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- 0619 Boniface V begins his reign as Catholic Pope
- 1493 Georg Alt's German translation of Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle is published.
- 1569 St Philip of Moscow martyred by Ivan the Terrible
- 1620 Construction on the Plymouth Settlement Begins
- 1672 Giovanni Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn
- 1776 Continental Congress negotiates a war loan of $181,500 from France
- 1776 Thomas Paine writes "These are the times that try men's souls"
- 1779 Benedict Arnold court-martialed for improper conduct
- 1783 George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.
- 1788 Maryland votes to cede a 10 mile area for District of Columbia
- 1793 The Battle of Savenay, decisive defeat of the royalist counter-revolutionaries in Revolt in the Vende during the French Revolution.
- 1823 "Visit from St Nicholas" by C Moore published in Troy (New York) Sentinel
- 1823 The poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (AKA The Night Before Christmas) is published in the Sentinel.
- 1834 Joseph Hansom of London receives patent for Hansom cabs
- 1852 First Chinese theater in US, Celestial John, opens in San Francisco
- 1862 Union General Ben "Beast" Butler is proclaimed a "felon, outlaw & common enemy of mankind" by Jefferson Davis
- 1867 First self-made millionairess (Sarah Breedlove-hair straightener)
- 1888 Vincent van Gogh cuts off the lower part of his left ear, takes it to a brothel, and gives it to a prostitute named Rachel.
- 1893 The opera "Hansel und Gretel" is produced (Weimar)
- 1907 First all-steel passenger railroad coach completed, Altoona, Pa
- 1909 Albert becomes king of Belgium
- 1911 Stanislavski and Craig's seminal production of Hamlet opened at the Moscow Arts Theatre.
- 1911 The opera "I Giojelli Della Madonna" is produced (Berlin)
- 1913 The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve.
- 1914 World War I: Australian and New Zealand troops arrive in Cairo, Egypt.
- 1919 First hospital ship built to move wounded naval personnel launched
- 1920 Ireland divided into 2 parts, each with its own parliament
- 1921 Visva-Bharati University is inaugurated.
- 1928 NBC sets up a permanent, coast-to-coast network
- 1930 Police Bureau of Criminal Alien Investigation started in New York NY
- 1936 Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
- 1937 First flight of the Vickers Wellington bomber.
- 1938 Discovery of the first modern coelacanth in South Africa.
- 1940 World War II: Greek submarine Papanikolis (-2) sinks the Italian motor ship Antonietta.
- 1941 American forces on Wake Island surrender to Japanese
- 1943 First telecast of a complete opera (Hansel and Gretel), Schenectady NY
- 1944 HMCS Clayoquot (Minesweeper) torpedoed off Halifax
- 1947 The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
- 1947 Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley in Bell Labs
- 1948 Former Japanese prime minister is executed along with six other top Japanese leaders for their war crimes during World War II
- 1948 Seven Japanese convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East are executed at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo.
- 1954 The first human kidney transplant is performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
- 1958 Dedication of Tokyo Tower, world's highest self-supporting iron tower.
- 1962 Cuba starts returning US prisoners from the Bay of Pigs invasion
- 1966 Britains rock TV show, "Ready Steady Go," last program
- 1968 82 members of US intelligence ship `Pueblo' released by North Korea
- 1968 Borman, Lovell and Anders become first men to orbit Moon
- 1968 First US case of space motion sickness
- 1968 The United States won the release of 82 sailors by issuing a writing apology to North Korea for spying on the Communist country.
- 1972 16 plane crash survivors rescued after 70 days, survived by cannibalism
- 1972 Earthquake destroys central Managua, Nicaragua
- 1972 Number one hit on UK music charts - Little Jimmy Osmond - Long Haired Lover From Liverpool
- 1972 The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, having survived by cannibalism.
- 1972 The Nicaraguan capital of Managua is struck by a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, killing more than 10,000.
- 1972 The Pittsburgh Steelers win their first ever post-season NFL game, defeating the Oakland Raiders 13-7, on a last second play that would become known as the Immaculate Reception.
- 1973 "The Young and the Restless" premiers on TV
- 1973 6 Persian Gulf nations double their oil prices
- 1974 Visitor posting - Mandla Mabuza was born in South Africa
- 1975 Congress passes Metric Conversion Act
- 1979 Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet forces occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital.
