Today in History: Ghislaine Maxwell convicted

Today is Monday, Dec. 29, the 363rd day of 2025. There are two days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 29, 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in New York of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by the late Jeffrey Epstein; the verdict capped a monthlong trial featuring accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14. (Maxwell would be sentenced to 20 years in prison.)

Also on this date:

In 1170, Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, was killed in Canterbury Cathedral by knights loyal to King Henry II.

In 1890, the Wounded Knee massacre took place in South Dakota as more than 250 Lakota people were killed by U.S. troops sent to disarm them.

In 1940, during World War II, the German Luftwaffe dropped incendiary bombs on London, setting off what came to be known as “The Second Great Fire of London.”

In 1978, during the Gator Bowl, Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes punched Clemson player Charlie Bauman, who had intercepted an Ohio State pass. (Hayes was fired the next day.)

In 1989, dissident and playwright Vaclav Havel assumed the presidency of Czechoslovakia. In 1993, he would become the first president of the newly independent Czech Republic after Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved.