Dec 29, 2017 2 min read

Today is Friday, Dec. 29, the 363rd day of 2017. There are two days left in the year.

On Dec. 29, 1170, Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was slain in Canterbury Cathedral by knights loyal to King Henry II.

In 1808, the 17th president of the United States, Andrew Johnson, was born in Raleigh, N.C.

In 1890, the Wounded Knee massacre took place in South Dakota as an estimated 300 Sioux Indians were killed by U.S. troops sent to disarm them.

In 1916, James Joyce’s first novel, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” was first published in book form in New York after being serialized in London.

In 1934, Japan formally renounced the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922.

In 1957, singers Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme were married in Las Vegas (the marriage lasted until Gorme’s death in 2013).

In 1967, Hyundai Motor Co. was founded in Seoul, South Korea.

In 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401, a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, crashed into the Florida Everglades near Miami International Airport, killing 101 of the 176 people aboard.

In 1975, a bomb exploded in the main terminal of New York’s LaGuardia Airport, killing 11 people (it’s never been determined who was responsible).

In 1986, former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan died in Sussex, England, at 92.

In 1992, David and Sharon Schoo of St. Charles, Ill., were arrested at O’Hare International Airport upon their return from a Mexican vacation for leaving their 4- and 9-year-old daughters at home, alone. (The Schoos pleaded guilty to child neglect and were sentenced to probation; the children were put up for adoption.)

“The wise man must be wise before, not after.”

– Epicharmus, Sicilian Greek comic poet