This Day in History

[lordroel]

December 3rd

915: Pope John X crowned Berengar I of Italy as Holy Roman Emperor.

1775: The USS Alfred becomes the first vessel to fly the Grand Union Flag (the precursor to the Stars and Stripes); the flag is hoisted by John Paul Jones.

1799: War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Wiesloch: Austrian Lieutenant Field Marshal Anton Sztáray defeats the French at Wiesloch.

1800: War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Hohenlinden: French General Moreau decisively defeats the Archduke John of Austria near Munich. Coupled with First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte's earlier victory at Marengo, this will force the Austrians to sign an armistice and end the war.

1800: United States presidential election, 1800 The Electoral College casts votes for President and Vice President that resulted in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.

1818: Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state.

1834: The Zollverein (German Customs Union) begins the first regular census in Germany.

1854: Battle of the Eureka Stockade: More than 20 gold miners at Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences.

1898: The Duquesne Country and Athletic Club defeated an all-star collection of early football players 16-0, in what is considered to be the very first all-star game for professional American football.

1901: In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".

1904: The Jovian moon Himalia is discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at California's Lick Observatory.

1910: Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show.

1910: Freda Du Faur becomes the first woman to climb Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain.

1912: Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League) sign an armistice with the Ottoman Empire, temporarily halting the First Balkan War. (The armistice will expire on February 3, 1913, and hostilities will resume.)
1919: After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, including two collapses causing 89 deaths, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic.

1920: Following more than a month of Turkish–Armenian War, the Turkish dictated Treaty of Alexandropol is concluded.

1927: Putting Pants on Philip, the first Laurel and Hardy film, is released.

1944: Greek Civil War: Fighting breaks out in Athens between the ELAS and government forces supported by the British Army.

1959: The current flag of Singapore is adopted, six months after Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire.

1960: The musical Camelot debuts at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. It will become associated with the Kennedy administration.

1964: Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest of the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on UC property.

1967: At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carries out the first heart transplant on a human (53-year-old Louis Washkansky).

1971: Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: Pakistan launches a pre-emptive strike against India and a full-scale war begins claiming hundreds of lives.

1973: Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.

1976: An assassination attempt is made on Bob Marley in Kingston, Jamaica just two days before the "Smile Jamaica", a free concert.

1979: In Cincinnati, 11 fans are suffocated in a crush for seats on the concourse outside Riverfront Coliseum before a Who concert.

1979: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the first Supreme Leader of Iran.

1982: A soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri, that will be found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin.

1984: Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

1989: Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of Malta, U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Union may be coming to an end.

1990: Mary Robinson is sworn in as President of Ireland, becoming the first woman to hold the role.

1992: The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea, carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil, runs aground in a storm while approaching A Coruña, Spain, and spills much of its cargo.

1992: A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague.

1994: The PlayStation developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment was released in Japan.

1994: Taiwan held the first full local elections; James Soong elected as the first and only direct elected Governor of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian became the first direct elected Mayor of Taipei, Wu Den-yih became the first directed Mayor of Kaohsiung.

1997: In Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign the Ottawa Treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty, however.

1999: NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.

2005: XCOR Aerospace makes the first manned rocket aircraft delivery of U.S. Mail in Kern County, California.

2007: Winter storms cause the Chehalis River to flood many cities in Lewis County, Washington, and close a 20-mile portion of Interstate 5 for several days. At least eight deaths and billions of dollars in damages are blamed on the floods.

2009: A suicide bombing at a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, kills 25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal Government.

2012: At least 475 people are killed after Typhoon Bopha makes landfall in the Philippines.

2014: The Japanese space agency, JAXA, launches the space explorer Hayabusa2 from the Tanegashima Space Center on a six-year round trip mission to an asteroid to collect rock samples.

[lordroel]

December 4th

771: Austrasian king Carloman I dies, leaving his brother Charlemagne king of the now complete Frankish Kingdom.

1110: The Kingdom of Jerusalem captures Sidon.

1259: Kings Louis IX of France and Henry III of England agree to the Treaty of Paris, in which Henry renounces his claims to French-controlled territory on continental Europe (including Normandy) in exchange for Louis withdrawing his support for English rebels.

1563: The final session of the Council of Trent is held. (It had opened on December 13, 1545.)

1619: Thirty-eight colonists arrive at Berkeley Hundred, Virginia. The group's charter proclaims that the day "be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."

1676: Battle of Lund: A Danish army under the command of King Christian V engages the Swedish army commanded by Field Marshal Simon Grundel-Helmfelt.

1745: Charles Edward Stuart's army reaches Derby, its furthest point during the Second Jacobite Rising.

1783: At Fraunces Tavern in New York City, U.S. General George Washington bids farewell to his officers.

1786: Mission Santa Barbara is dedicated (on the feast day of Saint Barbara).

1791: The first edition of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published.

1829: In the face of fierce local opposition, British Governor-General Lord William Bentinck issues a regulation declaring that anyone who abets suttee in Bengal is guilty of culpable homicide.

1861: The 109 Electors of the several states of the Confederate States of America unanimously elect Jefferson Davis as President and Alexander H. Stephens as Vice President.

1864: American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea: At Waynesboro, Georgia, forces under Union General Judson Kilpatrick prevent troops led by Confederate General Joseph Wheeler from interfering with Union General William T.
Sherman's campaign destroying a wide swath of the South on his march to the Atlantic Ocean from Atlanta.

1865: North Carolina ratifies 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, followed soon by Georgia, and U.S. slaves were legally free within 2 weeks.

1867: Former Minnesota farmer Oliver Hudson Kelley founds the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry (better known today as the Grange).

1872: The crewless American ship Mary Celeste is found by the Canadian brig Dei Gratia. The ship had been abandoned for nine days but was only slightly damaged.

1875: Notorious New York City politician Boss Tweed escapes from prison; he is later recaptured in Spain.

1881: The first edition of the Los Angeles Times is published.

1893: First Matabele War: A patrol of 34 British South Africa Company soldiers is ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors on the Shangani River in Matabeleland.

1906: Alpha Phi Alpha the first black intercollegiate Greek lettered fraternity was founded at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

1909: In Canadian football, the First Grey Cup game is played. The University of Toronto Varsity Blues defeat the Toronto Parkdale Canoe Club, 26–6.

1909: The Montreal Canadiens ice hockey club, the oldest surviving professional hockey franchise in the world, is founded as a charter member of the National Hockey Association.

1918: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, becoming the first US president to travel to Europe while in office.

1939: World War II: HMS Nelson is struck by a mine (laid by U-31) off the Scottish coast and is laid up for repairs until August 1940.

1942: World War II: Carlson's patrol during the Guadalcanal Campaign ends.

1943: World War II: In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in-exile.

1943: World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes down the Works Progress Administration, because of the high levels of wartime employment in the United States.

1945: By a vote of 65–7, the United States Senate approves United States participation in the United Nations. (The UN had been established on October 24, 1945.)

1949: Sir Duncan George Stewart was fatally stabbed by Rosli Dhobi, a member leader of the Rukun 13, in Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia during the British crown colony era in that state.

1954: The first Burger King is opened in Miami, Florida.

1956: The Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash) get together at Sun Studio for the first and last time.

1965: The Grateful Dead's first concert performance under this new name.

1967: Vietnam War: U.S. and South Vietnamese forces engage Viet Cong troops in the Mekong Delta.

1969: Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are shot and killed during a raid by 14 Chicago police officers.

1971: The Indian Navy attacks the Pakistan Navy and Karachi.

1971: The PNB Ghazi, a submarine belonging to the Pakistan Navy, sinks during the course of the Indo-Pakistani Naval War of 1971.

1977: Jean-Bédel Bokassa, president of the Central African Republic, crowns himself Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire.

1977: Malaysian Airline System Flight 653 is hijacked and crashes in Tanjong Kupang, Johor, killing 100.

1978: Following the murder of Mayor George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein becomes San Francisco's first female mayor.

1979: The Hastie fire in Hull kills three schoolboys and eventually leads police to arrest Bruce George Peter Lee.

1981: South Africa grants independence to the Ciskei "homeland" (not recognized by any government outside South Africa).

1982: The People's Republic of China adopts its current constitution.

1984: Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Army soldiers kill 107–150 civilians in Mannar.

1991: Terry A. Anderson is released after seven years in captivity as a hostage in Beirut; he is the last and longest-held American hostage in Lebanon.

1991: Pan American World Airways ceases its operations after 64 years.

1992: Somali Civil War: President George H. W. Bush orders 28,000 U.S. troops to Somalia in Northeast Africa.

1998: The Unity Module, the second module of the International Space Station, is launched.

2005: Tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong protest for democracy and call on the government to allow universal and equal suffrage.

2006: Six black youths assault a white teenager in Jena, Louisiana.

