Today is Friday, Dec. 9, the 344th day of 2016. There are 22 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On Dec. 9, 1916, actor, author, producer and director Kirk Douglas, known for such movies as “The Bad and the Beautiful,” ”Lust for Life,” ”Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” and “Spartacus,” to name only a few, was born Issur Danielovitch in Amsterdam, New York.

On this date

In 1854, Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s

famous poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” was published in England.

In 1892, “Widowers’ Houses,” Bernard Shaw’s first play, opened at the Royalty Theater in London.

In 1911, an explosion inside the Cross Mountain coal mine near Briceville, Tennessee, killed 84 workers. (Five were rescued.)

In 1935, the Downtown Athletic Club of New York honored college football player Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago with the DAC Trophy, which later became known as the Heisman Trophy.

In 1940, British troops opened their first major offensive in North Africa during World War II.

In 1958, the anti-communist John Birch Society was formed in Indianapolis.

In 1962, the Petrified Forest in Arizona was designated a national park.

In 1965, Nikolai V. Podgorny replaced Anastas I. Mikoyan as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, a job he would hold for almost 12 years. “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the first animated TV special featuring characters from the “Peanuts” comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, was first broadcast on CBS.

In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed a $2.3 billion seasonal loan authorization that officials of New York City and State said would prevent a city default.

In 1984, the five-day-old hijacking of a Kuwaiti jetliner that claimed the lives of two Americans ended as Iranian security men seized control of the plane, which was parked at Tehran airport.

The Associated Press