December 2018 in History

Events in History

Dec 1 Syrian shadow puppetry added to UN list of cultural activities in urgent need of saving
Dec 1 Violent demonstrations in Paris, France, by yellow-vest movement with 36,000 protesting nationwide

Event of Interest

Dec 2 Andrés Manuel López Obrador is sworn in as President of Mexico

Event of Interest

Dec 2 Israeli police recommend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife be charged with fraud and bribery

Event of Interest

Dec 2 Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari denies he has died and been replaced by a Sudanese impostor after ill health

Agreement of Interest

Dec 2 Trade war truce agreed between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at G-20 meeting in Argentina

Dec 3 Dutch court in Arnhem rejects man's request to legally be recognised 20 years younger
Dec 4 Attempts to establish mob council in Sicily thwarted when 46 members of the mafia arrested including Settimio Mineo
Dec 4 First successful birth resulting from uterus transplant from a deceased donor in São Paulo, Brazil
Dec 4 French couture house Chanel ends its use of fur and exotic skins following bans by other companies

Event of Interest

Dec 4 French President Emmanuel Macron drops controversial rise in fuel tax after three weeks of mass protests

Dec 4 Native Americans had just one migration from Siberia to the New World, at most 23,000 years ago, in research published in "Nature" and "Science"

Event of Interest

Dec 4 Theresa May's UK government suffers three parliamentary defeats in one day, also found in contempt of parliament for failing to publish report in full on Brexit

Dec 5 Arrest of Huawei Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou for possible violation of Iran sanctions in Canada
Dec 5 CO2 emissions reach all-time high (up 2.7%) driven by coal use in China and consumption of oil, in Global Carbon Project report

Event of Interest

Dec 5 Letter by Albert Einstein from 1954 on concept of religion sells for $2.9 million at Christie's in New York

Event of Interest

Dec 5 National day of mourning for former US President George H. W. Bush as he lies in state at the Capitol Rotunda, Washington

Dec 5 US state funeral for former president George H. W. Bush, eulogy by George W. Bush, attended by President Donald Trump predecessors Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter
Dec 5 Wisconsin Republican senate passes bills restricting power of new Democratic governor Tony Evers
Dec 6 Luxembourg is the first country to make all public transport free
Dec 6 Oldest-known plague sample found in 4,900-year-old remains of 20-year old woman in Gökhem, southern Sweden published in "Cell"
Dec 6 Senegal's new Museum of Black Civilisations is opened in Dakar by President Macky Sall

Election of Interest

Dec 7 Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is elected the new leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Union party, replacing Angela Merkel

Dec 7 Brazilian spiritual healer João Teixeira de Faria accused of sexual abuse by four women, over 200 more come forward in next week

Event of Interest

Dec 7 Court filings by US federal prosecutors and Special Counsel Robert Mueller against Michael Cohen appear to implicate President Donald Trump on campaign fraud and Russian dealings

Dec 7 Former Italy national football coach Cesare Prandelli is appointed manager of Serie A club Genoa CFC replacing Ivan Juric; first time in history all 20 Serie A managers are all Italian
Dec 7 Mosconi Cup nine-ball pool, London, England: US ends Europe's 8-year run with an 11-9 win; MVP: Skyler Woodward (USA)
Dec 8 US President Donald Trump announces John Kelly will be stepping down as White House Chief of Staff at the end of the year
Dec 9 Armenia's acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wins a snap election with 70.4% of the vote
Dec 9 Copa Libertadores Final, Madrid: River Plate beats Boca Juniors 3-1 in extra time (aggregate 5-3); Juan Quintero's stunning extra-time strike helps River come from a goal down to record historic victory over 10-man Boca
Dec 9 Tens of thousands march on Delhi, India, to demand Hindi temple be built on contentious religious site in Ayodhya
Dec 9 Winter storm hits US south east killing three, leaving hundreds of thousands without power, cancelling over 1,000 flights
Dec 10 Emmanuel Macron announces in TV address rise in minimum wage and tax concessions after weeks of civil unrest
Dec 10 Russia's most prolific mass murderer Mikhail Popkov sentenced to second life sentence for total of 56 murders
Dec 10 Theresa May cancels UK parliament vote on Brexit bill in face of certain defeat
Dec 11 The Arctic is experiencing "unprecedented warmth" caused by human-caused climate change, according to US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Report

Event of Interest

Dec 11 Time Magazine Person of the Year 2018 is "the Guardians" journalists targeted for their work, including Jamal Khashoggi

Event of Interest

Dec 11 US President Donald Trump says he would be "proud" to shut down the government in contentious meeting at The White House with Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer

