- 741 St Zachary begins his reign as Catholic Pope succeeding Gregory III
- 1347 Pope Clemens VI declares Roman tribunal Cola di Rienzo as heretics
- 1557 1st Covenant of Scottish protestants form
- 1586 Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England from Colombia
- 1639 1st annulment by court decree passes
- 1676 Battle of Lund (Scanian War): Swedish army of 8,000 defeats much larger joint Danish/Dutch force of 13,000
Event of Interest
1678 Edmond Halley receives MA from The Queen's College, Oxford
Edmond Halley
Appointment of Interest
Event of Interest
1736 Astronomer Anders Celsius takes measurements that confirm Newton's theory that the earth was an ellipsoid rather than the previously accepted sphere
Anders Celsius
Election of Interest
1828 Andrew Jackson elected 7th US President
Andrew Jackson
Historic Publication
1847 Frederick Douglass publishes first issue of his newspaper "North Star"
Frederick Douglass
- 1854 Eureka Stockade: In what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 goldminers at Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences
Event of Interest
1863 Confederate General James Longstreet abandons his siege at Knoxville, TN
James Longstreet
- 1864 Skirmish at Thomas' Station, Georgia
Event of Interest
1868 1st blacks on US trial jury appointed for Jefferson Davis trial
Jefferson Davis
- 1878 Settlers arrive at Petach Tikvah, Israel
Event of Interest
1881 Henry Morton Stanley founds Leopoldville (now Kinshasa)
Henry Morton Stanley
- 1883 48th US Congress (1883-85) convenes
- 1901 At the MLB meeting, the Milwaukee Brewers franchise is officially dropped from the American League and replaced by the St. Louis Browns
- 1903 Panglima Polim surrenders to Capt Colijn at Atjeh
- 1907 George Cohan's musical "Talk of the Town" premieres in NYC
Music Premiere
1908 Edward Elgar's 1st Symphony in A performed by the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hans Richter, premieres in Manchester, England
Edward Elgar
- 1910 Neon lights first publicly displayed (Paris Auto Show)
Event of Interest
1911 Willis Carrier presents his influential "Rational Psychrometric Formulae" on air conditioning to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Willis Carrier
- 1912 Gerrit Brinkman becomes 1st Dutch traffic officer
- 1912 Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece & Bulgaria sign weapons pact
- 1912 First Balkan War: The Naval Battle of Elli takes place.
- 1914 Dutch army opens fire on interned Belgian soldiers: 8 killed
- 1915 General Joseph Joffre becomes Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies
- 1917 After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic.
- 1917 The Supreme Allied War Council, meeting at Versailles to define war aim, fails to reach an agreement
- 1920 Turkey & Armenia agree to peace treaty
- 1921 CFL Grey Cup, Varsity Stadium, Toronto: Toronto Argonauts win 2nd Championship; beat Edmonton Eskimos, 23-0
- 1922 First successful technicolor movie (Tall of the Sea), shown in NYC
- 1923 First Congressional open session broadcast via radio (Washington, D.C.)
- 1926 Manchester Guardian (German Reichswehr/Red Army work together)
Event of Interest
1926 Detective novelist Agatha Christie mysteriously disappears for 11 days
Agatha Christie
- 1929 Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-1, the first win of an NHL record 14-game winning streak, and a 22-game home winning streak
- 1930 Airborn chemicals combine with fog to kill 60 (Meuse Valley, Belgium)
- 1930 Otto Ender forms Austrian government
- 1930 Richard Rodgers/L Hart's musical "Evergreen" premieres in London
- 1931 Alka Seltzer goes on sale
- 1932 CFL Grey Cup, AAA Grounds, Hamilton: Hamilton Tigers defeat Regina Roughriders, 25-6 for their 5th Championship
- 1932 Gen Kurt von Schleicher becomes chancellor of Germany
Event of Interest
1933 As part of a famous MLB fire sale of players, Philadelphia A's owner Connie Mack sells catcher Mickey Cochrane to Detroit for $100,000; Cochrane is immediately named Tigers manager
Connie Mack
Music Premiere
1939 Dmitri Shostakovich's 6th Symphony premieres
Dmitri Shostakovich
Event of Interest
1941 Adolf Hitler views Poltava, Ukraine
Adolf Hitler
Music Premiere
1943 Howard Hanson's 4th Symphony premieres
Howard Hanson
- 1944 British order to disarm causes general strike in Greece
- 1944 Hungarian death march of Jews ends
- 1944 Mussert puts Seyss-Inquart plan for small Nazi-Europe
- 1944 Temporary merger of 2 NFL teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Cardinals, dissolves at finish of season; WWII ends before start of 1945 season, so both teams resume normal operations
- 1944 US 5th Armoured division occupies Brandenburg Hurtgenwald
- 1944 The Greek Civil War breaks out in a newly-liberated Greece, between communists and royalists
- 1944 Britain's Home Guard ('Dad's Army') is officially stood down at a special farewell parade in Hyde Park, London.
