What happened on December 29 ?

1170 - Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (assassinated) (b. 1118)

1563 - Sebastian Castellio, French theologian (b. 1515)

1634 - John Albert Vasa, Polish bishop (b. 1612)

1661 - Antoine Gérard de Saint-Amant, French poet (b. 1594)

1689 - Thomas Sydenham, English physician (b. 1624)

1731 - Brook Taylor, English mathematician (b. 1685)

1785 - Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian poet (b. 1742)

1825 - Jacques-Louis David, French painter (b. 1748)

1891 - Leopold Kronecker, mathematician (b. 1823)

1894 - Christina Rossetti, English poet (b. 1830)

1924 - Carl Spitteler, Swiss writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1845)

1926 - Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian writer (b. 1875)

1929 - Wilhelm Maybach, German automobile designer (b. 1846)

1937 - Don Marquis, American author (b. 1878)

1960 - Eden Phillpotts, British writer (b. 1862)

1967 - Paul Whiteman, American musician and conductor (b. 1890)

1980 - Tim Hardin, American musician (b. 1941)

1980 - Nadezhda Mandelstam, Russian writer (b. 1899)

1993 - Frunzik Mkrtchyan, Soviet Armenian actor (b. 1930)

1986 - Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1894)

2003 - Earl Hindman, American actor (lung cancer) (b. 1942)

2003 - Dinsdale Landen, English actor (cancer) (b. 1932)

2003 - Bob Monkhouse, English comedian and game show host (b. 1928)

2004 - Julius Axelrod, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1912)

2004 - Liddy Holloway, New Zealand actress (b. 1947)