Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December
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| << | Selected anniversaries for December | >> | ||||
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2019 day arrangement | ||||||
Juan Lavalle
- 1828 – Returning to Buenos Aires with troops who fought in the Cisplatine War, Juan Lavalle (pictured) deposed provincial governor Manuel Dorrego, reigniting the Argentine Civil Wars.
- 1923 – The Gleno Dam in the Italian province of Bergamo failed due to poor workmanship, flooding the downstream valley and killing at least 356 people.
- 1959 – Twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty, the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War, banning military activity in the Antarctic and setting the continent aside as a scientific preserve.
- 1966 – The first Gävle goat, a Swedish Yule goat tradition, was constructed in Gävle and then burned to the ground on New Year's Eve.
- 1991 – More than 92 percent of Ukrainian voters approved their country's independence as declared on 24 August.
9th Dalai Lama (b. 1805) · Jeni Bojilova-Pateva (b. 1878) · J. B. S. Haldane (d. 1964)
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Napoleon III
- 1823 – U.S. president James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine, a proclamation of opposition to European colonialism in the New World.
- 1852 – Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (pictured) established the Second French Empire, declaring himself Emperor of the French as Napoleon III.
- 1950 – Korean War: With the conclusion of the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River, the Chinese army expelled UN forces from North Korea.
- 1989 – The Malayan Communist Party and the Malaysian government signed a peace accord to end the 21-year Communist insurgency.
- 2001 – Less than two months after disclosing accounting violations, Texas-based energy firm Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, evaporating nearly $11 billion in shareholder wealth.
William Shirley (b. 1694) · John Breckinridge (b. 1760) · Chaudhry Muhammad Ali (d. 1982)
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Freda Du Faur
- 1904 – Himalia, the largest irregular satellite of Jupiter, was discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at the Lick Observatory near San Jose, California.
- 1910 – Freda Du Faur (pictured) became the first woman to climb Mount Cook, the highest peak in New Zealand.
- 1959 – The current flag of Singapore was adopted, six months after the island became self-governing within the British Empire.
- 1979 – As per the results of a two-day referendum, the current Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran was adopted.
- 2009 – A suicide bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, killed 25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal Government.
Gilbert Stuart (b. 1755) · Sheng Shicai (b. 1895) · Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll (d. 1939)
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December 4: Navy Day in India
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Mary Celeste, 1861
- 1829 – Sati, the Hindu funeral custom of a widow's self-immolation on her husband's pyre, was prohibited in parts of British India after years of campaigning by Ram Mohan Roy.
- 1872 – The American brigantine Mary Celeste (painting shown) was found apparently abandoned under circumstances that remain unknown.
- 1949 – Duncan Stewart, the British governor of Sarawak, was fatally stabbed in Sibu during his first visit to the colony.
- 1980 – The English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded.
- 2006 – Six black teenagers assaulted a white student in Jena, Louisiana; the subsequent court cases became a cause célèbre for perceived racial injustice in the U.S.
John Leamy (d. 1839) · I. K. Gujral (b. 1919) · Hannah Arendt (d. 1975)
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December 5: Krampusnacht in parts of Central Europe
Pope Innocent VIII
- 1484 – Pope Innocent VIII (portrait shown) issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, giving Dominican inquisitor Heinrich Kramer explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
- 1757 – Seven Years' War: Prussian troops under Frederick the Great defeated Austrian forces at the Battle of Leuthen.
- 1945 – Flight 19, a squadron of five U.S. naval TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, disappeared in the area now known as the Bermuda Triangle.
- 1965 – The "glasnost meeting" took place in Moscow, becoming the first demonstration in the Soviet Union after World War II and marking the beginning of the civil rights movement in the country.
- 2005 – The Civil Partnership Act came into force, granting civil partnerships in the United Kingdom rights and responsibilities identical to civil marriage.
Ealhswith (d. 902) · Clyde Cessna (b. 1879) · Princess Alice of Battenberg (d. 1969)
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December 6: Saint Nicholas Day (Western Christianity); Independence Day in Finland (1917); L'Escalade begins in Geneva (2019)
Nefertiti Bust
- 1060 – Béla I was crowned King of Hungary in Székesfehérvár.
- 1847 – Mexican–American War: American and Mexican forces clashed at the Battle of San Pasqual, a series of skirmishes near San Diego, California.