2014: Islamic insurgents kill three state police at a traffic circle before taking an empty school and a "press house" in Grozny. Ten state forces die with 28 injured in gun battles ending with ten insurgents killed.

2015: A firebomb is thrown into a restaurant in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, killing 17 people.

2017: The Lamborghini Urus is the world's fastest SUV. Reaching speeds of 190 miles per hour.

2017The Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan has been imploded, after a day of failure to be imploded. It is about 30 miles from Detroit, Michigan. It first opened on August 23, 1975.

2017: The Winklevoss twins are the first Bitcoin billionaires. They are known for suing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea from their social website ConnectU during 2004, which is now social media site Facebook.

2017: The Thomas Fire started near Santa Paula and became the largest wildfire in modern California history after burning 440 square miles (281,893 acres; 114,078 ha) in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties.

[lordroel]

December 5th

63 BC – Cicero gives the fourth and final of the Catiline Orations.

633 – Fourth Council of Toledo takes place.

1082 – Ramon Berenguer II, Count of Barcelona is assassinated.

1408 – Emir Edigu of Golden Horde reaches Moscow.

1484 – Pope Innocent VIII issues the Summis desiderantes affectibus, a papal bull that deputizes Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger as inquisitors to root out alleged witchcraft in Germany.

1492 – Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

1496 – King Manuel I of Portugal issues a decree ordering the expulsion of "heretics" from the country.

1560 – Charles IX becomes king of France.

1757 – Seven Years' War: Battle of Leuthen: Frederick II of Prussia leads Prussian forces to a decisive victory over Austrian forces under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine.

1766 – In London, auctioneer James Christie holds his first sale.

1775 – At Fort Ticonderoga, Henry Knox begins his historic transport of artillery to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1831 – Former U.S. President John Quincy Adams takes his seat in the House of Representatives.

1847 – Jefferson Davis is elected to the U.S. Senate.

1848 – California Gold Rush: In a message to the United States Congress, U.S. President James K. Polk confirms that large amounts of gold had been discovered in California.

1865 – Chincha Islands War: Peru allies with Chile against Spain.

1931 – Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow was destroyed on orders from Joseph Stalin.

1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.

1934 – Abyssinia Crisis: Italian troops attack Wal Wal in Abyssinia, taking four days to capture the city.

1935 – Mary McLeod Bethune founds the National Council of Negro Women in New York City.

1936 – The Soviet Union adopts a new constitution and the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic is established as a full Union Republic of the USSR.

1941 – World War II: In the Battle of Moscow, Georgy Zhukov launches a massive Soviet counter-attack against the German army.

1941 – World War II: Great Britain declares war on Finland, Hungary and Romania.

1943 – World War II: Allied air forces begin attacking Germany's secret weapons bases in Operation Crossbow.

1945 – World War II: Flight 19, a group of TBF Avengers, Disappears in the Bermuda Triangle become one of the most famous aviation mysteries in history.

1952 – Great Smog: A cold fog descends upon London, combining with air pollution and killing at least 12,000 in the weeks and months that follow.

1955 – The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge and form the AFL–CIO.

1955 – E. D. Nixon and Rosa Parks lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1958 – Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the United Kingdom by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh.

1958 – The Preston By-pass, the UK's first stretch of motorway, opens to traffic for the first time. (It is now part of the M6 and M55 motorways.)

1964 – Vietnam War: For his heroism in battle earlier in the year, Captain Roger Donlon is awarded the first Medal of Honor of the war.

1964 – Lloyd J. Old discovered the first linkage between the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and disease—mouse leukemia—opening the way for the recognition of the importance of the MHC in the immune response.

1977 – Egypt breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq and South Yemen. The move is in retaliation for the Declaration of Tripoli against Egypt.

1983 – Dissolution of the Military Junta in Argentina.

1991 – Leonid Kravchuk is elected the first president of Ukraine.

1995 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lanka's government announces the conquest of the Tamil stronghold of Jaffna.

1999 – Helen Clark is sworn in as Prime Minister of New Zealand, the second woman to hold the post and the first to be elected to the role.

2004 – The Civil Partnership Act comes into effect in the United Kingdom, and the first civil partnership is registered there.

2005 – The 6.8 Mw Lake Tanganyika earthquake shakes the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing six people.

2006 – Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows the government in Fiji.

2013 – Militants attack a Defense Ministry compound in Sana'a, Yemen, killing at least 56 people and injuring 200 others.

2014 – Exploration Flight Test 1, the first flight test of Orion is launched.

2017 – The International Olympic Committee bans Russia from competing at the 2018 Winter Olympics for doping at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

[lordroel]

December 6th

963 – Pope Leo VIII is appointed to the office of Protonotary and begins his papacy as antipope of Rome.

1060 – Béla I is crowned king of Hungary.

1240 – Mongol invasion of Rus': Kiev under Daniel of Galicia and Voivode Dmytro falls to the Mongols under Batu Khan.

1534 – The city of Quito in Ecuador is founded by Spanish settlers led by Sebastián de Belalcázar.

1648 – Colonel Thomas Pride of the New Model Army purges the Long Parliament of MPs sympathetic to King Charles I of England, in order for the King's trial to go ahead; came to be known as "Pride's Purge".

1704 – Battle of Chamkaur: During the Mughal-Sikh Wars, an outnumbered Sikh Khalsa defeats a Mughal army.

1745 – Charles Edward Stuart's army begins retreat during the second Jacobite Rising.

1790 – The U.S. Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia.

1846 – American and Californio forces clash at the Battle of San Pasqual

1865 – Georgia ratifies 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

1877 – The first edition of The Washington Post is published.

1884 – The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., is completed.

1897 – London becomes the world's first city to host licensed taxicabs.

1904 – Theodore Roosevelt articulated his "Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the U.S. would intervene in the Western Hemisphere should Latin American governments prove incapable or unstable.

1907 – A coal mine explosion at Monongah, West Virginia, kills 362 workers.

1912 – The Nefertiti Bust is discovered.

1916 – World War I: The Central Powers capture Bucharest.

1917 – Finland declares independence from Soviet Russia.

1917 – Halifax Explosion: A munitions explosion near Halifax, Nova Scotia kills more than 1,900 people in the largest artificial explosion up to that time.

1917 – World War I: USS Jacob Jones is the first American destroyer to be sunk by enemy action when it is torpedoed by German submarine SM U-53.

1921 – The Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed in London by British and Irish representatives.

1922 – One year to the day after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the Irish Free State comes into existence.

1928 – The government of Colombia sends military forces to suppress a month-long strike by United Fruit Company workers, resulting in an unknown number of deaths.

1933 – U.S. federal judge John M. Woolsey rules that James Joyce's novel Ulysses is not obscene.

1941 – World War II: The United Kingdom and Canada declare war on Finland in support of the Soviet Union during the Continuation War. Camp X opens in Canada to begin training Allied Secret Agents for the War.

1947 – The Everglades National Park in Florida is dedicated.

1953 – Vladimir Nabokov completes his controversial novel Lolita.

1956 – A violent water polo match between Hungary and the USSR takes place during the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, against the backdrop of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

1957 – Project Vanguard: A launchpad explosion of Vanguard TV3 thwarts the first United States attempt to launch a satellite into Earth orbit.

1967 – Adrian Kantrowitz performs the first human heart transplant in the United States.

1969 – Altamont Free Concert: At a free concert performed by the Rolling Stones, eighteen-year old Meredith Hunter is stabbed to death by Hells Angels security guards.

1971 – Pakistan severs diplomatic relations with India, initiating the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

1973 – The Twenty-fifth Amendment: The United States House of Representatives votes 387 to 35 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States. (On November 27, the Senate confirmed him 92 to 3.)

1975 – The Troubles: Fleeing from the police, a Provisional IRA unit takes a British couple hostage in their flat on Balcombe Street, London, beginning a six-day siege.

1977 – South Africa grants independence to Bophuthatswana, although it is not recognized by any other country.

1978 – Spain ratifies the Spanish Constitution of 1978 in a referendum.

1982 – The Troubles: The Irish National Liberation Army bombs a pub frequented by British soldiers in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, killing eleven soldiers and six civilians.

1989 – The École Polytechnique massacre (or Montreal Massacre): Marc Lépine, an anti-feminist gunman, murders 14 young women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal.

1991 – Yugoslav Wars: In Croatia, forces of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) bombard Dubrovnik after laying siege to the city for seven months.

1992 – The Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, India, is demolished, leading to widespread riots causing the death of over 1,500 people.

1997 – A Russian Antonov An-124 Ruslan cargo plane crashes into an apartment complex near Irkutsk, Siberia, killing 67.

1998 – in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez is victorious in presidential elections.

2005 – An Iranian Air Force C-130 military transport aircraft crashes into a ten-floor apartment building in a residential area of Tehran, killing all 84 on board and 44 more on the ground.

