On This Day: December 19

Publius Septimius Geta, co-emperor of Rome, is lured to come without his bodyguards to meet his brother Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla), to discuss a possible reconciliation. When he arrives, the Praetorian Guard murders him and he dies in the arms of his mother, Julia Domna.

Henry II of England is crowned at Westminster Abbey.

Pope Clement III is elected.

Anne, Duchess of Brittany, is married to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor by proxy.

The Battle of Dreux takes place during the French Wars of Religion.

The Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery depart England carrying settlers who founded, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.

The Great Swamp Fight, a pivotal battle in King Philip's War, gives the English settlers a bitterly won victory.

Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in The Pennsylvania Journal entitled "The American Crisis".

American Revolutionary War: George Washington's Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

French Revolutionary Wars: Two British frigates under Commodore Horatio Nelson and two Spanish frigates under Commodore Don Jacobo Stuart engage in battle off the coast of Murcia.