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- 0838 A heavy storm surge causes floods in nearly all the coastal areas of the Low Countries killing many Jewish and Muslim residents.
- 1481 Battle of Westbrook - Holland defeats troops of Utrecht.
- 1606 First Performance of William Shakespeare's King Lear
- 1620 Elizabeth Bthory's crimes are uncovered.
- 1620 Pilgrim Fathers land at what becomes New Plymouth in Massachusetts.
- 1620 Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, MA
- 1727 In France Louis-François Duplessis de Mornay appointed Bishop of Quebec on death of Mgr. de Saint-Vallier; he never came to Canada.
- 1773 Expulsion of tea ships from Philadelphia
- 1776 Battle of Trenton-major British defeat
- 1790 Louis XVI of France gives his public assent to Civil Constitution of the Clergy during the French Revolution.
- 1791 In the British parlimentLondon England, British PM William Pitt passes the Constitutional Act, dividing Quebec along the Ottawa River, into Upper and Lower Canada,
- 1792 The final trial of Louis XVI of France begins in Paris.
- 1793 Battle of Geisberg: French defeat Austrians.
- 1793 The wedding of Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Prussia and Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz takes place.
- 1799 George Washington is eulogized by Colonel Henry Lee as "1st in war, first in peace & first in the hearts of his countrymen"
- 1805 Austria and France sign the Treaty of Pressburg.
- 1805 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts established, Philadelphia
- 1805 The Treaty of Pressburg December 26 ends hostilities between France and Austria
- 1806 Battles of Pultusk and Golymin: Russian forces hold French forces under Napoleon.
- 1811 A theater fire in Richmond, Virginia kills the Governor of Virginia George William Smith and the president of the First National Bank of Virginia Abraham B. Venable.
- 1825 Erie Canal opens
- 1825 Several Imperial Russia army officers lead circa 3000 soldiers on the Senate Square in the failed Decembrist uprising.
- 1831 The opera "Norma" is produced (Milan)
- 1848 First gold seekers arrive in Panama en route to San Francisco
- 1848 The Phi Delta Theta fraternity is founded at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
- 1848 William & Ellen Craft escape from slavery in Georgia
- 1852 New Brunswick-built ship Marco Polo arrives backin Liverpool England from Melbourne, Australia in 140 days, a trip that sually took 240 days; declared the fastest ship in the world; 1883 wrecked when grounded in a gale off Cavendish, PEI.
- 1854 Wood-pulp paper first exhibited, Buffalo
- 1860 Maiden voyage of first steamship owned by 1 man (C Vanderbilt)
- 1860 The first ever inter-club football match takes place between Hallam F.C. and Sheffield F.C. at the Sandygate Road ground in Sheffield, England.
- 1862 First US navy hospital ship enters service
- 1862 Four nuns serving as volunteer nurses on board USS Red Rover are the first female nurses on a U.S. Navy hospital ship.
- 1862 The largest mass-hanging in U.S. history took place in Mankato, Minnesota, killing 39.
- 1865 James H Mason (Mass) patents first US coffee percolator
- 1870 The 12.8-km long Frjus Rail Tunnel through the Alps is completed.
- 1871 Gilbert and Sullivan collaborate for the first time, on their lost opera, Thespis. It does modestly well, but the two would not collaborate again for four years.
- 1872 4th largest snowfall in NYC history (18")
- 1877 Socialist Labor Party of North America holds first national convention
- 1878 First US store to install electric lights, Philadelphia
- 1878 John Wanamaker installed electric lights in his department store in Philadelphia.
- 1883 The Harbour Grace Affray between Irish Catholics and Protestant Orangemen causes five deaths in Newfoundland.
- 1898 Marie and Pierre Curie announce the isolation of radium.
- 1906 The Story of the Kelly Gang is released, widely considered to be the world's first feature film.
- 1908 In Sydney Australia Jack Johnson knocks out Canada's Tommy Burns to win the world heavyweight boxing crown; policestopped the fight in the 14th round;
- 1908 Jack Johnson becomes the first African American heavyweight boxing champion by defeating Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia.