2006 – NASA reveals photographs taken by Mars Global Surveyor suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars.

2015 – Venezuelan elections are held. For the first time in 17 years the United Socialist Party of Venezuela loses its majority in parliament.

2017 – Donald Trump's administration officially announces the recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel.

[lordroel]

December 7th

43 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated in Formia.

574 – Byzantine Emperor Justin II retires due to recurring seizures of insanity. He abdicates the throne in favor of his general Tiberius, proclaiming him Caesar.

1703 – The Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, makes landfall. Winds gust up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people die.

1724 – Tumult of Thorn: Religious unrest is followed by the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities.

1732 – The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London, England.

1776 – Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, arranges to enter the American military as a major general.

1787 – Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.

1837 – The Battle of Montgomery's Tavern, the only battle of the Upper Canada Rebellion, takes place in Toronto, where the rebels are quickly defeated.

1842 – First concert of the New York Philharmonic, founded by Ureli Corelli Hill.

1869 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.

1904 – Comparative fuel trials begin between warships HMS Spiteful and HMS Peterel: Spiteful was the first warship powered solely by fuel oil, and the trials led to the obsolescence of coal in ships of the Royal Navy.

1917 – World War I: The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.

1922 – The Parliament of Northern Ireland votes to remain a part of the United Kingdom and not unify with Southern Ireland.

1930 – W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts telecasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The telecast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.

1932 – German-born Swiss physicist Albert Einstein is granted an American visa.

1936 – Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton becomes the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Test innings.

1941 – World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (For Japan's near-simultaneous attacks on Eastern Hemisphere targets).

1942 – World War II: British commandos conduct Operation Frankton, a raid on shipping in Bordeaux harbour.

1946 – A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia kills 119 people, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history.

1949 – Chinese Civil War: The Government of the Republic of China moves from Nanking to Taipei, Taiwan.

1962 – Prince Rainier III of Monaco revises the principality's constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils.

1963 – Instant replay makes its debut during the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.

1965 – Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously revoke mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.

1971 – Pakistan President Yahya Khan announces the formation of a coalition government with Nurul Amin as Prime Minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Deputy Prime Minister.

1972 – Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.

1982 – In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr., becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.

1983 – An Iberia Airlines Boeing 727 collides with an Aviaco DC-9 in dense fog while the two airliners are taxiing down the runway at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 93 people.

1987 – Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771, a British Aerospace 146-200A, crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shoots both pilots and steers the plane into the ground.

1988 – The 6.8 Ms Armenian earthquake shakes the northern part of the country with a maximum MSK intensity of X (Devastating), killing 25,000–50,000 and injuring 31,000–130,000.

1993 – Long Island Rail Road shooting: Passenger Colin Ferguson murders six people and injures 19 others on the LIRR in Nassau County, New York.

1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.

1999 – A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: The Recording Industry Association of America sues the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster, alleging copyright infringement.

2003 – The Conservative Party of Canada is officially registered, following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

2005 – Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, is shot and killed by a team of U.S. federal air marshals at Miami International Airport.

2015 – The JAXA probe Akatsuki successfully enters orbit around Venus five years after the first attempt.

2016 – Syrian army continues large-scale attack and controls the revival (Sheikh Lutfi, Marja, Bab al-Nairab, Maadi, Al-Salhin) in the east of Aleppo backed by Russian Air Force and Iranian militias.

2016 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight PK661, a domestic passenger flight from Chitral to Islamabad, operated by ATR-42-500 crashes near Havelian, killing all 47 on board.

2017 – Marriage Amendment Bill to recognize same-sex marriage passes in Australia.

[lordroel]

December 8th

395 – Later Yan is defeated by its former vassal Northern Wei at the Battle of Canhe Slope.

757 – Du Fu returns to Chang'an as a member of Emperor Xuanzong's court, after having escaped the city during the An Lushan Rebellion.

877 – Louis the Stammerer (son of Charles the Bald) is crowned king of the West Frankish Kingdom at Compiègne.

1432 – The first battle between the forces of Švitrigaila and Sigismund Kęstutaitis is fought near the town of Oszmiana (Ashmyany), launching the most active phase of the Lithuanian Civil War.

1504 – Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah penned his Oran fatwa, arguing for the relaxation of Islamic law requirements for the forcibly converted Muslims in Spain.

1660 – A woman (either Margaret Hughes or Anne Marshall) appears on an English public stage for the first time, in the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare's play Othello.

1813 – Premiere of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.

1854 – In his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogmatic definition of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived free of Original Sin.

1864 – Pope Pius IX promulgates the encylical Quanta cura and its appendix, the Syllabus of Errors, outlining the authority of the Catholic Church and condemning various liberal ideas.

1907 – King Gustaf V of Sweden accedes to the Swedish throne.

1912 – Leaders of the German Empire hold an Imperial War Council to discuss the possibility that war might break out.

1914 – World War I: A squadron of Britain's Royal Navy defeats the Imperial German East Asia Squadron in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

1922 – Northern Ireland ceases to be part of the Irish Free State.

1927 – The Brookings Institution, one of the United States' oldest think tanks, is founded through the merger of three organizations that had been created by philanthropist Robert S. Brookings.

1941 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares December 7 to be "a date which will live in infamy", after which the U.S. declares war on Japan.

1941 – World War II: Japanese forces simultaneously invade Shanghai International Settlement, Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. (See December 7 for the concurrent attack on Pearl Harbor in the Western Hemisphere.)

1943 – World War II: The German 117th Jäger Division destroys the monastery of Mega Spilaio in Greece and executes 22 monks and visitors as part of reprisals that culminated a few days later with the Massacre of Kalavryta.

1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his "Atoms for Peace" speech, which leads to an American program to supply equipment and information on nuclear power to schools, hospitals, and research institutions around the world.

1955 – The Flag of Europe is adopted by Council of Europe.

1962 – Workers at four New York City newspapers (this later increases to nine) go on strike for 114 days.

1963 – Pan Am Flight 214, a Boeing 707, is struck by lightning and crashes near Elkton, Maryland, killing all 81 people on board.

1966 – The Greek ship SS Heraklion sinks in a storm in the Aegean Sea, killing over 200.

1969 – Olympic Airways Flight 954 strikes a mountain outside of Keratea, Greece, killing 90 people in the worst crash of a Douglas DC-6 in history.

1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Navy launches an attack on West Pakistan's port city of Karachi.

1972 – United Airlines Flight 553, a Boeing 737, crashes after aborting its landing attempt at Chicago Midway International Airport, killing 45. This is the first-ever loss of a Boeing 737.

1974 – A plebiscite results in the abolition of monarchy in Greece.

1980 – Former Beatle John Lennon is murdered by Mark David Chapman in front of The Dakota in New York City.

1985 – The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the regional intergovernmental organization and geopolitical union in South Asia is established.

1987 – Cold War: The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the White House.

1987 – An Israeli army tank transporter kills four Palestinian refugees and injures seven others during a traffic accident at the Erez Crossing on the Israel–Gaza Strip border, which has been cited as one of the events which sparked the First Intifada.

1988 – A United States Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II crashes into an apartment complex in Remscheid, Germany, killing 5 people and injuring 50 others.

1991 – The leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine sign an agreement dissolving the Soviet Union and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1998 – Eighty-one people are killed by armed groups in Algeria.

2004 – The Cusco Declaration is signed in Cusco, Peru, establishing the South American Community of Nations.

2009 – Bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, kill 127 people and injure 448 others.

2010 – With the second launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and the first launch of the SpaceX Dragon, SpaceX becomes the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft.

2010 – The Japanese solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS passes the planet Venus at a distance of about 80,800 km.

2013 – Riots break out in Singapore after a fatal accident in Little India.

2013 – Metallica performs a show in Antarctica, making them the first band to perform on all 7 continents.

2016 – Syrian Army starts final phase of the attack and progress has been made in the district of, "Sheikh Said" and preparing to storm the neighborhood "Sukkari" in East of Aleppo.

[lordroel]

December 9th

480 – Odoacer, first King of Italy, occupies Dalmatia. He later establishes his political power with the co-operation of the Roman Senate.

536 – Gothic War: The Byzantine general Belisarius enters Rome unopposed; the Gothic garrison flee the capital.

730 – Battle of Marj Ardabil: The Khazars annihilate an Umayyad army and kill its commander, Al-Jarrah Ibn Abdallah Al-Hakami.

1425 – The Catholic University of Leuven is founded.

1531 – The Virgin of Guadalupe first appears to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico City.

1688 – Glorious Revolution: Williamite forces defeat Jacobites at Battle of Reading, forcing flight of James II from the country.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: British troops lose the Battle of Great Bridge, and leave Virginia soon afterward.

1793 – New York City's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster.

