- 1503 Battle of Garigliano: Spanish army under General Cordoba defeats French forces
- 1539 St Jacob's Church burns after being hit by lightning
- 1541 Isabella of Poland and King Ferdinand of Austria sign Treaty of Gyalu
Event of Interest
1653 Dutch painter Jan Vermeer becomes a member of the Guild of Saint Luke for painters in Delft
Jan Vermeer
Event of Interest
1806 Thomas Dibdin's pantomime "Harlequin and Mother Goose" starring Joseph Grimaldi, in his most famous clown performance, opens at the Covent Garden Theatre, London
Joseph Grimaldi
Trail of Tears
1835 Treaty of New Echota is signed between the US government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction to cede all lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States
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- 1837 Canadian militia destroy Caroline, a US steamboat docked at Buffalo
- 1837 Steam-powered threshing machine patented in Winthrop, Maine
- 1841 King and Grand Duke Willem II installs Order of Eikenkroon
- 1845 Texas admitted as 28th state of the Union
- 1848 Gas lights 1st installed at White House (Polk's administration)
- 1851 1st American Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) chapter opened in Boston, Massachusetts
- 1852 Emma Snodgrass arrested in Boston for wearing pants
Music Premiere
1857 Franz Liszt's symphonic poem "Die Hunnenschlacht" premieres in Weimar
Franz Liszt
- 1860 The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, HMS Warrior is launched
Victory in Battle
1862 Battle of Chichasaw Bayou: confederate armies defeat General William T. Sherman
William Tecumseh Sherman
Wounded Knee Massacre
1890 US 7th Cavalry massacre 200+ captive Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota
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Event of Interest
1902 "The Entertainer" is one of several piano rag compositions copyrighted for Scott Joplin by the US Copyright Office
Scott Joplin
- 1903 French Equatorial Africa separates into Gabon, Chad and Ubangi-Shari
- 1906 Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Montreal Wanderers beat New Glasgow (NS), 7-2 for 17-5 aggregate challenge series victory
- 1908 Patent granted for a 4-wheel automobile brake, Clintonville, Wisconsin
- 1911 Proclamation restores "Dei Gratia" from Canada's coins
- 1911 San Francisco Symphony forms
Election of Interest
1911 Sun Yat-sen elected 1st President of the Republic of China
Sun Yat-sen
Election of Interest
1921 Mackenzie King is sworn in as the 10th Prime Minister of Canada
Mackenzie King
Film Release
1933 "Sons of the Desert" film directed by William A. Seiter starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy is released
Oliver Hardy
Stan Laurel
- 1934 1st collegiate basketball doubleheader at Madison Square Garden
- 1934 Federico Garcia Lorca's "Yerma" premieres in Madrid
- 1934 Japan renounces Wash Naval Treaty of 1922 and London Treaty of 1930
- 1937 Constitution of Ireland (Irish: Bunreacht na hÉireann) is enacted and Irish free state is named Eire
- 1937 Lou Thesz beats Everett Marshall in St Louis, to win National Wrestling Ass.World heavyweight title - youngest ever
- 1937 Pan Am starts service between San Francisco and Auckland, New Zealand
- 1938 Construction on Lake Washington Floating Bridge, Seattle, begins
- 1939 First flight of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber prototype
- 1940 3rd NFL All Star Game: Chicago Bears beats NFL All-Stars, 28-14
Article: 'Hitler Will Have to Break Us or Lose the War'
1940 Worst German air raid on London as over 10,000 bombs including the 1st incendiary bombs are dropped on the city as part of the Blitz
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- 1944 Belgian Nazi Leon Degrelle sentenced to death
Event of Interest
1944 General Eisenhower's train returns to Versailles
Dwight D. Eisenhower
NHL Record
1945 Montreal right wing Maurice Richard scores twice in Canadiens' 5-4 loss to Chicago Black Hawks to record his 100th NHL career goal; reaches mark in just 145 games, then fastest in history; since broken by Mike Bossy, 100 goals in 129 games
Maurice Richard
- 1947 Ship carrying Jewish immigrants driven away from Palestine
- 1948 "Rape of Lucretia" opens at Ziegfeld Theater NYC for 23 performances
- 1948 Canada recognizes Israel
- 1948 US State Department announces work on placing objects into Earth orbit
- 1949 1st UHF television station operating regular basis Bridgeport, Connecticut
- 1949 Hungary nationalized its industries
- 1952 1st transistorized hearing aid offered for sale (Elmsford NY)
- 1954 Kingdom of Netherlands, with Netherlands & Netherlands Antilles as autonomous parts, comes into being
Event of Interest
1955 Barbra Streisand's 1st recording "You'll Never Know" at age 13
Barbra Streisand
- 1955 NHL officials wear new vertically striped black-and-white sweaters for the first time in Montreal Canadiens' 5-2 win over Toronto Maple Leafs
