an Acehnese Robin Hood?

The Balangiga bells

• In field hockey, the World Cup concludes with Belgium defeating the Netherlands in the final.
• The Balangiga bells (pictured), taken by US Army soldiers from the Philippines in 1901 as war trophies, are repatriated.
• Nine people are killed when a high-speed train collides with a locomotive in Ankara, Turkey.
• Two days after a shooting at the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, in which five people died, French police kill the suspected perpetrator.

December 19

Charles Dickens

• 1828 – Nullification Crisis: Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun wrote the South Carolina Exposition and Protest to protest the Tariff of 1828.
• 1843 – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (pictured), a novella about the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation after being visited by three Christmas ghosts, was first published.
• 1964 – The Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the ruling junta of South Vietnam led by Nguyễn Khánh, initiated a coup, dissolving and arresting members of the High National Council, a civilian advisory body.
• 1985 – Aeroflot Flight 101/435 was hijacked by the co-pilot and landed in a rice field in China, where he was apprehended.
• 2016 – Andrei Karlov, Russia's ambassador to Turkey, was assassinated at an art gallery in Ankara.

Adelaide of Susa (d. 1091) · Mary Livermore (b. 1820) · Kristina Keneally (b. 1968)