1824 – Patriot forces led by General Antonio José de Sucre defeat a Royalist army in the Battle of Ayacucho, putting an end to the Peruvian War of Independence.

1835 – Texas Revolution: The Texian Army captures San Antonio, Texas.

1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal.

1856 – The Iranian city of Bushehr surrenders to occupying British forces.

1861 – American Civil War: The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War is established by the U.S. Congress.

1872 – In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first African-American governor of a U.S. state.

1892 – English soccer club Newcastle United is founded

1897 – Activist Marguerite Durand founds the feminist daily newspaper La Fronde in Paris.

1905 – In France, the law separating church and state is passed.

1911 – A mine explosion near Briceville, Tennessee, kills 84 miners despite rescue efforts led by the United States Bureau of Mines.

1917 – World War I: Field Marshal Allenby captures Jerusalem, Palestine.

1922 – Gabriel Narutowicz is elected the first president of Poland.

1931 – The Constituent Cortes approves a constitution which establishes the Second Spanish Republic.

1935 – Student protests in Beiping (now Beijing)'s Tiananmen Square, dispersed by government.

1935 – Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in a gangland murder.
1935 – The Downtown Athletic Club Trophy, later renamed the Heisman Trophy, is awarded for the first time. The winner is halfback Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago.

1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking: Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko launch an assault on the Chinese city of Nanjing (Nanking).

1940 – World War II: Operation Compass: British and Indian troops under the command of Major-General Richard O'Connor attack Italian forces near Sidi Barrani in Egypt.

1941 – World War II: The Republic of China, Cuba, Guatemala, and the Philippine Commonwealth, declare war on Germany and Japan.

1941 – World War II: The American 19th Bombardment Group attacks Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan, Luzon.

1946 – The "Subsequent Nuremberg trials" begin with the "Doctors' trial", prosecuting physicians and officers alleged to be involved in Nazi human experimentation and mass murder under the guise of euthanasia.

1946 – The Constituent Assembly of India meets for the first time to write the Constitution of India.

1948 – The Genocide Convention is adopted.

1950 – Cold War: Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

1953 – Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.

1956 – Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, a Canadair North Star, crashes near Hope, British Columbia, Canada, killing all 62 people on board.

1958 – The John Birch Society is founded in the United States.

1960 – The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, is broadcast in the United Kingdom.

1961 – Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain.

1962 – The Petrified Forest National Park is established in Arizona.

1965 – Kecksburg UFO incident: A fireball is seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; witnesses report something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh.

1965 – A Charlie Brown Christmas, first in a series of Peanuts television specials, debuts on CBS.

1968 – Douglas Engelbart gave what became known as "The Mother of All Demos", publicly debuting the computer mouse, hypertext, and the bit-mapped graphical user interface using the oN-Line System (NLS).

1969 – U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers proposes his plan for a ceasefire in the War of Attrition; Egypt and Jordan accept it over the objections of the PLO, which leads to civil war in Jordan in September 1970.

1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Air Force executes an airdrop of Indian Army units, bypassing Pakistani defences.

1973 – British and Irish authorities sign the Sunningdale Agreement in an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland.

1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first of only two diseases that have been driven to extinction (rinderpest in 2011 being the other).

1982 – Explosion in office belonging to the Kuwait Airways in Athens.

1987 – Israeli–Palestinian conflict: The First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

1988 – The Michael Hughes Bridge in Sligo, Ireland, is officially opened.

1992 – American troops land in Somalia for Operation Restore Hope.

1996 – Gwen Jacob is acquitted of committing an indecent act, giving women the right to be topfree in Ontario, Canada.

2003 – A blast in the center of Moscow kills six people and wounds several more.

2008 – The Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is arrested by federal officials for crimes including attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

2012 – A plane crash in Mexico kills seven people.

2013 – At least seven are dead and 63 are injured following a train accident near Bintaro, Indonesia.

2015 – The start of the thirty-sixth GCC summit in Riyadh business.

2016 – President Park Geun-hye of South Korea is impeached by the country's National Assembly in response to a major political scandal. Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn becomes Acting President, later declining to run for a full term.

2016 – At least 57 people are killed and a further 177 injured when two schoolgirl suicide bombers attack a market area in Madagali, Northeastern Nigeria in the Madagali suicide bombings.

2017 – Australia becomes the 26th country to legalize same-sex marriage.

[lordroel]

December 10th

220 – Emperor Xian of Han abdicates the throne to Cao Pi ending the Han dynasty and establish the Kingdom of Wei.

1041 – The son of Empress Zoë of Byzantium succeeds to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire as Michael V.

1317 – The "Nyköping Banquet" - King Birger of Sweden treacherously seizes his two brothers Valdemar, Duke of Finland and Eric, Duke of Södermanland, who were subsequently starved to death in the dungeon of Nyköping Castle.

1508 – The League of Cambrai is formed by Pope Julius II, Louis XII of France, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Ferdinand II of Aragon as an alliance against Venice.

1520 – Martin Luther burns his copy of the papal bull Exsurge Domine outside Wittenberg's Elster Gate.

1541 – Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham are executed for having affairs with Catherine Howard, Queen of England and wife of Henry VIII.

1652 – Defeat at the Battle of Dungeness causes the Commonwealth of England to reform its navy.

1665 – The Royal Netherlands Marine Corps is founded by Michiel de Ruyter.

1684 – Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley.

1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published.

1799 – France adopts the metre as its official unit of length.

1817 – Mississippi becomes the 20th U.S. state.

1861 – American Civil War: The Confederate States of America accept a rival state government's pronouncement that declares Kentucky to be the 13th state of the Confederacy.

1861 – Forces led by Nguyễn Trung Trực, an anti-colonial guerrilla leader in southern Vietnam, sink the French lorcha L'Esperance.

1864 – American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea: Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's Union Army troops reach the outer Confederate defenses of Savannah, Georgia.

1868 – The first traffic lights are installed, outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.

1877 – Russo-Turkish War: The Russian Army captures Plevna after a 5-month siege. The garrison of 25,000 surviving Turks surrenders. The Russian victory is decisive for the outcome of the war and the Liberation of Bulgaria.

1884 – Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published.

1896 – Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi premieres in Paris. A riot breaks out at the end of the performance.

1898 – Spanish–American War: The Treaty of Paris is signed, officially ending the conflict.

1901 – The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.

1902 – The opening of the reservoir of the Aswan Dam in Egypt.

1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize.

1907 – The worst night of the Brown Dog riots in London, when 1,000 medical students clash with 400 police officers over the existence of a memorial for animals that have been vivisected.

1909 – Selma Lagerlöf becomes the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1932 – Thailand becomes a constitutional monarchy.

1936 – Abdication Crisis: Edward VIII signs the Instrument of Abdication.

1941 – World War II: The Royal Navy capital ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse are sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers near British Malaya.

1941 – World War II: Battle of the Philippines: Imperial Japanese forces under the command of General Masaharu Homma land on Luzon.

1942 – World War II: Government of Poland in exile send Raczyński's Note (the first official report on the Holocaust) to 26 governments who signed the Declaration by United Nations.

1948 – The Human Rights Convention is signed by the United Nations.

1949 – Chinese Civil War: The People's Liberation Army begins its siege of Chengdu, the last Kuomintang-held city in mainland China, forcing President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek and his government to retreat to Taiwan.

1953 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill receives the Nobel Prize in literature.

1963 – Zanzibar gains independence from the United Kingdom as a constitutional monarchy, under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah.

1963 – An assassination attempt on the British High Commissioner in Aden kills two people and wounds dozens more.

1968 – Japan's biggest heist, the still-unsolved "300 million yen robbery", is carried out in Tokyo.

1978 – Arab–Israeli conflict: Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1979 – Kaohsiung Incident: Taiwanese pro-democracy demonstrations are suppressed by the KMT dictatorship, and organizers are arrested.

1983 – Democracy is restored in Argentina with the inauguration of President Raúl Alfonsín.

1984 – United Nations General Assembly recognizes the Convention against Torture.

1989 – Mongolian Revolution: At the country's first open pro-democracy public demonstration, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announces the establishment of the Mongolian Democratic Union.

1993 – The last shift leaves Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland. The closure of the 156-year-old pit marks the end of the old County Durham coalfield, which had been in operation since the Middle Ages.

1994 – Rwandan genocide: Maurice Baril, military advisor to the U.N. Secretary-General and head of the Military Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, recommends that UNAMIR stand down.

1995 – The Israeli army withdraws from Nablus pursuant to the terms of Oslo Accord.

1996 – The new Constitution of South Africa is promulgated by Nelson Mandela.

2014 – Palestinian minister Ziad Abu Ein was killed after the suppression of a demonstration by Israeli forces in the village (Turmus'ayya) in Ramallah.

2016 – Two explosions outside a football stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, kill 38 people and injure 166 others.