- 1957 National Football League Championship, Briggs Stadium, Detroit: Detroit Lions beat Cleveland Browns, 50-14; Lions score 2 touchdowns in each quarter
- 1957 Singers Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme wed in Las Vegas
- 1958 TV soap "Young Dr Malone" debuts
- 1959 Saul Levitt's "Andersonville Trial" premieres in NYC
- 1962 Doug Walters makes 1st-class debut for NSW 17 yrs 8 days
- 1962 British driver Graham Hill wins the South African Grand Prix at Prince George Circuit in a BRM; takes out his first F1 World Drivers Championship by 12 points from Scotsman Jim Clark
- 1963 52nd Davis Cup: USA beats Australia in Adelaide (3-2)
- 1963 National Football League Championship, Wrigley Field, Chicago: Chicago Bears beat New York Giants, 14-10; Giants 3rd consecutive championship defeat; played in temperatures under 10 °F (−12 °C)
Film Premier
1965 "Thunderball", 4th James Bond film starring Sean Connery and Claudine Auger premieres in Tokyo
Sean Connery
- 1965 CBS purchases NFL TV rights for 1966-68 at $18.8 million per year
- 1965 Supremes release "My World is Empty Without You"
- 1965 54th Davis Cup: Australia beats Spain in Sydney (4-1)
- 1966 Pirate Radio Phoenix, 1st transmission (Worcester, Massachusetts)
- 1967 Star Trek's "Trouble With Tribbles" 1st airs
- 1967 Turkish-Cypriot government forms in Cyprus
- 1968 NFL Championship, Cleveland Municipal Stadium: Baltimore Colts shutout Cleveland Browns, 34-0
- 1968 Israeli commandos destroy 13 Lebanese airplanes
Event of Interest
1968 AFL Championship, Shea Stadium, NYC: New York Jets beat Oakland Raiders 27-23; Joe Namath 3 TD passes sparks Jets to win
John Madden
- 1969 NY Times reports Curt Flood will sue baseball and challenge the reserve clause
- 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act (United States) signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon
- 1970 Ballon d'Or: Bayern Munich striker Gerd Müller wins award for best European football player ahead of West Ham United defender Bobby Moore and Cagliari forward Luigi Riva
- 1972 Eastern Tristar Jumbo Jet crashes near Everglades killing 101
- 1972 Life magazine ceases publication
- 1972 Test Cricket debut of Jeff Thomson and Max Walker v Pakistan at MCG
- 1972 President of Sinn Féin Ruairi O Bradaigh is arrested and held under new legislation in Republic of Ireland
- 1972 "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" film written and directed by Werner Herzog, starring Klaus Kinski premieres in West Germany
- 1974 Murray Schisgal's "All Over Town" premieres in NYC
- 1974 AFC Championship, Oakland Coliseum: Pittsburgh Steelers beat Oakland Raiders, 24-13
- 1974 NFC Championship, Metropolitan Stadium, Bloomington: Minnesota Vikings beat Los Angeles Rams, 14-10
- 1975 11 killed, 75 hurt by terrorist bomb at LaGuardia Airport in NYC
- 1977 Ronald Ribman's "Cold Storage" premieres in NYC
Event of Interest
1978 Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi asks Shapour Bahktiar to form a civilian government
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
- 1978 Spain constitution goes into effect
- 1978 Test Cricket debut of Allan Robert Border, v England at the MCG
- 1979 Red Army beats NY Islanders 3-2 at Nassau Coliseum
- 1980 Shuttle STS-1 moves from Vandenberg AFB to Launch Complex 39A
- 1981 Ballon d'Or: German 1-2-3 with Bayern Munich forward Karl-Heinz Rummenigge taking title of Europe's best football player for the 2nd straight year; beats team mate Paul Breitner and Barcelona midfielder Bernd Schuster
Event of Interest
1982 Bob Marley postage stamp issued in Jamaica
Bob Marley
- 1982 Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant ends his career with Alabama (323 wins)
- 1983 Gavaskar makes the highest Test Cricket score by an Indian, 236* v WI
- 1983 Graeme Yallop completes 268 v Pakistan at cricket MCG
- 1983 US announced withdrawal from UNESCO
- 1984 5th United Negro College Fund
- 1984 Blues took 27 shots against Islanders in 1 period
Election of Interest
1984 Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi claims victory in parliamentary elections
Rajiv Gandhi
Event of Interest
1984 Wayne Gretzky scores his NHL career 32nd hat trick & adds 3 assists in Edmonton's 6-3 win over Detroit Red Wings for his 100th point in just 35 games; 2nd fastest in history - recorded 100 points in 34 games in 1983
Wayne Gretzky
- 1987 Ballon d'Or: Milan's Dutch midfielder Ruud Gullit wins best football player in Europe award ahead of Paulo Futre (Porto/Atlético Madrid) and Real Madrid striker Emilio Butragueño
- 1988 Soviet Red Army Team edges NY Islanders, 3-2 at Nassau Coliseum
- 1988 Victorian Post Office Museum in Australia closes
- 1988 Toronto’s Ed Olczyk and Gary Leeman score goals just 4 seconds apart in the 3rd period, tying the NHL record for fastest 2 goals by one team; Leafs beat the Quebec Nordiques, 6-5.