- 1946 12th Heisman Trophy Award: Glenn Davis, Army (HB)
Francisco Franco
Event of Interest
1947 Tennessee Williams' "Streetcar Named Desire" premieres in NYC
Tennessee Williams
Event of Interest
1948 Australian cricket icon Don Bradman scores 123 for the Bradman XI in his own testimonial match against the Lindsay Hassett's XI in front of 52,360 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground
Donald Bradman
Event of Interest
1950 Paul Harvey begins his national radio broadcast
Paul Harvey
Republican Party
1953 Eisenhower criticizes McCarthy for saying communists are in the Republican Party
Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 1953 Premier of Dmitri Shostakovich' 5th String Quartet
- 1953 "In the Jailhouse Now" single recorded by Webb Pierce (Billboard Song of the Year 1955)
Event of Interest
1954 Samuel Barber's "Prayers of Kierkegaard" premieres
Samuel Barber
Event of Interest
1956 Basketball icon Wilt Chamberlain makes his much anticipated varsity debut; scores 52 points and grabs 31 rebounds, breaking both all-time Kansas records in an 87–69 win against Northwestern
Wilt Chamberlain
- 1956 Australian 4 x 200m freestyle relay team of Kevin O'Halloran, John Devitt, Murray Rose & Jon Henricks swim world record 8:23.6 to take the gold medal at the Melbourne Olympics; Rose's 2nd of 3 gold at the Games
- 1957 23rd Heisman Trophy Award: John Crow, Texas A&M (HB)
- 1958 Indonesian parliament accepts nationalisation of Dutch businesses
- 1959 State of emergency in Cyprus ends
- 1960 "Camelot" opens at Majestic Theater NYC for 873 performances
- 1960 Frederick Loewe nd Alan Jay Lerner's "Camelot" premieres in NYC
- 1961 Dutchman Anton Geesink becomes 1st non-Japanese judo world champion
- 1961 The Beatles meet future manager Brian Epstein
- 1961 George Blanda of Houston Oilers kicks 55-yard field goal
- 1961 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1962 Edith Spurlock Sampson sworn-in as 1st US black female judge
- 1962 Pravda criticizes western art
- 1962 1963 NFL Draft: Terry Baker from Oregon State first pick by Los Angeles Rams
- 1964 KHQL (now KCAN) TV channel 8 in Albion, NB (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1964 Police arrests 800 sit-in students at University of California at Berkeley
- 1965 The Beatles begin final UK concert tour in Glasgow
- 1965 USSR launches Luna 8; it crashes on the Moon
- 1966 US performs underground nuclear test at Hattiesburg, Mississippi
- 1967 1st human heart transplant performed in South Africa by Dr Christiaan Barnard on Louis Washkansky
- 1967 Australian Derek Clayton runs world marathon record 2:09:36.4 at the Fukuoka Marathon in Japan
- 1967 Final run of "20th Century Limited" famed NY-Chicago luxury train
Assassination Attempt
1967 Assassination attempt made on Bob Marley and others during concert rehearsals in Jamaica
Bob Marley
Event of Interest
1969 John Lennon is offered role of Jesus Christ in Jesus Christ Superstar
John Lennon
Event of Interest
1971 US President Richard Nixon commutes Jimmy Hoffa's jail term
Richard Nixon
- 1971 Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: India invades West Pakistan and a full scale war begins claiming hundreds of lives.