[lordroel]

December 11th

361 – Julian enters Constantinople as sole Emperor of the Roman Empire.

861 – Assassination of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil by the Turkish guard, who raise al-Muntasir to the throne. Start of the "Anarchy at Samarra".

969 – Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas is assassinated by his wife Theophano and her lover, the later Emperor John I Tzimiskes.

1282 – Battle of Orewin Bridge: Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last native Prince of Wales, is killed at Cilmeri, near Builth Wells, in mid-Wales.

1602 – A surprise attack by forces under the command of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, and his brother-in-law, Philip III of Spain, is repelled by the citizens of Geneva.

1688 – Glorious Revolution: James II of England, while trying to flee to France, throws the Great Seal of the Realm into the River Thames.

1789 – The University of North Carolina is chartered by the North Carolina General Assembly.

1792 – French Revolution: King Louis XVI of France is put on trial for treason by the National Convention.

1815 – The U.S. Senate creates a select committee on finance and a uniform national currency, predecessor of the United States Senate Committee on Finance.

1816 – Indiana becomes the 19th U.S. state.
1868 – Paraguayan War: Brazilian troops defeat Paraguayan at the Battle of Avay.

1899 – Second Boer War: In the Battle of Magersfontein the Boers commanded by general Piet Cronjé inflict a defeat on the forces of the British Empire commanded by Lord Methuen trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.

1905 – A workers' uprising occurs in Kiev, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), and establishes the Shuliavka Republic.

1907 – The New Zealand Parliament Buildings are almost completely destroyed by fire.

1917 – World War I: British General Edmund Allenby enters Jerusalem on foot and declares martial law.

1920 – Irish War of Independence: In retaliation for a recent IRA ambush, British forces burn and loot numerous buildings in Cork city. Many civilians report being beaten, shot at, robbed and verbally abused by British forces.

1925 – Roman Catholic papal encyclical Quas primas introduces the Feast of Christ the King.

1927 – Guangzhou Uprising: Communist Red Guards launch an uprising in Guangzhou, China, taking over most of the city and announcing the formation of a Guangzhou Soviet.

1931 – Statute of Westminster 1931: The British Parliament establishes legislative equality between the UK and the Dominions of the Commonwealth—Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Ireland.

1934 – Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, takes his last drink and enters treatment for the last time.

1936 – Abdication Crisis: Edward VIII's abdication as King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, and Emperor of India, becomes effective.

1937 – Second Italo-Ethiopian War: Italy leaves the League of Nations.

1941 – World War II: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, following the Americans' declaration of war on the Empire of Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States, in turn, declares war on them.

1941 – World War II: Poland declares war on the Empire of Japan.

1941 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy suffers its first loss of surface vessels during the Battle of Wake Island.

1946 – The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is established.

1948 – Arab–Israeli War: The United Nations passes General Assembly Resolution 194, creating a Conciliation Commission to mediate the conflict.

1958 – French Upper Volta and French Dahomey gain self-government from France, becoming the Republic of Upper Volta and the Republic of Dahomey (now Benin), respectively, and joining the French Community.

1960 – French forces crack down in a violent clash with protesters in French Algeria during a visit by French President Charles de Gaulle.

1962 – Arthur Lucas, convicted of murder, is the last person to be executed in Canada.

1964 – Che Guevara speaks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

1968 – The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, featuring the Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, the Who, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, and the Dirty Mac with Yoko Ono, is filmed in Wembley, London.

1972 – Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon.

1978 – The Lufthansa heist is committed by a group led by Lucchese family associate Jimmy Burke. It was the largest cash robbery ever committed on American soil, at that time.

1980 – The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund) is enacted by the U.S. Congress.

1981 – El Mozote massacre: Armed forces in El Salvador kill an estimated 900 civilians in an anti-guerrilla campaign during the Salvadoran Civil War.

1990 – Demonstrations by students and workers across Albania begin, which eventually trigger the fall of communism in Albania.

1994 – First Chechen War: Russian President Boris Yeltsin orders Russian troops into Chechnya.

1994 – A bomb explodes on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, en route from Manila, Philippines, to Tokyo, Japan, killing one. The captain is able to safely land the plane.

1997 – The Kyoto Protocol opens for signature.

1998 – Thai Airways Flight 261 crashes near Surat Thani Airport, killing 101. The pilot flying the Airbus A310-300 is thought to have suffered spatial disorientation.

2001 – The People's Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO).

2005 – The Buncefield Oil Depot catches fire in Hemel Hempstead, England.

2005 – Cronulla riots: Thousands of White Australians demonstrate against ethnic violence resulting in a riot against anyone thought to be Lebanese in Cronulla, New South Wales; these are followed up by retaliatory ethnic attacks on Cronulla.

2006 – The International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust is opened in Tehran, Iran, by then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; nations such as Israel and the United States express concern.

2006 – Felipe Calderón, the President of Mexico, launches a military-led offensive to put down the drug cartel violence in the state of Michoacán. This effort is often regarded as the first event in the Mexican Drug War.

2007 – Insurgency in the Maghreb: Two car bombs explode in Algiers, Algeria, one near the Supreme Constitutional Court and the other near the offices of the United Nations.

2008 – Bernard Madoff is arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

2012 – At least 125 people are killed and up to 200 injured in bombings in the Alawite village of Aqrab, Syria.

2017 – A bomb detonated in the New York City Subway, in the Times Square–42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. It is known as the 2017 New York City attempted bombing.

[lordroel]

December 12th

627 – Battle of Nineveh: A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeats Emperor Khosrau II's Persian forces, commanded by General Rhahzadh.

884 – King Carloman II dies after a hunting accident. He is succeeded by his cousin, emperor Charles the Fat, who for the last time reunites the Frankish Empire.

1098 – First Crusade: Siege of Ma'arrat al-Numan: Crusaders breach the town's walls and massacre about 20,000 inhabitants. After finding themselves with insufficient food, they reportedly resort to cannibalism.

1388 – Mary of Enghien sells the lordship of Argos and Nauplia to the Republic of Venice.

1408 – The Order of the Dragon, a monarchical chivalric order, is created by Sigismund of Luxembourg, then king of Hungary.

1781 – American Revolutionary War: Second Battle of Ushant: A British fleet led by HMS Victory defeats a French fleet.

1787 – Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, five days after Delaware became the first.

1862 – American Civil War: USS Cairo sinks on the Yazoo River, becoming the first armored ship to be sunk by a controlled mine.

1866 – Oaks explosion: The worst mining disaster in England kills 361 miners and rescuers.

1870 – Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina becomes the second black U.S. congressman, the first being Hiram Revels.

1897 – Belo Horizonte, the first planned city in Brazil, is founded.

1901 – Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal (the letter "S" [***] in Morse Code), at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland.

1911 – Delhi replaces Calcutta as the capital of India.

1911 – King George V of the United Kingdom and Mary of Teck are enthroned as Emperor and Empress of India.

1915 – President of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai, announces his intention to reinstate the monarchy and proclaim himself Emperor of China.

1917 – In Nebraska, Father Edward J. Flanagan founds Boys Town as a farm village for wayward boys.

1918 – The Flag of Estonia is raised atop the Pikk Hermann for the first time.

1925 – The Majlis of Iran votes to crown Reza Khan as the new Shah of Iran, starting the Pahlavi dynasty.

1935 – Lebensborn Project, a Nazi reproduction program, is founded by Heinrich Himmler.

1936 – Xi'an Incident: The Generalissimo of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek, is kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang.

1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: USS Panay incident: Japanese aircraft bomb and sink U.S. gunboat USS Panay on the Yangtze river in China.

1939 – Winter War: Battle of Tolvajärvi: Finnish forces defeat those of the Soviet Union in their first major victory of the conflict.

1939 – HMS Duchess sinks after a collision with HMS Barham off the coast of Scotland with the loss of 124 men.

1940 – World War II: Approximately 70 people are killed in the Marples Hotel, Fitzalan Square, Sheffield, as a result of a German air raid.

1941 – World War II: Fifty-four Japanese A6M Zero fighters raid Batangas Field, Philippines. Jesús Villamor and four Filipino fighter pilots fend them off; César Basa is killed.

1941 – World War II: The United Kingdom declares war on Bulgaria. Hungary and Romania declare war on the United States. India declares war on Japan.

1941 – Adolf Hitler declares the imminent extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery.

1942 – World War II: German troops begin Operation Winter Storm, an attempt to relieve encircled Axis forces during the Battle of Stalingrad.

1946 – A fire at an ice plant in Hudson Heights, Manhattan spreads to an adjacent tenement, killing 37 people.

1946 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 13 relating to acceptance of Siam to United Nations is adopted.

1948 – Malayan Emergency: Batang Kali massacre: Fourteen members of the Scots Guards stationed in Malaya allegedly massacre 24 unarmed civilians and set fire to the village.

