Today in History - December 14 | Hollywood heavyweight's father convicted for murdering a federal judge
Charles Harrelson, father of actor Woody Harrelson, was convicted of murdering Judge John Wood outside of his San Antonio in Texas on December 14 in 1982.
Wood, who was killed as he bent over to look at a flat tyre on his car, became the first federal judge to be assassinated in the 20th century.
The FBI's investigation into his murder was one of the most extensive cases since John F. Kennedy was killed.
Shattered bullet fragments found at the scene were traced to a .240 Weatherby Mark V rifle.
Investigators discovered this was the type recently purchased by Harrelson's wife Jo Ann.
Harrelson, who had a previous conviction for a 1968 murder, was convicted and sentenced to two life sentences in prison.
He later died of a heart attack in his cell at Colorado's Supermax federal prison.
Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first person to reach the South Pole on December 14 in 1911.
He led a party of four explorers including Helmer Hanssen, Olav Bjaaland, Oscar Wisting and Sverre Hassel.
The explorers named their South Pole camp 'Polheim', which means "Home at the Pole".
Once the group reached its destination, Amundsen placed a pole in the snow and declared, "So we plant you, dear flag, on the South Pole".
A mass shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, United States on December 14 in 2012.
The perpetrator, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shot and killed 26 people, 20 of which were children aged between six and seven years old.
The incident is the deadliest mass shooting at an elementary school in US history and the deadliest in Connecticut history.
The shooting prompted renewed debate about gun control in the US.
The first president of the United States, George Washington, died on December 14 in 1799.
Washington died at his estate in Mount Vernon in Virginia, where he began his long-awaited retirement two years earlier.
German physicist Max Planck made his ideas about quantum physics public when he published his groundbreaking study of the effect of radiation on a blackbody substance on December 14 in 1900.
Planck demonstrated through physical experiments that energy, in certain situations, can exhibit characteristics of physical matter.
Four-year-old Charley Ross became the victim of the first American kidnapping for ransom to receive widespread media coverage.
Two men had snatched the four-year-old son of rich Philadelphia grocer Christian Ross from the front lawn of his house on July 1.
A burglar, Joseph Douglas, confessed that he had been responsible for the kidnapping shortly before his death on December 14 in 1874.
Despite the criminal's confession, the four-year-old was never found.
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