- 1972 CFL Grey Cup, Ivor Wynne Stadium, Hamilton: Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeat Saskatchewan Roughriders, 13-10; Tiger-Cats first team in CFL's modern era to win Grey Cup at home
- 1972 Convair 990A charter crashes in Tenerife Canary Island, 155 die
- 1973 Pioneer 10 passes Jupiter (1st fly-by of an outer planet) [Dec 4-GMT]
- 1975 Laos falls to communist forces; Lao People's Democratic Rep proclaimed
- 1976 Patrick J Hillery elected President of Ireland
- 1978 "King of Hearts" closes at Minskoff Theater NYC after 48 performances
- 1979 11 trampled to death at Who concert in Cincinnati
- 1979 45th Heisman Trophy Award: Charles White, Southern California (RB)
- 1979 Christies auctions a thimble for a record $18,400
- 1979 Iran accepts constitution
- 1979 Shadow Traffic begins broadcasting in the New York City metropolitan area.
- 1980 NY Federal jury finds Reps Thompson D-NJ & Murphy, D-NY, guilty
- 1980 Don Sutton, the winningest pitcher in Los Angeles Dodgers history, signs a 4-year contract with Houston; Astros career shortened by a patellar fracture; returns to Dodgers in 1988 after stints with 3 other MLB clubs
- 1981 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1982 35.7 cm rainfall at Big Fork, Arkansas (state record)
- 1982 77°F highest December temperature ever recorded in Cleveland, Ohio
- 1982 After losing his world welterweight boxing titles to Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns wins WBC Super Welterweight crown in a majority points decision over Wilfred Benitez at Superdome, New Orleans
Film Release
1982 "Frances", film depicting life of actress Frances Farmer and starring Jessica Lange, first released in the US
Jessica Lange
- 1983 "Marilyn: An American Fable" closes at Minskoff NYC after 16 performances
- 1983 49th Heisman Trophy Award: Mike Rozier, Nebraska (RB)
- 1983 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
- 1984 Bhopal disaster: Union Carbide pesticide plant leak 45 tons of methyl isocyanate and other toxic compounds in Bhopal, India, kills 2,259 (official figure) - other estimates as high as 16,000 (including later deaths) and over half a million injured
Music Single
1984 "Do They Know It's Christmas" single written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure and sung by Band Aid is released in the UK
Bob Geldof
- 1985 23rd Shuttle Mission (61-B)-Atlantis 2-lands at Edwards AFB
Event of Interest
1985 7th ACE Cable Awards: Shelley Duvall wins the Golden CableACE for "Faerie Tale Theatre"
Shelley Duvall
- 1986 Chasing the West Indies 248/5, Sri Lanka is sensationally dismissed for just 55 in cricket's Champions Trophy in Sharjah; Windies pace bowler Courtney Walsh takes 5 for 1 in 4.3 overs
- 1986 Sri Lanka all out 55 v WI in one-dayer Walsh 5-1 in 4 3 overs
- 1988 54th Heisman Trophy Award: Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State (RB)
- 1988 NY Lotto pays $45 million to twelve winner (#s are 1-8-13-18-28-48)
Event of Interest
1989 Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H. W. Bush, declare the Cold War over
Mikhail Gorbachev
George H. W. Bush
Event of Interest
1989 Stefan Edberg of Sweden claims his first and only ATP Masters Grand Prix tennis title with a 4–6, 7–6, 6–3, 6–1 win over defending champion Boris Becker at Madison Square Garden, NYC
Boris Becker
Event of Interest
1991 Hulk Hogan defeats the Undertaker at 'This Tuesday in Texas' at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio to become 4-time WWF champion
Hulk Hogan
- 1991 Muslim Shi'ites release US hostage Alan Steen
- 1991 White House Chief of Staff John Sununu resigns
- 1992 UN Security Council votes unanimous for US led forces to enter Somalia
- 1992 The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea, carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil, runs aground in a storm while approaching La Coruña, Spain, and spills much of its cargo
- 1995 "Company" closes at Criterion Theater NYC after 68 performances
- 1995 "Holiday" opens at Circle in Sq Theater NYC for 49 performances