1950 – Paula Ackerman, the first woman appointed to perform rabbinical functions in the United States, leads the congregation in her first services.

1956 – Beginning of the Irish Republican Army's "Border Campaign".

1956 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 121 relating to acceptance of Japan to United Nations is adopted.

1963 – Kenya gains its independence from the United Kingdom.

1964 – Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta becomes the first President of the Republic of Kenya.

1969 – Years of Lead: Piazza Fontana bombing: The offices of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana, Milan, are bombed.

1979 – Coup d'état of December Twelfth: South Korean Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan orders the arrest of Army Chief of Staff General Jeong Seung-hwa without authorization from President Choi Kyu-ha, alleging involvement in the assassination of ex-President Park Chung-hee.

1979 – President of Pakistan Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq confers Nishan-e-Imtiaz on Nobel laureate Dr Abdus Salam.

1979 – The unrecognised state of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia returns to British control and resumes using the name Southern Rhodesia.

1979 – The 8.2 Mw Tumaco earthquake shakes Colombia and Ecuador with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing 300–600, and generating a large tsunami.

1983 – The Australian Labor government led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Treasurer Paul Keating floats the Australian dollar.

1984 – Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya becomes the third president of Mauritania after a coup d'état against Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla while the latter is attending a summit.

1985 – Arrow Air Flight 1285, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8, crashes after takeoff in Gander, Newfoundland, killing all 256 people on board, including 236 members of the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division.

1988 – The Clapham Junction rail crash kills thirty-five and injures hundreds after two collisions of three commuter trains—one of the worst train crashes in the United Kingdom.

1991 – The Russian Federation gains independence from the USSR.

2000 – The United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore.

2001 – Prime Minister of Vietnam Phan Văn Khải announces the decision on upgrading the Phong Nha–Kẻ Bàng nature reserve to a national park, providing information on projects for the conservation and development of the park and revised maps.

2012 – North Korea successfully launches its first satellite, Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2, using an Unha-3 carrier rocket.

2015 – Paris Agreement relating to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is adopted.

2017 – Doug Jones wins the 2017 US Senate special election in Alabama, becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Alabama since 1992.

[lordroel]

December 13th

902 – Battle of the Holme: Anglo-Saxon forces are defeated by Danish Vikings under Æthelwold (a son of Æthelred of Wessex) who is killed in battle.

1294 – Saint Celestine V resigns the papacy after only five months to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit.

1545 – Council of Trent begins.

1577 – Sir Francis Drake sets sail from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.

1636 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. This organization is recognized today as the founding of the National Guard of the United States.

1642 – Abel Tasman is the first recorded European to sight New Zealand.

1643 – English Civil War: The Battle of Alton takes place in Hampshire.

1758 – The English transport ship Duke William sinks in the North Atlantic, killing over 360 people.

1769 – Dartmouth College is founded by the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, with a royal charter from King George III, on land donated by Royal governor John Wentworth.

1818 – Cyril VI of Constantinople resigns from his position as Ecumenical Patriarch.

1862 – American Civil War: At the Battle of Fredericksburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeats Union Major General Ambrose Burnside.

1867 – A Fenian bomb explodes in Clerkenwell, London, killing six.

1928 – George Gershwin's An American in Paris is first performed.

1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking: The city of Nanjing, defended by the National Revolutionary Army under the command of General Tang Shengzhi, falls to the Japanese. This is followed by the Nanking Massacre, in which Japanese troops rape and slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians.

1938 – The Holocaust: The Neuengamme concentration camp opens in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, Germany.

1939 – World War II: Battle of the River Plate: Captain Hans Langsdorff of the German Deutschland-class cruiser (pocket battleship) Admiral Graf Spee engages with Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles.

1943 – World War II: The Massacre of Kalavryta by German occupying forces in Greece.

1949 – The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.

1951 – WFMT begins broadcasting in Chicago.

1959 – Archbishop Makarios III becomes the first President of Cyprus.

1960 – While Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia visits Brazil, his Imperial Bodyguard seizes the capital and proclaims him deposed and his son, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, Emperor.

1962 – NASA launches Relay 1, the first active repeater communications satellite in orbit.

1967 – Constantine II of Greece attempts an unsuccessful counter-coup against the Regime of the Colonels.

1968 – Brazilian President Artur da Costa e Silva issues AI-5 (Institutional Act No. 5), enabling government by decree and suspending habeas corpus.

1971 – Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe) filled a law suit against Henry Wade, Dallas county attorney, in the Roe v. Wade case.

1972 – Apollo program: Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin the third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or "Moonwalk" of Apollo 17. To date they are the last humans to set foot on the Moon.

1974 – Malta becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations.

1977 – Air Indiana Flight 216 crashes near Evansville Regional Airport, killing 29, including the University of Evansville basketball team, support staff, and boosters of the team.

1981 – General Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland, largely due to the actions by Solidarity.

1982 – The 6.0 Ms  North Yemen earthquake shakes southwestern Yemen with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing 2,800, and injuring 1,500.

1988 – PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat gives a speech at a UN General Assembly meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, after United States authorities refused to grant him a visa to visit UN headquarters in New York.

1989 – The Troubles: Attack on Derryard checkpoint: The Provisional Irish Republican Army launches an attack on a British Army temporary vehicle checkpoint near Rosslea, Northern Ireland. Two British soldiers are killed and two others are wounded.

2001 – Sansad Bhavan, the building housing the Indian Parliament, is attacked by terrorists. Twelve people are killed, including the terrorists.

2002 – European Union enlargement: The EU announces that Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia will become members from May 1, 2004.

2003 – Iraq War: Operation Red Dawn: Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit.

2006 – Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is adopted by United Nations General Assembly.

2007 – Treaty of Lisbon is signed by members states of European Union.

2011 – A murder–suicide in Liège, Belgium, kills six and wounds 125 people at a Christmas market.

[lordroel]

December 14th

557 – Constantinople is severely damaged by an earthquake.

835 – Sweet Dew Incident: Emperor Wenzong of the Tang dynasty conspires to kill the powerful eunuchs of the Tang court, but the plot is foiled.

1287 – St. Lucia's flood: The Zuiderzee sea wall in the Netherlands collapses, killing over 50,000 people.

1542 – Princess Mary Stuart becomes Queen of Scots at the age of only one week on the death of her father, James V of Scotland.

1751 – The Theresian Military Academy is founded in Wiener Neustadt, Austria.

1780 – Founding Father Alexander Hamilton marries Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton at the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, New York.

1782 – The Montgolfier brothers first test fly an unmanned hot air balloon in France; it floats nearly 2 km (1.2 mi).

1812 – The French invasion of Russia comes to an end as the remnants of the Grande Armée are expelled from Russia.

1814 – War of 1812: The Royal Navy seizes control of Lake Borgne, Louisiana.

1819 – Alabama becomes the 22nd U.S. state.

1836 – The Toledo War unofficially ends.

1896 – The Glasgow Underground Railway is opened by the Glasgow District Subway Company.

1900 – Quantum mechanics: Max Planck presents a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law.

1902 – The Commercial Pacific Cable Company lays the first Pacific telegraph cable, from San Francisco to Honolulu.

1903 – The Wright brothers make their first attempt to fly with the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1907 – The Thomas W. Lawson, the largest ever ship without a heat engine, runs aground and founders near the Hellweather's Reef within the Isles of Scilly in a gale. The pilot and 15 seamen die.

1909 – New South Wales Premier Charles Wade signs the Seat of Government Surrender Act 1909, formally completing the transfer of State land to the Commonwealth to create the Australian Capital Territory.

1911 – Roald Amundsen's team, comprising himself, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting, becomes the first to reach the South Pole.

1913 – Haruna, the fourth and last Kongō-class ship, launches, eventually becoming one of the Japanese workhorses during World War I and World War II.

1914 – Lisandro de la Torre and others found the Democratic Progressive Party (Partido Demócrata Progresista, PDP) at the Hotel Savoy, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1918 – Friedrich Karl von Hessen, a German prince elected by the Parliament of Finland to become King Väinö I, renounces the Finnish throne.

1918 – Portuguese President Sidónio Pais is assassinated.

1918 – The 1918 United Kingdom general election occurred, the first where women were permitted to vote.

1939 – Winter War: The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland.

1940 – Plutonium (specifically Pu-238) is first isolated at Berkeley, California.

1941 – World War II: Japan signs a treaty of alliance with Thailand.

1948 – Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann are granted a patent for their cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game.

1955 – Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ceylon, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania and Spain join the United Nations through United Nations Security Council Resolution 109.

1958 – The 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition becomes the first to reach the southern pole of inaccessibility.

1960 – Convention against Discrimination in Education of UNESCO is adopted.

1962 – NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.

1963 – The dam containing the Baldwin Hills Reservoir bursts, killing five people and damaging hundreds of homes in Los Angeles, California.

