Portal:Biography/Selected anniversaries/December 22

Births

• 1858 - Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer (d. 1924) (pictured)
• 1945 - Diane Sawyer, American journalist
• 1949 - Maurice Gibb, English musician (The Bee Gees) (d. 2003)
• 1949 - Robin Gibb, English musician (The Bee Gees) (d. 2012)
• 1962 - Ralph Fiennes, English actor

Deaths

• 1767 - John Newbery, English publisher (b. 1713)
• 1880 - George Eliot, English writer (b. 1819)
• 1943 - Beatrix Potter, English writer (b. 1866)
• 1989 - Samuel Beckett, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)