Davis Cup
1995 Davis Cup Tennis, Moscow: Pete Sampras beats Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 for an unassailable 3-1 American lead (ends 3-2)
Pete Sampras
- 1995 England cricket wicketkeeper Jack Russell dismisses Clive Eksteen with his record 11th catch in 2nd Test v South Africa in Johannesburg
- 1995 Naeem Akhtar takes 10-28 for Rawalpindi B against Peshawar
- 1995 Northwestern South Carolina begins using new area code 864
- 1995 Davis Cup Tennis, Moscow: Pete Sampras beats Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 to give US a winning 3-1 lead (ends 3-2); record 31st US title
- 1997 "1776" opens at Gershwin Theater NYC
- 1997 Golden State Warriors terminates guard Latrell Sprewell's four-year, $32 million NBA contract for attacking coach P.J. Carlesimo
- 1999 NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere
- 1999 Worcester cold storage and warehouse fire in Worcester, Massachusetts claims lives of 6 firefighters
- 1999 Ottawa Senators' right wing Kevin Dineen becomes 5th player in NHL history to score 300 career goals and record 2,000 penalty minutes; picks up a misconduct penalty in 7-4 loss to NJ Devils
Event of Interest
2000 French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil wins the season-ending Tennis Masters Cup for the only time; beats Andre Agassi 6–4, 6–4, 6–4 in the final in Lisbon, Portugal
Andre Agassi
- 2005 XCOR Aerospace makes first manned rocket aircraft delivery of US Mail in Mojave, California.
- 2005 1st ACC Championship Game: #22 Florida State beats #5 Virginia Tech, 27-22
- 2006 Davis Cup Tennis, Moscow: Marat Safin beats José Acasuso of Argentina 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 to clinch Russia's 3-2 victory
- 2007 Devastating winter storms cause Chehalis River to flood many cities in Lewis County, Washington, closing 20-mile portion of Interstate 5 for several days, resulting in at least eight deaths and billions of dollars of damage
- 2014 Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot dead unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, resigns
- 2014 Australian Rugby star David Pocock is arrested after protesting against a coal mine under construction in an Australian national forest
- 2014 Protests erupt in cities across the US after a grand jury decides not to charge the New York City police officer who killed Eric Garner with a choke-hold
- 2015 US Defense Secretary Ash Carter announces all combat roles in US armed forced will be opened to women
- 2016 US army decides it will not allow an oil pipeline to be built in North Dakota, after months of protests by The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
- 2017 First pizza party in space held by astronauts of the International Space Station
Event of Interest
2018 David Attenborough warns collapse of civilisation and the natural world on the horizon at UN climate summit in Poland
David Attenborough
Event of Interest
2018 Ballon d'Or: Real Madrid midfielder Luka Modrić wins; first time since 2007 that either Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't win award; Norwegian striker Ada Hegerberg is inaugural women's winner
December in History
How the First Sherlock Holmes Story was Sold for a Song
How did an English publisher most famous for giving the world Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management come to publish the first Sherlock Holmes story?
December 1, 1887
Fish Dish Finishes Off a King
Doctors warned King Henry I against eating lampreys. But he enjoyed the slippery fish and happily devoured a plateful of them leading to his death on this day.
December 1, 1135
Mozart, the Incomparable Musical Genius
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a musical genius who composed over 600 works in his short lifetime, died mysteriously on this day and was buried unceremoniously.
December 5, 1791
Real-life Tragedy for Theatrical Family
On this day a tragedy engulfed one of Britain’s noted theatrical families of the early 20th century.
December 8, 1926