1964 – American Civil Rights Movement: Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that Congress can use the Constitution's Commerce Clause to fight discrimination.

1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War: Over 200 of East Pakistan's intellectuals are executed by the Pakistan Army and their local allies.

1972 – Apollo program: Eugene Cernan is the last person to walk on the moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final extravehicular activity (EVA) of the Apollo 17 mission.

1981 – Arab–Israeli conflict: Israel's Knesset ratifies the Golan Heights Law, extending Israeli law to the occupied Golan Heights.

1985 – Wilma Mankiller takes office as the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

1992 – War in Abkhazia: Siege of Tkvarcheli: A helicopter carrying evacuees from Tkvarcheli is shot down, resulting in at least 52 deaths, including 25 children. The incident catalyses more concerted Russian military intervention on behalf of Abkhazia.

1994 – Construction begins on the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river.

1995 – Yugoslav Wars: The Dayton Agreement is signed in Paris by the leaders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

1998 – Yugoslav Wars: The Yugoslav Army ambushes a group of Kosovo Liberation Army fighters attempting to smuggle weapons from Albania into Kosovo, killing 36.

1999 – Torrential rains cause flash floods in Vargas, Venezuela, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, the destruction of thousands of homes, and the complete collapse of the state's infrastructure.

2003 – Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf narrowly escapes an assassination attempt.

2004 – The Millau Viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world, is formally inaugurated near Millau, France.

2008 – Muntadhar al-Zaidi throws his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq.

2012 – Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: Twenty-eight people, including the gunman, are killed in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

2013 – A reported coup attempt in South Sudan leads to continued fighting and hundreds of casualties.

2017 – The Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal net neutrality with a 3-2 majority.

2017 – The Walt Disney Company announces that it would acquire 21st Century Fox, including the 20th Century Fox movie studio, for $52.4 billion.

[lordroel]

December 15th

533 – Vandalic War: Byzantine general Belisarius defeats the Vandals, commanded by King Gelimer, at the Battle of Tricamarum.

687 – Pope Sergius I is elected.

1025 – Constantine VIII becomes sole emperor of the Byzantine Empire, 63 years after being crowned co-emperor.

1161 – Jin–Song wars: Military officers conspire against the emperor Wanyan Liang of the Jin dynasty after a military defeat at the Battle of Caishi, and assassinate the emperor at his camp.

1167 – Sicilian Chancellor Stephen du Perche moves the royal court to Messina to prevent a rebellion.

1256 – Mongol forces under the command of Hulagu Khan enter and destroy the Hashshashin stronghold at Alamut Castle (in present-day Iran) as part of their offensive on Islamic southwest Asia.

1467 – Stephen III of Moldavia defeats Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, with the latter being injured thrice, at the Battle of Baia.

1651 – Castle Cornet in Guernsey, the last stronghold which had supported the King in the Third English Civil War, surrenders.

1778 – American Revolutionary War: British and French fleets clash in the Battle of St. Lucia.

1791 – The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly.

1851 – Monster Meeting, Australia - approximately, 10,000 to 15,000 diggers took place on 15 December 1851, at the Shepherd's Hut, Forest Creek.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Nashville: The Army of the Cumberland finishes the Army of Tennessee as a combat unit.

1890 – Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull is killed on Standing Rock Indian Reservation, leading to the Wounded Knee Massacre.

1905 – The Pushkin House is established in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to preserve the cultural heritage of Alexander Pushkin.

1906 – The London Underground's Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway opens.

1914 – World War I: The Serbian Army recaptures Belgrade from the invading Austro-Hungarian Army.

1914 – A gas explosion at Mitsubishi Hōjō coal mine, in Kyushu, Japan, kills 687.

1917 – World War I: An armistice between Russia and the Central Powers is signed.

1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially becomes effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol.

1939 – Gone with the Wind (highest inflation adjusted grossing film) receives its premiere at Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.

1941 – The Holocaust in Ukraine: German troops murder over 15,000 Jews at Drobytsky Yar, a ravine southeast of the city of Kharkiv.

1942 – World War II: The Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse begins during the Guadalcanal Campaign.

1943 – World War II: The Battle of Arawe begins during the New Britain campaign.

1945 – Occupation of Japan/Shinto Directive: General Douglas MacArthur orders that Shinto be abolished as the state religion of Japan.

1960 – Richard Pavlick is arrested for plotting to assassinate U.S. President-Elect John F. Kennedy.

1960 – King Mahendra of Nepal suspends the country's constitution, dissolves parliament, dismisses the cabinet, and imposes direct rule.

1961 – Adolf Eichmann is sentenced to death after being found guilty by an Israeli court of 15 criminal charges, including charges of crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership of an outlawed organization.

1965 – Project Gemini: Gemini 6A, crewed by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Four orbits later, it achieves the first space rendezvous, with Gemini 7.

1970 – Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 successfully lands on Venus. It is the first successful soft landing on another planet.

1970 – A South Korean ferry, Namyong Ho, capsizes in the Korea Strait, killing more than 300 people.

1973 – John Paul Getty III, grandson of American billionaire J. Paul Getty, is found alive near Naples, Italy, after being kidnapped by an Italian gang on July 10.

1973 – The American Psychiatric Association votes 13–0 to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the DSM-II.

1978 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will recognize the People's Republic of China and sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

1981 – A suicide car bombing targeting the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, levels the embassy and kills 61 people, including Iraq's ambassador to Lebanon. The attack is considered the first modern suicide bombing.

1989 – Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights relating the abolition of capital punishment is adopted.

1993 – The Troubles: The Downing Street Declaration is issued by British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.

1997 – Tajikistan Airlines Flight 3183 crashes in the desert near Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, killing 85.

2000 – The third reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is shut down.

2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 spent to stabilize it, without fixing its famous lean.

2005 – Introduction of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor into USAF active service.

2010 – A boat carrying 90 asylum seekers crashes into rocks off the coast of Christmas Island, Australia, killing 48 people.

2013 – The South Sudanese Civil War begins when opposition leaders Dr. Riek Machar, Pagan Amum and Rebecca Nyandeng vote to boycott the meeting of the National Liberation Council at Nyakuron.

2014 – Gunman Man Haron Monis takes 18 hostages inside a café in Martin Place for 16 hours in Sydney. Monis and two hostages are killed when police raid the café the following morning.

2017 – The 6.5Mw  Java earthquake struck the Java Island in the city of Tasikmalaya. 4 confirmed deaths, 36 injured, and 200 displaced.

[lordroel]

December 16th

714 – Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the Merovingian palace, dies at Jupille (modern Belgium). He is succeeded by his infant grandson Theudoald while his wife Plectrude holds actual power in the Frankish Kingdom.

755 – An Lushan revolts against Chancellor Yang Guozhong at Yanjing, initiating the An Lushan Rebellion during the Tang dynasty of China.

1431 – Hundred Years' War: Henry VI of England is crowned King of France at Notre Dame in Paris.

1497 – Vasco da Gama passes the Great Fish River, where Bartolomeu Dias had previously turned back to Portugal.

1575 – An earthquake with an estimated of 8.5Mw  strikes Valdivia, Chile.

1598 – Seven-Year War: Battle of Noryang: The final battle of the Seven-Year War is fought between the China and the Korean allied forces and Japanese navies, resulting in a decisive allied forces victory.

1653 – English Interregnum: The Protectorate: Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.

1689 – Convention Parliament: The Declaration of Right is embodied in the Bill of Rights.

1761 – Seven Years' War: After a four-month siege, the Russians under Pyotr Rumyantsev take the Prussian fortress of Kołobrzeg.

1773 – American Revolution: Boston Tea Party: Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.

1811 – The first two in a series of four severe earthquakes occur in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri.

1826 – Benjamin W. Edwards rides into Mexican-controlled Nacogdoches, Texas, and declares himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.

1838 – Great Trek: Battle of Blood River: Voortrekkers led by Andries Pretorius and Sarel Cilliers defeat Zulu impis, led by Dambuza (Nzobo) and Ndlela kaSompisi in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

1843 – The discovery of octonions by John T. Graves, who denoted them with a boldface O, was announced to his mathematician friend William Hamilton, discoverer of quaternions, in a letter on this date.

1850 – The Charlotte Jane and the Randolph bring the first of the Canterbury Pilgrims to Lyttelton, New Zealand.

1863 – American Civil War: Joseph E. Johnston replaces Braxton Bragg as commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Nashville: Major General George Thomas's Union forces defeat Lieutenant General John Bell Hood's Confederate Army of Tennessee.

1880 – Outbreak of the First Boer War between the Boer South African Republic and the British Empire.

1883 – Tonkin Campaign: French forces capture the Sơn Tây citadel.

1901 – Beatrix Potter privately publishes The Tale of Peter Rabbit. It goes on to sell over 45 million copies worldwide.