- 1912 – The Nefertiti Bust (pictured), listed among the "Top 10 Plundered Artifacts" by Time magazine, was found in Amarna, Egypt, before being taken to Germany.
- 1989 – Claiming to be "fighting feminism", 25-year-old Marc Lépine killed fourteen women before committing suicide at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Canada.
- 1999 – The Recording Industry Association of America filed a lawsuit against the peer-to-peer file sharing network Napster, alleging that the service facilitated widespread copyright infringement.
Marie Adélaïde of Savoy (b. 1685) · William Arnott (b. 1827) · Satoru Iwata (b. 1959)
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December 7: Armed Forces Flag Day in India; National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in the United States
Akatsuki
- 574 – Suffering from mental illness, Roman emperor Justin II had his general Tiberius proclaimed Caesar, adopting him as his own son.
- 1869 – American outlaw Jesse James committed his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.
- 1942 – Second World War: A small unit of Royal Marines launched Operation Frankton, in which they damaged six ships in the port of Bordeaux in German-occupied France.
- 1975 – The Indonesian military invaded East Timor under the pretext of anti-colonialism, beginning an occupation.
- 2015 – The JAXA space probe Akatsuki (illustration shown) entered into orbit around Venus to study the planet's atmosphere, five years after its first attempt failed.
Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (b. 903) · Charles Garnier (d. 1649) · Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
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December 8: Rōhatsu in Japan
Second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7
- 1813 – Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 (audio featured) premiered in Vienna, conducted by the composer himself.
- 1854 – In his apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was conceived free of original sin.
- 1941 – The Holocaust: The Chełmno extermination camp in occupied Poland, the first such Nazi camp to kill Jews, began operating.
- 1972 – During an aborted landing and go-around while approaching Chicago's Midway International Airport, United Airlines Flight 553 crashed into a residential neighborhood, destroying five houses and killing forty-five people.
- 2009 – Bombings in Baghdad carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq killed at least 127 people and injured at least 448 others.
John Pym (d. 1643) · Father Mathew (d. 1856) · Yuliya Krevsun (b. 1980)
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December 9: Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Catholicism, 2019)
Child with smallpox, 1973
- 1775 – American Revolutionary War: After their loss in the Battle of Great Bridge, British authorities were forced to evacuate from the Colony of Virginia.
- 1905 – Legislation establishing state secularism in France was passed by the Chamber of Deputies.
- 1969 – U.S. secretary of state William P. Rogers proposed a plan, later called the Rogers Plan, for a ceasefire in the War of Attrition; Egypt's and Jordan's acceptance of the plan over Palestine Liberation Organization objections led to civil war in Jordan in September 1970.
- 1979 – A World Health Organization commission of scientists certified the global eradication of smallpox (patient pictured), making it the only human infectious disease to date to have been completely eradicated.
- 2016 – South Korean president Park Geun-hye was impeached, marking the culmination of the country's political scandal.
Gertrude of Brunswick (d. 1117) · Joe Kelley (b. 1871) · Denise Phua (b. 1959)
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December 10: Human Rights Day; Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, Sweden
Calbraith Perry Rodgers
- 1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was released in Edinburgh.
- 1884 – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American author Mark Twain was first published in the United Kingdom and Canada, two months earlier than in the US.
- 1911 – Calbraith Perry Rodgers (pictured) completed the first transcontinental flight across the United States.
- 1979 – The Kuomintang dictatorship of Taiwan arrested a large number of opposition leaders who had organized pro-democracy demonstrations, an incident credited with ending the party's rule in 2000.
- 1989 – At the first open pro-democracy demonstration in Mongolia, journalist Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announced the formation of the Mongolian Democratic Union, which would be instrumental in ending communist rule four months later.
Nikephoros III Botaneiates (d. 1081) · Caroline Mehitable Fisher Sawyer (b. 1812) · Abdullah Yusuf Ali (d. 1953)
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Workers clearing rubble in Cork following the fires
- 1886 – The London-based football club Arsenal, then known as Dial Square, played their first match on the Isle of Dogs.
- 1899 – Second Boer War: In the Battle of Magersfontein, Boers defeated British forces trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.
- 1920 – Irish War of Independence: Following an Irish Republican Army ambush of a British Auxiliary patrol in Cork, British forces burned and looted numerous buildings in the city (aftermath pictured).
