Happy Birthday December 19

Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, the eldest child of Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette, was born at Versailles December 19, 1778. Marie-Antoinette was forced to endure the humiliation of a public birth in her Bedchamber, in front of hundreds of courtiers. The Queen actually passed out through a combination of embarrassment and pain. It was the last time such a ritual was permitted as Marie-Antoinette refused to give birth in public ever again. Marie Thérèse was allowed to leave France once the Terror was over, on the eve of her seventeenth birthday and she lived to the age of 72.

Marie-Thérèse in Vienna in 1796 

Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was born on December 19, 1906 in Kamenskoe (now Dniprodzerzhynsk in Ukraine), to metalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev and his wife, Natalia Denisovna. At different times during his life, Brezhnev specified his ethnic origin alternately as either Ukrainian or Russian, opting for the latter as he rose within the Communist Party. His eighteen-year term as as General Secretary of the governing Communist Party was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration.

For more December 19 anniversaries, including the first photograph of the Moon through a telescope, the launch of BBC's World Service and the release of James Cameron's Titanic movie, check out OnThatDay.