Newspaper columnist William Safire is 78.

Rock singer-musician Art Neville is 70.

Actor Ernie Hudson (inset) is 62.

Comedian-actor Eugene Levy is 61.

Rock singer Paul Rodgers is 58.

Producer-director-writer Peter Farrelly is 51.

Pop singer Sarah Dallin (Bananarama) is 46.

Actor Sean Patrick Thomas is 37.

Actress Sarah Paulson is 33.

On Dec. 17, 1777, France recognized American independence.

In 1807, American Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier was born in Haverhill, Mass.

In 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, conducted the first successful manned powered-airplane flights, near Kitty Hawk, N.C., using their experimental craft, the Wright Flyer.

In 1939, the German pocket battleship Adm. Graf Spee was scuttled by its crew, ending the World War II Battle of the River Plate off Uruguay.