- 1998 – With the pilot believed to have been suffering from spatial disorientation, Thai Airways Flight 261 crashed in a rice paddy on its landing attempt at Surat Thani airport, resulting in 101 deaths.
- 2006 – The first action in the Mexican Drug War began as President Felipe Calderón ordered Mexican soldiers and Federal Police units into the state of Michoacán.
Al-Fath ibn Khaqan (d. 861) · George Mason (b. 1725) · Marco Pierre White (b. 1961)
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December 12: Feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Catholicism); Yule Lads begin arrival in Iceland
HMS Duchess
- 627 – A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeated Emperor Khosrow II's Persian forces, commanded by General Rhahzadh, near present-day Mosul, Iraq.
- 1388 – Unable to defend her possessions, Maria of Enghien sold the Lordship of Argos and Nauplia to the Republic of Venice.
- 1939 – The Royal Navy destroyer HMS Duchess (pictured) collided with HMS Barham, the battleship she was escorting, sinking with heavy loss of life.
- 1979 – A Mw 8.2 earthquake struck just offshore of Tumaco, Colombia, causing at least 300 deaths, mostly by the resulting tsunami.
- 2012 – North Korea made its first successful satellite launch, as Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2 successfully reached orbit.
Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood (b. 1724) · Gustave Flaubert (b. 1821) · Evelyn S. Lieberman (d. 2015)
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Baker-Berry Library, Dartmouth College
- 1643 – First English Civil War: Roundhead forces serving under Sir William Waller led a successful surprise attack on a winter garrison of Royalist infantry and cavalry.
- 1769 – Dartmouth College (building pictured), in what is now Hanover, New Hampshire, was established by a royal charter, becoming the last university founded in the Thirteen Colonies before the American Revolution.
- 1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese forces captured Nanking in China and then began to commit numerous atrocities over the next several weeks.
- 1989 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army engaged in a fierce firefight with the King's Own Scottish Borderers at a vehicle checkpoint complex in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.
- 2011 – After murdering a woman at his home, a man threw grenades and fired a rifle at crowds in Liège, Belgium, killing 6 people and injuring 125 others, before committing suicide.
Heinrich Heine (b. 1797) · Taylor Swift (b. 1989) · Jill Craigie (d. 1999)
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December 14: Feast day of Saint John of the Cross (Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism); Martyred Intellectuals Day in Bangladesh (1971); Monkey Day
George W. Bush (l) and Nouri al-Maliki (r) defend themselves against a thrown shoe
- 557 – A large earthquake severely damaged the city of Constantinople.
- 835 – In the Sweet Dew incident, Emperor Wenzong of the Tang dynasty conspired to kill the powerful eunuchs of the Tang court, but the plot was foiled.
- 1918 – In the 1918 United Kingdom general election women over thirty were permitted to vote, making it the first British election with female voters.
- 1948 – American physicists Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann were awarded a patent for their cathode-ray tube amusement device, the first interactive electronic game.
- 2008 – During a press conference in Baghdad, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush and Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki (pictured), yelling that "this is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq".
Aldfrith of Northumbria (d. 704 or 705) · Louis Marshall (b. 1856) · Lupe Vélez (d. 1944)
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December 15: Kingdom Day in Aruba, Curaçao, the Netherlands, and Sint Maarten (1954); Zamenhof Day in Esperanto culture
Venera 7 descent vehicle
- 687 – Sergius was elected pope, ending the last disputed period of sede vacante during the Byzantine Papacy.
- 1791 – The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified.
- 1943 – World War II: American and Australian forces began the Battle of Arawe as a diversion before a larger landing at Cape Gloucester on New Britain.
- 1970 – The Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 (descent vehicle pictured) touched down on the surface of Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet.
- 2013 – The South Sudanese Civil War began when three opposition leaders voted to boycott the meeting of the National Liberation Council in Juba.
Arthur Dehon Little (b. 1863) · Vibert Douglas (b. 1894) · León Febres Cordero (d. 2008)
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December 16: National Day in Bahrain; Day of Reconciliation in South Africa
New World Symphony, 1st movement
- 1653 – Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England.
- 1893 – Czech composer Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony (audio featured) premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
- 1918 – Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas declared the formation of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, a puppet state created by Soviet Russia to justify the Lithuanian–Soviet War.