- 1989 Jane Pauley says goodbye to NBC's "Today" show
Event of Interest
1989 Václav Havel is selected to be president of Czechoslovakia by the Federal Assembly shortly after the Velvet Revolution
Václav Havel
- 1989 Wayne Gretzky and Martina Navratilova, named athletes of decade by the Associated Press
- 1989 Riots break-out after Hong Kong decides to forcibly repatriate Vietnamese refugees.
- 1991 "Christmas Carol" closes at Eugene O'Neill Theater NYC after 14 performances
- 1991 12th United Negro College Fund
- 1991 Boeing 747-200F of China Airlines crash into mountain at Taipei
- 1992 Governor Cuomo grants Jean Harris (Scarsdale Diet Dr killer) clemency
Event of Interest
1993 Courtney Love sues doctors for leaking news of her methadone treatment
Courtney Love
- 1993 Todd Bridges arrested for transporting methamphetamine (speed)
- 1994 B737-400 flies into a mountain at Edremit East Turkey, 54 killed
- 1994 Bangladesh government of Zia resigns
- 1994 Last Dutch electro-magnetic telephone exchange shuts down
- 1994 Shane Warne takes a hat-trick v England at cricket MCG
- 1996 "Dreams & Nightmares" closes at Martin Beck Theater NYC
- 1996 "Skylight" closes at Royale Theater NYC after
- 1996 "Taking Sides" closes at Atkinson Theater NYC
- 1997 Hong Kong begins slaughtering all its chickens to prevent bird flu
- 1997 Orville Lynn Majors, 36, arrested for many deaths under his care
- 1997 Russia signs agreement to build a $3B nuclear power plant in China
- 1997 Cricket Women's World Cup: Australia defeats New Zealand by 5 wickets
- 1998 Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the 1970s genocide in Cambodia that claimed over a million people
- 2001 Mesa Redonda shopping center fire, Lima, Peru, at least 291 killed.
- 2003 50th National Film Awards (India): "Mondo Meyer Upakhyan" wins the Golden Lotus
- 2007 American boxer Steve Cunningham defends his IBF cruiserweight title for the first time with a 12th-round TKO of local favourite Marco Huck in Bielefeld, Germany
- 2012 200 people are executed by the Syrian army in Homs
- 2012 21 security personnel are killed by Pakistani Taliban near Peshawar
- 2012 5 people are killed in a Tupolev Tu-204 plane crash in Moscow
- 2013 Chaparrastique volcano erupts in El Salvador
- 2013 16 people are killed and 40 are wounded by a suicide bomb attack at Volgograd-1 railway station, Russia
- 2013 Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says barrel bombs on Aleppo have killed 517 people since 15th December
Event of Interest
2013 7-time world F1 motor racing champion Michael Schumacher suffers a serious head injury in a ski accident in the French Alps; his condition still remains unclear
Michael Schumacher
- 2015 Ebola epidemic in Guinea declared over by WHO, 2,500 died over 2 years
Event of Interest
2016 US President Barack Obama retaliates against Russia for hacking American computer systems and trying to influence the 2016 presidential election by ejecting 35 Russian spies and imposing sanctions
Barack Obama
- 2018 40 militants killed in Giza and El-Arish by Egyptian police after attack on a tourist bus the day before killed four
- 2018 85th Orange Bowl: #1 Alabama beats #4 Oklahoma, 45-34
December in History
Business a Rocky Road for Hansom Cab Pioneer
Architect and inventor Joseph Hansom was a man of vision who somehow found it impossible to turn his great ideas into money-making ventures.
December 23, 1834The Day Murdoch Spoilt the Queen's Christmas
Queen Elizabeth II made the first live Christmas Day broadcast of her reign on December 25, 1952. Forty years later a pre-recorded message would be leaked.
December 25, 1952'Hitler Will Have to Break Us or Lose the War'
The German Luftwaffe were hammering the British RAF until a furious and frustrated Hitler changed the plan and possibly the outcome of the war.
December 29, 1940The Taming of Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill made an emotional speech to the Canadian Parliament on this day, December 30, 1941. His photograph from that day is just as memorable.
December 30, 1941