- 1908 Jackson Johnson defeats Tommy Burns at Sydney, Australia for boxing title
- 1916 Joseph Joffre is made Marshal of France.
- 1917 Fed government took over operation of American RR for duration of WW I
- 1919 Babe Ruth is sold to the New York Yankees from the Boston Red Sox.
- 1925 Turkey adopts Gregorian calendar
- 1925 Turkey adopts the Gregorian Calendar.
- 1931 Phi Iota Alpha, the oldest existing Latino fraternity is founded.
- 1931 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical play "Of Thee I Sing" opens on Broadway
- 1932 Earthquake kills 70,000 in Kansu China
- 1933 FM radio is patented.
- 1933 The Nissan Motor Company is organized in Tokyo, Japan.
- 1933 US forswears armed intervention in the Western Hemisphere
- 1942 The Canadian-escorted convoy ONS-154 loses 14 ships to German U-boats in mid-Atlantic; gets 32 to Britain by Dec. 30.
- 1943 British sink German battle cruiser Scharnhorst
- 1943 General A.G.L. 'Andy' McNaughton 1887-1966 retires as commander of First Canadian Army
- 1944 Battle of Bastogne-US troops repulse the Germans
- 1944 The play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams received its first public performance.
- 1944 World War II: U.S. troops repulse German forces at Bastogne.
- 1945 CFP franc and CFA franc are created.
- 1946 Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas opens
- 1946 The Flamingo Hotel opens in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- 1947 British transfer Heard & McDonald Is (Indian Ocean) to Australia
- 1947 Heavy snow blankets Northeast, buries NYC under 25.8" of snow in 16 hrs. That same day, Los Angeles set a record high of 84ø F
- 1947 Twenty-six inches of snow falls in 16 hours in New York City.
- 1948 Cardinal Mindszenty is arrested in Hungary and accused of treason and conspiracy.
- 1964 Beatles' "I Feel Fine," single goes #1 & stays #1 for 3 weeks
- 1964 Moors Murderers claim last victim
- 1965 "Funny Girl" with Barbra Streisand closes on Broadway
- 1965 Paul McCartney is interviewed on pirate radio station Radio Caroline
- 1966 The first Kwanzaa is celebrated by Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach.
- 1967 The BBC broadcasts "The Magical Mystery Tour"
- 1971 Air Canada jet on flight from Thunder Bay to Toronto hijacked to Cuba.
- 1971 Visitor posting - Mette was born - Uruguay
- 1972 Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president of the U.S., dies in Kansas City, Missouri.
- 1973 2 Skylab 3 astronauts walk in space for a record 7 hours
- 1973 Comet Kohoutek reaches perihelion but is not as spectacular a display as expected.
- 1973 Soyuz 13 lands on earth after a week in orbit.
- 1973 Soyuz 13 returns to Earth
- 1974 Salyut 4 is launched.
- 1974 Television and radio comedian Jack Benny dies in Los Angeles at age 80.
- 1975 Russia begins the world's first supersonic air transport service with its Tupolev-144 run from Moscow to Alma-Ata.
- 1975 The Tupolev Tu-144 goes into service in Soviet Union.
- 1976 In St. John's Newfoundland a nursing home fire kills 21 elderly residents.
- 1978 India's former PM, Indira Gandhi, released from jail
- 1979 Opening night of the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea at the Hammersmith Odeon; a benefit concert for the citizens of Cambodia who were victims of dictator Pol Pot.
- 1979 Soviet Special forces take over presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan.
- 1980 Aeroflot puts the Ilyushin Il-86 into service.
- 1982 Time Magazine's Man of the Year is for the first time a non-human, the personal computer.
- 1985 Ford introduced the Taurus line of auto's,, the product of years of engineering
- 1986 M Montreal Canadien Doug Jarvis, age 31, sets a National Hockey League record as he skates in his 916th consecutive game
- 1986 TV soap "Search for Tomorrow" ends 35 year run
- 1986 The first long-running American television soap opera, Search for Tomorrow, airs its final episode after thirty-five years on the air.
- 1988 The Nanjing Anti-African protests in Nanjing, the People's Republic of China begin.