- 1938 – Adolf Hitler instituted the Cross of Honour of the German Mother as an order of merit for German mothers.
- 2014 – A hostage crisis in a Lindt chocolate café in Sydney, Australia, came to an end when police stormed the building, killing the perpetrator, but also one of the hostages.
Nathaniel Fiennes (d. 1669) · Stuart Donaldson (b. 1812) · H. D. Kumaraswamy (b. 1959)
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Demonstrators in the Darwin rebellion
- 942 – William Longsword of Normandy was ambushed and assassinated by supporters of Arnulf I, Count of Flanders, while the two were at a peace conference to settle their differences.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
- 1918 – About 1,000 demonstrators marched (pictured) on Government House in Darwin, Australia, where they burnt an effigy of Administrator John Gilruth and demanded his resignation.
- 1948 – The Finnish Security Police was established to remove communist leadership from its predecessor, the State Police.
- 1970 – Soldiers fired at workers emerging from trains in Gdynia, Poland, beginning the government's brutal crackdown on mass anti-communist protests across the country.
Roger L'Estrange (b. 1616) · Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma (d. 1847) · Daniel Inouye (d. 2012)
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December 18: National Day in Qatar (1878)
[[File:|195px |Cinema poster for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) ]]
Cinema poster for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
- 1499 – Muslims in the city of Granada rebelled against their rulers in response to forced conversions to Catholicism.
- 1898 – Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat set the first official land speed record, averaging 63.15 km/h (39.24 mph) over 1 km (0.62 mi).
- 1916 – The French defeated German forces around the city of Verdun-sur-Meuse in northeast France, ending the longest and one of the bloodiest battles in the First World War.
- 1969 - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (cinema poster pictured), the sixth James Bond film and the only one to star George Lazenby as James Bond, premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London.
- 2010 – The Tunisian Revolution began with what was initially a series of protests, but then evolved into nationwide demonstrations that eventually toppled the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after more than 23 years of rule.
Yaonian Yanmujin (d. 933) · Lionel Monckton (b. 1861) · Edwin Howard Armstrong (b. 1890)
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Charles Dickens
- 1154 – Henry II was crowned King of England in London's Westminster Abbey.
- 1828 – Nullification Crisis: Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun wrote the South Carolina Exposition and Protest to protest the Tariff of 1828.
- 1843 – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (pictured), a novella about the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation after being visited by three Christmas ghosts, was first published.
- 1964 – The ruling junta of South Vietnam, led by Nguyễn Khánh, initiated a coup, dissolving the High National Council, a civilian advisory body.
- 2016 – Andrei Karlov, Russia's ambassador to Turkey, was assassinated at an art gallery in Ankara.
Adelaide of Susa (d. 1091) · Mary Livermore (b. 1820) · Kristina Keneally (b. 1968)
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Cardiff City Hall
- 1860 – South Carolina became the first of eleven slave states to secede from the United States, leading to the eventual creation of the Confederate States of America and later the American Civil War.
- 1955 – Cardiff (City Hall pictured) was recognised as the capital of Wales.
- 1968 – The first two confirmed murders by the Zodiac Killer occurred in Benicia, California, in a case which remains unsolved.
- 1988 – The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances governing international cooperation against the illegal drug trade was signed in Vienna.
- 1971 – The intergovernmental organization Doctors Without Borders is founded by Bernard Kouchner and a group of journalists in Paris, France.
- 2007 – Pablo Picasso's Portrait of Suzanne Bloch was stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art and recovered about three weeks later.
Ambroise Paré (d. 1590) · Bill "Tiger" O'Reilly (b. 1905) · Beth Doe (d. 1976)
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The crew of Apollo 8
- 1620 – The Mayflower Pilgrims landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, establishing the Plymouth Colony.
- 1872 – HMS Challenger sailed from Portsmouth, England on a scientific expedition that ended up laying the foundation of oceanography.
- 1968 – Apollo 8 (crew pictured) launched from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a trajectory to the Moon, for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.
- 1988 – A total of 270 people were killed when a bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103 exploded while the plane was in flight over Lockerbie, Scotland.
- 1994 – Mexico's Popocatépetl volcano, dormant for 47 years, began erupting, and is now one of the nation's most active volcanoes.