1903 – Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel in Bombay first opens its doors to guests.

1907 – The American Great White Fleet begins its circumnavigation of the world.

1912 – First Balkan War: The Royal Hellenic Navy defeats the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Elli.

1914 – World War I: Admiral Franz von Hipper commands a raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby.

1918 – Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas declares the formation of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic; it is dissolved in 1919.

1920 – The Haiyuan earthquake of 8.5Mw , rocks the Gansu province in China, killing an estimated 200,000.

1922 – President of Poland Gabriel Narutowicz is assassinated by Eligiusz Niewiadomski at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw.

1930 – Bank robber Herman Lamm and members of his crew are killed by a 200-strong posse, following a botched bank robbery, in Clinton, Indiana.

1937 – Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe attempt to escape from the American federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; neither is ever seen again.

1938 – Adolf Hitler institutes the Cross of Honour of the German Mother.

1941 – World War II: Japanese forces occupy Miri, Sarawak.

1941 – World War II: The Japanese super-battleship IJN Yamato is commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Navy and transfers the title of Flagship from IJN Nagato.

1942 – The Holocaust: Schutzstaffel chief Heinrich Himmler orders that Roma candidates for extermination be deported to Auschwitz.

1944 – World War II: The Battle of the Bulge begins with the surprise offensive of three German armies through the Ardennes forest.

1947 – William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor.

1950 – Korean War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman declares a state of emergency, after Chinese troops enter the fight in support of communist North Korea.

1960 – A United Airlines Douglas DC-8 and a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation collide over Staten Island, New York and crash, killing all 128 people aboard both aircraft and six more on the ground.

1965 – Vietnam War: General William Westmoreland sends U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara a request for 243,000 more men by the end of 1966.

1968 – Second Vatican Council: Official revocation of the Edict of Expulsion of Jews from Spain.

1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: The surrender of the Pakistan Army brings an end to both conflicts. This is commemorated annually as Victory Day in Bangladesh, and as Vijay Diwas in India.

1971 – The United Kingdom recognizes Bahrain's independence, which is commemorated annually as Bahrain's National Day.

1978 – Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first major American city to default on its financial obligations since the Great Depression.

1979 – Libya joins four other OPEC nations in raising crude oil prices, which has an immediate, dramatic effect on the United States.

1985 – Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti are shot dead on the orders of John Gotti, who assumes leadership of New York's Gambino crime family.

1989 – Romanian Revolution: Protests break out in Timișoara, Romania, in response to an attempt by the government to evict dissident Hungarian pastor László Tőkés.

1989 – U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Smith Vance is assassinated by a mail bomb sent by Walter Leroy Moody, Jr.

1991 – Kazakhstan declares independence from the Soviet Union.

2000 – The December 2000 Tuscaloosa tornado, an F4 tornado, kills 11 and injures over 125 others in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Damages from the tornado totaled $35 million. Sixteen other tornadoes also touched down, with an additional fatality occurring in Geneva.

2013 – A bus falls from an elevated highway in the Philippines capital Manila killing at least 18 people with 20 injured.

2014 – Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants attacked an Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 145 people, mostly schoolchildren.

[stevep]

Dec 16, 2018 8:41:30 GMT lordroel said:

December 16th

714 – Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the Merovingian palace, dies at Jupille (modern Belgium). He is succeeded by his infant grandson Theudoald while his wife Plectrude holds actual power in the Frankish Kingdom.

755 – An Lushan revolts against Chancellor Yang Guozhong at Yanjing, initiating the An Lushan Rebellion during the Tang dynasty of China.

1431 – Hundred Years' War: Henry VI of England is crowned King of France at Notre Dame in Paris.

1497 – Vasco da Gama passes the Great Fish River, where Bartolomeu Dias had previously turned back to Portugal.

1575 – An earthquake with an estimated of 8.5Mw  strikes Valdivia, Chile.

1598 – Seven-Year War: Battle of Noryang: The final battle of the Seven-Year War is fought between the China and the Korean allied forces and Japanese navies, resulting in a decisive allied forces victory.

1653 – English Interregnum: The Protectorate: Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.

1689 – Convention Parliament: The Declaration of Right is embodied in the Bill of Rights.

1761 – Seven Years' War: After a four-month siege, the Russians under Pyotr Rumyantsev take the Prussian fortress of Kołobrzeg.

1773 – American Revolution: Boston Tea Party: Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.

1811 – The first two in a series of four severe earthquakes occur in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri.

1826 – Benjamin W. Edwards rides into Mexican-controlled Nacogdoches, Texas, and declares himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.

1838 – Great Trek: Battle of Blood River: Voortrekkers led by Andries Pretorius and Sarel Cilliers defeat Zulu impis, led by Dambuza (Nzobo) and Ndlela kaSompisi in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

1843 – The discovery of octonions by John T. Graves, who denoted them with a boldface O, was announced to his mathematician friend William Hamilton, discoverer of quaternions, in a letter on this date.

1850 – The Charlotte Jane and the Randolph bring the first of the Canterbury Pilgrims to Lyttelton, New Zealand.

1863 – American Civil War: Joseph E. Johnston replaces Braxton Bragg as commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Nashville: Major General George Thomas's Union forces defeat Lieutenant General John Bell Hood's Confederate Army of Tennessee.

1880 – Outbreak of the First Boer War between the Boer South African Republic and the British Empire.

1883 – Tonkin Campaign: French forces capture the Sơn Tây citadel.

1901 – Beatrix Potter privately publishes The Tale of Peter Rabbit. It goes on to sell over 45 million copies worldwide.

1903 – Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel in Bombay first opens its doors to guests.

1907 – The American Great White Fleet begins its circumnavigation of the world.

1912 – First Balkan War: The Royal Hellenic Navy defeats the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Elli.

1914 – World War I: Admiral Franz von Hipper commands a raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby.

1918 – Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas declares the formation of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic; it is dissolved in 1919.

1920 – The Haiyuan earthquake of 8.5Mw , rocks the Gansu province in China, killing an estimated 200,000.

1922 – President of Poland Gabriel Narutowicz is assassinated by Eligiusz Niewiadomski at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw.

1930 – Bank robber Herman Lamm and members of his crew are killed by a 200-strong posse, following a botched bank robbery, in Clinton, Indiana.

1937 – Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe attempt to escape from the American federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; neither is ever seen again.

1938 – Adolf Hitler institutes the Cross of Honour of the German Mother.

1941 – World War II: Japanese forces occupy Miri, Sarawak.

1941 – World War II: The Japanese super-battleship IJN Yamato is commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Navy and transfers the title of Flagship from IJN Nagato.

1942 – The Holocaust: Schutzstaffel chief Heinrich Himmler orders that Roma candidates for extermination be deported to Auschwitz.

1944 – World War II: The Battle of the Bulge begins with the surprise offensive of three German armies through the Ardennes forest.

1947 – William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor.

1950 – Korean War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman declares a state of emergency, after Chinese troops enter the fight in support of communist North Korea.

1960 – A United Airlines Douglas DC-8 and a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation collide over Staten Island, New York and crash, killing all 128 people aboard both aircraft and six more on the ground.

1965 – Vietnam War: General William Westmoreland sends U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara a request for 243,000 more men by the end of 1966.

1968 – Second Vatican Council: Official revocation of the Edict of Expulsion of Jews from Spain.

1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: The surrender of the Pakistan Army brings an end to both conflicts. This is commemorated annually as Victory Day in Bangladesh, and as Vijay Diwas in India.

1971 – The United Kingdom recognizes Bahrain's independence, which is commemorated annually as Bahrain's National Day.

1978 – Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first major American city to default on its financial obligations since the Great Depression.

1979 – Libya joins four other OPEC nations in raising crude oil prices, which has an immediate, dramatic effect on the United States.

1985 – Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti are shot dead on the orders of John Gotti, who assumes leadership of New York's Gambino crime family.

1989 – Romanian Revolution: Protests break out in Timișoara, Romania, in response to an attempt by the government to evict dissident Hungarian pastor László Tőkés.

1989 – U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Smith Vance is assassinated by a mail bomb sent by Walter Leroy Moody, Jr.

1991 – Kazakhstan declares independence from the Soviet Union.

2000 – The December 2000 Tuscaloosa tornado, an F4 tornado, kills 11 and injures over 125 others in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Damages from the tornado totaled $35 million. Sixteen other tornadoes also touched down, with an additional fatality occurring in Geneva.

2013 – A bus falls from an elevated highway in the Philippines capital Manila killing at least 18 people with 20 injured.

2014 – Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants attacked an Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 145 people, mostly schoolchildren.

  I like the irony of there being two 7 years war, and probably a few others floating about we're never heard of.  Knew vaguely of the former conflict but didn't realise it had earned that title as well by the duration.