December’s Moon is most commonly known as the Cold Moon—a Mohawk name that conveys the frigid conditions of this time of year, when cold weather truly begins to grip us. Read more about December’s Cold Moon here.
Daily Calendar for Thursday, December 4, 2025
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Thursday, December 4, 2025
Died
- Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu (French clergyman and statesman) –
- Frank Zappa (musician) –
- Besse Cooper (world’s oldest person at time of her death) –
Born
- Thomas Carlyle (historian) –
- Deanna Durbin (actress) –
- Ed Flesh (designer of the wheel on the TV game show Wheel of Fortune) –
- Roberta Lynn Bondar (astronaut) –
- Jeff Bridges (actor) –
- Marisa Tomei (actress) –
- Jay-Z (hip hop artist) –
Events
- At Fraunces Tavern in New York’s lower Manhattan, George Washington bade farewell to his officers of the Continental Army, before traveling to Annapolis, Maryland, to resign his commission as commander-in-chief –
- National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry founded –
- Boss Tweed escaped jail –
- Crew of shipwrecked tanker Kyzikes rescued, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina –
- In its first aerial attack on Italy, the US bombs Naples –
- First television appearance of Marcel Marceau –
- Matisse’s Le Bateau rehung after being upside down in The Museum of Modern Art for 47 days, New York City –
- Brenda Lee’s Christmas hit “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” hit number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, 65 years after its original release –
Weather
- New Haven, Connecticut, received 20 inches of snow in the first of two major snowstorms that December –
- The temperature dropped from 52 degrees F to 18 degrees F in 20 minutes, Livingston, Montana –
- Central Park in NYC reached 72 degrees F –