Maud Gonne (b. 1866) · Iris Cummings (b. 1920) · Louis Washkansky (d. 1967)
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December 22: December solstice (04:19 UTC, 2019); Yule (Modern Paganism and Wicca); Yaldā Night in Iran
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Chico Mendes
- 401 – The papacy of Innocent I began.
- 1807 – In an effort to avoid engaging in the Napoleonic Wars, the United States Congress passed the Embargo Act, forbidding American ships from engaging in trade with foreign nations.
- 1968 – Cultural Revolution: The People's Daily published a piece by Mao Zedong directing that "the intellectual youth must go to the country, and will be educated from living in rural poverty."
- 1988 – Brazilian unionist and environmental activist Chico Mendes (pictured) was murdered at his Xapuri home.
- 2008 – A dike ruptured at a waste containment area in Roane County, Tennessee, U.S., releasing 1.1 billion US gallons (4,200,000 m3) of coal fly ash slurry into local waterways.
Étienne Martellange (b. 1569) · William Hyde Wollaston (d. 1828) · Rose Talbot Bullard (d. 1915)
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December 23: First day of Hanukkah (Judaism, 2019); Night of the Radishes in Oaxaca City, Mexico; The Emperor's Birthday in Japan; Festivus
Coelacanth (preserved specimen)
- 1793 – French Revolution: The Royalist counterrevolutionary army was decisively defeated in the Battle of Savenay, although fighting continued in the War in the Vendée for years afterward.
- 1938 – The first living specimen of a coelacanth (example pictured), long believed to be extinct, was discovered in a South African fisherman's catch.
- 1958 – The Tokyo Tower, then the world's tallest freestanding structure at 332.5 metres (1,091 ft), opened.
- 2008 – The Guinean military engineered a coup d'état, and announced that it planned to rule the country for two years prior to a new presidential election.
Carl Gustaf Wrangel (b. 1613) · Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol (d. 1779) · Quentin Bryce (b. 1942)
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Du Fu
- 759 – Tang dynasty poet Du Fu (pictured) departed for Chengdu, where he lived for the next five years and composed poems about life in his thatched cottage.
- 1818 – "Silent Night", a Christmas carol by Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber, was first performed in a church in Austria.
- 1913 – Seventy-three people were crushed to death in a stampede after someone falsely yelled "fire" at a crowded Christmas party in Calumet, Michigan, U.S.
- 1979 – Soviet government deployed troops in Afghanistan, starting Soviet–Afghan War.
- 2008 – The Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group, began attacks on several villages in Haut-Uele District, Democratic Republic of the Congo, resulting in at least 400 deaths and numerous atrocities.
Yang Bin (d. 950) · Leonaert Bramer (b. 1596) · Pernilla Wahlgren (b. 1967)
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December 25: Christmas (Gregorian calendar); Quaid-e-Azam Day (Pakistan)
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St Mel's Cathedral
- 1758 – Based on predictions by Edmond Halley in 1705, Johann Georg Palitzsch observed a comet that was later named Halley's Comet.
- 1815 – The Handel and Haydn Society, the oldest continuously performing arts organization in the United States, made its debut at King's Chapel in Boston.
- 1941 – Second World War: The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when Mark Aitchison Young, the Governor of Hong Kong, surrendered the territory to Japan after 18 days of fierce fighting.
- 1968 – In Tamil Nadu, India, families of striking Dalit workers were massacred by a gang, allegedly led by their landlords.
- 2009 – Fire destroyed Longford's 19th-century St Mel's Cathedral (pictured), considered the "flagship cathedral" of the Irish midlands.
Zhang Jingda (d. 936) · Otto Frederick Hunziker (b. 1873) · Atal Bihari Vajpayee (b. 1924)
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December 26: Boxing Day in Commonwealth countries; Kwanzaa begins in Canada and the United States
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Pierre and Marie Curie
- 1606 – The first known performance of the play King Lear, a tragedy by William Shakespeare based on the legendary King Lear of the Britons, was held.
- 1811 – Seventy-two people died when a theater in Richmond, Virginia, U.S., was destroyed by fire—the worst urban disaster in American history at the time.
- 1871 – Thespis, the first comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan, made its debut at the Gaiety Theatre, London, UK.
- 1898 – At the French Academy of Sciences, physicists Pierre and Marie Curie (both pictured) announced the discovery of a new element, naming it radium.
- 1996 – Six-year-old American beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colorado, a murder that generated extensive coverage from the American media.