- 1989 A provisional government takes control of Romania, following the secret trial and execution of President Nicolae Ceausescu.
- 1990 Garry Kasparov beats Antatoly Karpov to retain chess championship
- 1990 Visitor posting - The love of my life was born! Prenisha Jones!!
- 1991 Jack Ruby's gun sells for $220,000 in auction (the gun used to kill Harvey Oswald)
- 1991 Militant Sikhs kill 55 & wound 70 in India
- 1991 The Supreme Soviet meets and formally dissolves the USSR.
- 1991 Toronto Ontario Northwest Airlines buys 20 Dash 8 Series 100 aircraft from de Haviland for $190 million; division of Boeing Canada.
- 1991 Visitor posting - December 26 1991 Daniel Campbell was born
- 1991 Visitor posting - Linda Perry gave birth to the most beautiful person in the world, Ashley Perry-Young
- 1991 Visitor posting - Nicholas Thomas Cox Byrne born - London, UK
- 1993 Visitor posting - Jo was born on this day!!!
- 1993 Visitor posting - Jacob Grabowski born - USA
- 1994 French commandos storm a hijacked Air France jet on the ground in Marseille, freeing 170 hostages and killing the Algerian hijackers.
- 1996 Six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey is found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's Boulder, Colorado, home. The killing remains unsolved.
- 1996 Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey is found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colorado.
- 1996 Start of the largest strike in South Korean history.
- 1996 Visitor posting - Kevin Wayne Latham was born in Atlanta Georgia - USA
- 1997 The Soufriere Hills volcano on the island of Montserrat explodes, creating a small tsunami offshore.
- 1998 Iraq announces its intention to fire upon U.S. and British warplanes that patrol the northern and southern no-fly zones.
- 1998 Severe gales over Ireland, northern England, and southern Scotland cause widespread disruption and widespread power outages in Northern Ireland and southern Scotland.
- 1998 Visitor posting - Phillip P. Was born. - USA
- 1999 R& B artist Curtis Mayfield dies in an Atlanta hospital at age 57. Mayfield, famous for the Superfly soundtrack, had been paralyzed since 1990 during an onstage accident.
- 1999 Severe weather in France kills over 100 people and causes extensive damage to property, trees and the French national power grid (see Lothar).
- 2002 French Raelian scientist Brigitte Boisselier says Clonaid has delivered the first of a supposed five clone babies through cesarean section.
- 2003 A strong magnitude 6.6 earthquake devastates southeast Iranian city of Bam, killing tens of thousands and destroying the citadel of Arg- Bam.
- 2004 An earthquake measuring 9.3 on the Richter magnitude scale creates a tsunami causing devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, The Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean, killing more than 200,000.
- 2005 Boxing Day Shooting on a busy shopping street in Toronto.
- 2006 Gerald Ford, 38th President of the United States died(b. 1913)
- 2008 Visitor posting - Cole P. Henry was born in Atlanta, Ga. Poppy and Me-Me's second grandchild!!! - USA
- 2009 A bomb explodes under the car of a suspected Hamas member in southern Beirut, Lebanon, killing at least one person and injuring two others.
- 2009 A bomb squad in Reykjavik, Iceland, searches a diverted Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Detroit, Michigan, United States, that carries a bag whose owner did not make it onto the plane.
- 2009 Visitor posting - Beverly Louise Hinkle(AKA Peri Kennington nee Savery) is reunited with the remaining Hinkle children. I have Rottsunds! - USA
- 2009 A bridge over the Chambal River in Kota, India, collapses with 45 people thought to have been killed.
- 2009 Countries around the Indian Ocean hold commemorations on the fifth anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that killed around 250,000 people.
- 2009 Five Chinese are sentenced to execution by firing squad before a court in Vietnam for their roles in one of the largest drug seizures in the country's history.
- 2009 It is confirmed that all nine missing crew members — six Filipinos and three Greeks — from yesterday's ship fire disaster off the coast of Venezuela are dead.
- 2009 Ten people die and two more receive injuries after being pierced by a metal guard rail during a bus crash on a major highway in Ipoh, Malaysia.
More historical events added daily - keep checking back