Monier Williams

The 1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election at the University of Oxford involved candidates with different approaches to Sanskrit scholarship. One was Monier Williams (pictured), an Oxford-educated Englishman and teacher of Sanskrit to those preparing to work in British India. The other, Max Müller, was a German-born specialist in comparative philology. The election came as Britain debated its role in India following the 1857 rebellion. Williams saw the study of Sanskrit as a tool in the conversion of India to Christianity. Müller saw his work as also valuable for its own sake. Both men battled for the votes of Oxford graduates through manifestos and advertisements, and received newspaper endorsements. Special trains to Oxford were provided on the day of the election, 7 December 1860, for non-residents to cast votes. Williams won by a majority of more than 220 votes. Thereafter, he helped to establish the Indian Institute at Oxford, received a knighthood, and held the chair until his death in 1899. (Full article...)

Jacquetta Hawkes

• ... that archaeologist and prehistorian Jacquetta Hawkes (pictured) co-founded the Homosexual Law Reform Society and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament?
• ... that for more than a decade, WNJC-FM at Northwest Mississippi Junior College was the state's only public radio station?
• ... that when David Bowie performed "Golden Years" on Soul Train in 1975, he was incoherent and visibly intoxicated?
• ... that gameplay in the board game Oceans ends once the ocean zones are depopulated of fish?
• ... that Awet Tesfaiesus was the first black woman ever elected to the Bundestag?
• ... that Eric Schmidt developed Berknet, an early wide area network system, in 1978 while he was a student at Berkeley University?
• ... that Zeliha Ağrıs started performing taekwondo at age ten and became a world champion when she was 19?
• ... that OK Kosher got the OK for .kosher in January 2014?

Damage by the eruption of Mount Semeru

• On the Indonesian island of Java, Mount Semeru erupts, killing fifteen people and injuring dozens. (damage pictured)
• The Indian agriculture acts are repealed after a year of protests by farmers.
• Xiomara Castro is elected as the first female President of Honduras.
• Magdalena Andersson, who resigned a week earlier after less than one day as prime minister–designate, is re-elected as Prime Minister of Sweden.

December 6: Saint Nicholas Day (Western Christianity); Independence Day in Finland (1917)

Camp X

• 963 – Pope Leo VIII began his papacy as antipope of Rome.
• 1803 – Haitian Revolution: Nearly all the final French ships in Haiti were captured by the Royal Navy when they attempted to evade the Blockade of Saint-Domingue.
• 1907 – An explosion destroyed a mine in Monongah, West Virginia, killing 362 miners and leading to the establishment of the United States Bureau of Mines.
• 1941 – The British Secret Intelligence Service established a facility known as "Camp X" (pictured) in Ontario, Canada, to train covert agents in clandestine operations.
• 2015 – In Venezuela's parliamentary election, the ruling United Socialist Party lost control of the National Assembly for the first time since 1999.