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December 14: John Frederick Kensett, Hudson River School painter, died on this date in 1872.

December 13: Julius Walker Adams, Civil War officer who later submitted preliminary plans for the Brooklyn Bridge (with a lowball estimate of costs in order to get legislative approval), died on this date in 1899.

December 12: On this date in 1997, a pink lotus lamp by Louis Comfort Tiffany sold at auction for a lamp world record $2.8 million.

December 11: Elliott Cook Carter, Jr., composer who won two Pulitzer Prizes and one Grammy Award, was born on this date in 1908 and died last year.

December 10: On this date in 1881, Fannie Howe, a pug dog, died.

December 9: On this date in 1861, the powerful Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War was established; one of its prominent members was Brooklyn Congressman Moses Odell.

December 8: Dudley Sanford Gregory, who served as the first mayor of Jersey City in 1840 and was later elected to Congress, died on this date in 1874.

December 7: Richard J. Ciuzio, World War II veteran who won 5 battle stars, then worked as a doctor at Methodist Hospital for 50 years, died on this date in 2009.

December 6: DeRobigne Mortimer Bennett, Shaker, herbalist, and free-thinker, died on this date in 1882.

December 5: The Brooklyn Theatre Fire, in which almost 300 theatre-goers died, took place on this date in 1876; soon thereafter, 103 unclaimed bodies would be buried together in a lot at Green-Wood.