- 1982 Visitor posting - December 31,1982-Dorothy Lee Self was born to Denise Hellen Self and Donald Wayne Self at 11:38pm In Phoenix,Arizona.
- 1983 Journal Science publishes first report on nuclear winter
- 1985 Visitor posting - An amazing guy named Frederick Ryan was born! - USA
- 1985 Visitor posting - december 23 1985 Niele was born!
- 1986 Visitor posting - Nancy was born in India.
- 1986 Voyager completes global flight, Rutan and Yeager make around-the-world flight without refueling
- 1986 Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world.
- 1987 Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, serving a life sentence for attempted assassination of President Gerald R Ford escapes from Alderson Prison
- 1989 Number one hit on UK music charts - Band Aid II - Do They Know It's Christmas
- 1990 History of Slovenia: In a referendum, 88% of Slovenia's population vote for independence from Yugoslavia.
- 1990 Slovenians vote to secede from Yugoslavia
- 1990 Visitor posting - the best person in the world was born and his name is Steve - USA
- 1991 New York Daily News publisher Kevin Maxwell resigns
- 1991 Visitor posting - december 23 1991 what were george and robyn thinking!
- 1997 Visitor posting - Riley Marie Hewitson Was Born - USA
- 1997 Visitor posting - Aliyah was born.. woohoo! My pet is a white dog named Peter - USA
- 1997 Visitor posting - Halie Nicole Colvis was born - USA
- 2002 A MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25, making it the first time in history that an aircraft and an unmanned drone had engaged in combat.
- 2004 Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean is hit by an 8.1 magnitude earthquake.
- 2005 Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 217 from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Aktau, Kazakhstan crashes shortly after takeoff killing 23 people.
- 2005 Chad declares a state of war against Sudan following a December 18th attack on Adr, which left about 100 people dead.
- 2006 Visitor posting - The day that john and kim started their family
- 2007 A grand conjunction in which the solar system will align with the galactic center.
- 2008 Visitor posting - John's brother died in Iraq
- 2009 39-year-old Russian Orthodox priest Father Alexander Filippov is fatally shot in the back outside his home in Satino-Russkoye after challenging a group of drunks who were urinating in his hallway.
- 2009 A Dutch court hears a case taken by Kurdish survivors of poison gas attacks in Halabja against businessman Frans van Anraat, who sold chemicals to Saddam Hussein during the 1980s.
- 2009 Afghan senator Mohammad Younus and his son/driver are fatally shot by police in Puli Khumri, Baghlan Province.
- 2009 American Airlines Flight 331, with 154 people onboard, overshoots the runway at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica, injuring 44.
- 2009 Authorities in Uzbekistan fell trees, some of which are more than a century old, in the capital Tashkent, in a controversy which has drawn protests.
- 2009 Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin Jim Moriarty resigns, the second bishop to do so following the publication of the Murphy Report.
- 2009 Clashes between police and protesters take place in the Iranian city of Isfahan at a memorial service for Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri.
- 2009 Farouk Adamu Aliyu of the All Nigeria Peoples Party initiates legal action in a bid to tempt the unwell President of Nigeria Umaru Yar'Adua, who is hospitalised in Saudi Arabia, to resign the position on health grounds.
- 2009 G.vle's giant straw goat a traditional symbol of yuletide in Scandinavia is burned down for the 24th time.
- 2009 President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf voluntarily imprisons herself in Bella Yalla prison, an old maximum security prison in the northern jungle, which is to be renamed and turned into a museum.
- 2009 Sa'dah insurgency in northern Yemen led to the deaths of 73 Saudi soldiers, while more than 100 Houthis have been killed in recent days.
- 2009 Soyuz TMA-17, carrying an international crew of one Russian, one American, and one Japanese astronaut, docks with the International Space Station.
- 2009 The Supreme Court of Pakistan orders the government to recognise hijras (eunuchs and transgender individuals) as a distinct gender.
- 2009 The United Nations imposes sanctions of a ban on arms importation and frozen bank accounts on Eritrea for supporting Somali rebels.
- 2009 The body of Luis Francisco Cuéllar, the governor of Caquetá department in Colombia kidnapped the previous day, is found.
- 2009 The trial of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo on charges of subversion begins.
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