Dec 12 American Media Inc. publisher of "National Enquirer" admits paying hush money to mistresses of US President Donald Trump
Dec 12 British Prime Minister Theresa May survives 200-117 no-confidence vote from her own Conservative Party
Dec 12 China built 88 out of world's 143 skyscrapers in 2018 more than any country ever (buildings over 200 meters/656 ft)
Dec 12 Michael Cohen, former lawyer for US President Donald Trump sentenced to three years in prison for campaign-finance violations and tax fraud
Dec 12 Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergey Prokopyev compete complex spacewalk to fix hole in Soyuz spacecraft
Dec 12 Seven mass graves in former Islamic State area discovered containing hundreds of bodies, some tortured, near Albu Kamal, eastern Syria
Dec 13 Apple announces new $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas and expansion in other US cities
Dec 13 Cease-fire in port city of Hudaydah, Yemen, by Houthi rebels and Saudi-led coalition announced by the UN
Dec 13 Passenger train collides with maintenance locomotive in Ankara, Turkey, killing at least 9 and injuring 47
Dec 13 US Senate passes non-binding "war powers resolution" against long-term ally Saudi Arabia
Dec 14 Report by Reuters US pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson knew for decades their talc was contaminated with asbestos
Dec 15 Affordable Care Act ('Obamacare') ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in Fort Worth, Texas; later reversed by US Supreme Court
Dec 15 Diplomats from 200 countries agree to a set of rules to implement the UN Paris Climate Agreement in Katowice, Poland
Dec 15 Egyptian Archaeologists announce discovery of 4,400 year old tomb of Fifth Dynasty priest in Saqqara pyramid complex near Cairo

Event of Interest

Dec 15 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announces establishment of independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, splitting from Russian Orthodox

Dec 16 Huge explosion and fire in a restaurant in Sapporo, Japan injures 42
Dec 16 Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is sworn back into office two months after being removed by President Sirisena
Dec 17 Astronomers identify furtherest object in the solar system as 2018 VG18 (nicknamed Farout), 120 x further from the sun than earth
Dec 17 Dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster's word of the year is "justice"
Dec 17 Malaysia files criminal charges against US bank Goldman Sachs for it role in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal
Dec 17 New reports to US Senate say Russian propaganda efforts on social media much more extensive than thought, including targeting African Americans
Dec 17 US military confirms it has killed 62 fighters from Islamist group al-Shabab in air strikes in Somalia
Dec 18 Fire destroys 600 stilt homes in Manaus, northwestern Brazil
Dec 18 Meteor explodes in huge fireball over the Bering Sea with 10 times the energy of Hiroshima atomic bomb, 2nd largest in last 30 yrs
Dec 18 Nevada becomes the first US state with a female-majority legislature with new appointments taking it to 51%
Dec 19 Drones flying over Gatwick airport, England, causes delays and cancellations for 800 flights and 110,000 people
Dec 19 First use of a drone to deliver vaccines - to island of Erromango, Vanuatu, by Unicef
Dec 19 US President Donald Trump announces victory over the Islamic State and planned withdrawal of US troops from Syria
Dec 20 New figures show average US male weighs 198 pounds and stands 5 feet 9 inches, women 171 pounds and 5 feet 4 inches
Dec 20 US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announces his resignation after disagreements with President Donald Trump
Dec 22 Partial shutdown of US federal government begins

Krakatoa: The World’s Mightiest Explosion

Dec 22 Tsunami hits Indonesia's Sunda Strait killing over 400 after part of the Anak Krakatoa volcano slips into the sea

Anak Krakatau – the “Child of Krakatoa” – erupts in December, 2018, causing more than 400 deaths

Dec 26 American Colin O'Brady is the first person to cross Antarctica solo and unassisted after 54 days at the Ross Ice Shelf
Dec 29 40 militants killed in Giza and El-Arish by Egyptian police after attack on a tourist bus the day before killed four
Dec 29 Record lowest temperature of -111C registered by American satellite Noaa-20 in the western Pacific at top of large storm [1]
Dec 31 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wins third term in Bangladesh elections with 17 people killed in violent clashes

Deaths in History

Dec 3 Andrei Bitov, Russian writer (Pushkin House), dies at 81
Dec 3 Justin Cartwright, British novelist (In Every Face I Meet), dies at 75
Dec 7 Belisario Betancur, Colombian politician, President of Colombia (1982-86), dies at 95
Dec 8 Evelyn Berezin, American computer pioneer, invented first word processor, dies at 93
Dec 8 Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Russian 'Grandmother of Russian Human Rights', dies at 91
Dec 8 Roger the ripped kangaroo, famous for crushing a metal bucket like a paper cup, dies at 12 in Alice Springs of old age
Dec 8 Rosanell Eaton, American voting rights advocate, dies at 97
Dec 9 Riccardo Giacconi, Italian American astrophysicist, Nobel Prize for Physics 2002 for X-ray astronomy, dies at 87
Dec 12 Meng Lang, Chinese poet and activist, dies at 57
Dec 13 Alann Steen, American journalist and educator, and political hostage (Beirut, 1987-91), dies of cancer at 79
Dec 16 Colin Kroll, American co-founder of Vine and HQ Trivia, dies of a drug overdose at 34
Dec 16 John Ford Noonan, American playwright (A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking), dies at 77
Dec 16 Oribe Canales, Cuban American celebrity hairdresser, dies of cancer at 62
Dec 16 Robin Clark, New Zealand-born chemist (early transition metals and highly coordinated complexes), dies at 83
Dec 18 David Austin, English rose breeder (Austin roses), dies at 92
Dec 22 Paddy Ashdown, British MP, leader of Liberal Democrats (1988-1999), dies of bladder cancer at 77
Dec 22 Roberto Suazo Córdova, President of Honduras (1982-86), dies at 91
Dec 25 Nancy Roman, American, NASA's first chief of astronomy 'Mother of the Hubble', dies at 93
Dec 26 Wendy Beckett, South African British nun and TV art critic, dies at 88
Dec 28 Georges Loinger, French resistance fighter (WWII), dies at 108
Dec 28 Shehu Shagari, Nigerian politician, President of Nigeria (1979-83), dies at 93