December 18

Charles Wesley, the Methodist leader who wrote thousands of hymns including 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,' was born at Epworth, England.

Arumuka Navalar, the Tamil Śaiva scholar of Jaffna who printed and taught the Śaiva classics and founded schools for their study, was born at Nallur.

J. J. Thomson, who in 1897 identified the electron as the first known subatomic particle, was born near Manchester, England.