DECEMBER 15, 1939- The film Gone with the Wind premiered in Atlanta, Georgia. The epic film is set in the American South and tells a story of the Civil War and its aftermath from a white-Southern viewpoint. The nearly four-hour long movie won eight Academy Awards, a record that stood for 20 years. It has sold more tickets in the United States than any other film in history, and when adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind remains the highest-grossing film of all time, bringing in $1,450,680,400.

DECEMBER 15, 1966 - Animated-cartoon pioneer and movie producer Walt Disney died from lung cancer in Los Angeles. Contrary to a popular myth, Disney was cremated after his death, not cryogenically frozen and buried beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. During his lifetime Disney received 59 Academy Award nominations and won 26 (including a record 4 in one year), giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual.

DECEMBER 16, 1773 - A group of 30 to 130 men, some of them thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded three British merchant ships docked in Boston Harbor and, over the course of three hours, dumped 342 chests of tea into the water. The Boston Tea Party, as it has come to be known, was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Primary among the Colonists' objections to the Tea Act was that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. The original Tea Party was a key event in the escalation of the American Revolution.