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)