Reginald Fitz Jocelin (d. 1191) · Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm (b. 1723) · Ram Swarup (d. 1998)
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Radio City Music Hall
- 1521 – A period of unrest in Wittenberg, Saxony, following the arrival of the Zwickau prophets, was quelled after the release of Martin Luther from custody.
- 1831 – Charles Darwin left Plymouth, England, aboard HMS Beagle on the expedition to South America that would make his name as a naturalist.
- 1932 – New York City's Radio City Music Hall (pictured) opened with the world's largest auditorium at the time.
- 1985 – The body of murdered American primatologist Dian Fossey was discovered inside her cabin in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda.
- 2008 – Citing rocket attacks from Palestinian armed groups, Israel launched a surprise attack against the Gaza Strip, opening the three-week Gaza War.
Bertha of Savoy (d. 1087) · Agda Meyerson (d. 1924) · Chyna (b. 1969)
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December 28: Proclamation Day in South Australia (1836)
Westminster Abbey
- 1065 – Westminster Abbey (pictured) in London, built by Edward the Confessor between 1045 and 1050, was consecrated.
- 1768 – Taksin the Great was crowned king of the newly established Thonburi Kingdom in the new capital at Thonburi, present-day Thailand.
- 1918 – Irishwoman Constance Markievicz became the first female Member of Parliament elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, although she never served.
- 1943 – World War II: After eight days of brutal house-to-house fighting, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division captured Ortona, Italy.
- 2006 – Somali Civil War: Troops of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government and their Ethiopian allies captured Mogadishu unopposed.
William Carstares (d. 1715) · Carl-Gustaf Rossby (b. 1898) · Ratan Tata (b. 1937)
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Sun Yat-sen
- 1860 – To counter the French Navy's Gloire, the world's first ironclad warship, the British Royal Navy launched the world's first iron-hulled armoured warship, HMS Warrior.
- 1876 – A railway bridge over the Ashtabula River in Ohio collapsed when a Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway train was crossing over it, killing 92 people and injuring 64 others.
- 1911 – Sun Yat-sen (pictured) was elected in Nanjing as the Provisional President of the Republic of China.
- 1959 – Physicist Richard Feynman gave a speech entitled "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", anticipating the field of nanotechnology.
- 1997 – In order to prevent the spread of the H5N1 flu virus, the Hong Kong government began the slaughter of 1.3 million chickens.
Maria Margaretha Kirch (d. 1720) · Christina Rossetti (d. 1894) · Ashleigh Banfield (b. 1967)
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December 30: Rizal Day in the Philippines (1896)
Map of 1853 Gadsden Purchase territory
- 999 – In Ireland, the combined forces of Munster and Meath crushed a rebellion by Leinster and Dublin.
- 1853 – The United States purchased approximately 29,700 square miles (77,000 km2) of land south of the Gila River and west of the Rio Grande (map pictured) from Mexico for $10 million.
- 1906 – The All-India Muslim League, a political party in British India that developed into the driving force behind the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim state on the Indian subcontinent, was founded in Dhaka.
- 1958 – The Guatemalan Air Force fired upon Mexican fishing boats which had strayed into Guatemalan territory, causing a conflict between the two nations.
- 2013 – Supporters of religious leader Paul-Joseph Mukungubila attacked television studios, the airport and a military base in Kinshasa, DR Congo.
Giovanni Baglione (d. 1643) · Osman Hamdi Bey (b. 1842) · Rosalinde Hurley (b. 1929)
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Painting of helicopter rescue efforts at the Dupont Plaza Hotel fire
- 1225 – Lý Chiêu Hoàng, the only empress regnant in the history of Vietnam, married Trần Thái Tông, making him the first emperor of the Trần dynasty at age seven.
- 1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, began in an engagement where both sides would suffer their highest casualty rates of the war.
- 1965 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central African Republic army, and his military officers began a coup d'état against the government of President David Dacko.
- 1986 – Three disgruntled employees set fire to the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, killing more than 90 people and injuring 140 others (rescue efforts depicted), making it the second deadliest hotel fire in United States history.
- 1998 – The European Exchange Rate Mechanism froze the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone and established the value of the euro currency.
Richard Montgomery (d. 1775) · Henri Matisse (b. 1869) · Junot Díaz (b. 1968)
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