Other Notable Events, December 21

In 1620, the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, Mass., following a 63-day voyage from England aboard the Mayflower.

In 1913, the first crossword puzzle in an American newspaper appeared in The New York Sunday World.

In 1937, Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated feature film, opened in Los Angeles.

In 1958, three months after a new French Constitution was approved, Charles de Gaulle was elected the first president of the Fifth Republic by a sweeping majority of French voters.

In 1968, Apollo 8, the first manned voyage to the moon, was launched.

In 1975, the notorious terrorist Carlos the Jackal led a raid on a meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna. German and Arab terrorists stormed in with machine guns, killed three people and took 63 others hostage, including 11 oil ministers.

In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded and crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing everyone aboard and 11 people on the ground for a total death toll of 270.

In 1990, a boat carrying about 100 U.S. sailors involved in Operation Desert Shield capsized off the Israeli coast. Twenty-one people died.

In 1991, 11 former Soviet republics declared an end to the Soviet Union and forged a commonwealth that guaranteed independence.

In 1992, 54 people were killed when a chartered jetliner carrying 340 people on a holiday to southern Portugal crashed in bad weather.

In 1993, Hungary's Parliament endorsed the nomination of Peter Boross as president, succeeding Jozsef Antall, who died in office Dec. 12.

In 1994, more than 40 people were injured when an incendiary device exploded on a crowded subway in New York's lower Manhattan. Police arrested one of the burn victims who reportedly was carrying a firebomb that went off.

In 1995, a commuter train rammed the rear of a passenger train in heavy fog near Cairo, Egypt, killing 75 people.

In 1998, the shaky coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu collapsed when Israel's Parliament voted 81-30 to dissolve the government.

In 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush's approval rating slipped 6 percentage points to 49 percent, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll said, making Bush the first incumbent president to have an approval rating less than 50 percent one month after winning re-election.

In 2007, Pakistani officials said a suicide bomber's assassination attempt on a former official killed at least 50 people and hurt 80 others in a crowded mosque in Lahore.

In 2009, the U.S. government set a three-hour limit on the time airlines can keep passengers waiting on a tarmac without giving them food or letting them off the plane.

Also in 2009, a truck loaded with fertilizer barreled into a crowded market in the Nigerian town of Allo with an official death toll of 55.

In 2010, a Census Bureau report showed the United States with a population of 308,747,538. California remained the most populous state, followed by Texas and Florida.

Also in 2010, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki was sworn in for a second term after a months-long political deadlock and set up a unity government with representatives from all major Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions.

In 2011, Syrian forces battled army defectors and anti-government activists in a blaze of violence with a reported 3-day death toll of 230 people. Western intelligence said more than 10,000 Syrian soldiers deserted.