Event of Interest
1577 Sir Francis Drake sets sail from England on a circumnavigation of the world
Francis Drake
Historic Discovery
1642 Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sights the South Island of present day New Zealand; initially he calls it Staten Landt and changes it a year later to Nieuw Zeeland
Abel Tasman
- 1643 English Civil War: The Battle of Alton takes place in Hampshire.
- 1668 Jean Racine's "Britannicus" premieres in Paris
- 1734 Britain and Russia sign trade agreement
- 1742 Willem KH Friso tests his mothers potatoes
- 1769 Dartmouth College in New Hampshire receives its charter
- 1816 Patent for a dry dock issued to John Adamson, Boston
- 1823 Gioacchino Rossini arrives in London
- 1861 Battle of Alleghany Summit, West Virginia
- 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia (Marye's Heights)
- 1864 Battle of Fort McAllister, Georgia
- 1879 First federal fish hatching steamer launched (Wilmington, Delaware)
- 1889 Belgium rules on women and child labor law
- 1900 Battle of Nooitgedacht: Boer generals De La Reyand Smuts defeat a British brigade under the command of Major General R. Clements
Event of Interest
1902 British and German ships bombard Venezuelan forts after President Castro refuses to comply with ultimatum demanding damages caused during his takeover of the government in 1899; Castro asks US President Theodore Roosevelt to arbitrate
Theodore Roosevelt
Event of Interest
1907 German Emperor Wilhelm II visits Amsterdam
Wilhelm II
- 1913 British foreign minister Sir Edward Grey proposes that southern Albania be divided between Greece and Albania with compensation to Greece in the Aegean islands
- 1916 Avalanche kills 10,000 Austrian and Italian troops in 24 hrs in Tyrol
- 1916 Esme Stuart Lennox Robinsons premieres in Dublin
- 1916 French chief of staff Joffre replaced by Nivelle
- 1918 US army of occupation crosses Rhine, enters Germany
- 1919 Ross & Smith land in Australia from a flight from London
- 1920 Francis G. Pease's interferometer at Mount Wilson Observatory is the first to measure the diameter of a star - the Betelgeuse
- 1920 League of nations establishes the International Court of Justice in The Hague
- 1920 Netherland breaks contact with Kingdom of Serbia, Croatia and Slavia
- 1922 Charles Ebbets proposes putting numbers on players' sleeves or caps
- 1924 KOA-AM in Denver CO begins radio transmissions
- 1928 Clip-on tie designed
- 1928 George Gershwin's "An American In Paris" premieres (NYC)
- 1930 French government of André Tardieu falls for the second time
- 1930 Theodore Steeg forms French government
- 1934 Mark Hellinger Theater (Warner Bros) opens at 237 W 51st St NYC
- 1937 Japanese troops conquer and plunder Nanjing (Nanjing Massacre)
- 1938 Los Angeles freezes at 28°F
- 1939 Battle of the River Plate - 3 British cruisers vs German pocket battleship Graf Spee
- 1941 German occupiers forbid National Front and Netherland Union
- 1941 Lawine battlers destroy Haaraz, Peru; about 3,000 die
- 1941 U-81 torpedoes British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal
- 1942 Seyss-Inquart allows Dutch Nazi Anton Mussert to call himself Leader
- 1943 150 US Marauders bomb Schiphol
- 1944 Japanese kamikaze crashes into US cruiser Nashville, kills 138
- 1944 Norman Krasna's "Dear Ruth" premieres in NYC
- 1946 Léon Blum elected French premier
- 1947 Maine Turnpike opens to traffic
- 1949 AL votes down proposal to revive spitball
- 1949 Knesset votes to transfer Israel's capital to Jerusalem
Event of Interest
1954 Elsa Schiaparelli's House of Schiaparelli at Place Vendôme in Paris closes
Elsa Schiaparelli
'The Banality of Evil'
1961 Gideon Hausner in Jerusalem demands death penalty for Adolf Eichmann
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- 1962 Relay 1 communication satellite launched
Event of Interest
1964 In El Paso, Texas, LBJ & Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz set off an explosion diverting Rio Grande, to reshape US-Mexico border
Lyndon B. Johnson
- 1965 Algerian president Boumedienne visits Moscow
- 1966 1st battle for Bijlmer flats, Amsterdam
- 1966 Test debut of Clive Lloyd, v India Bombay, 82 & 78
- 1966 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1967 United Soccer Association & National Pro Soccer League merge into NASL
- 1967 Unsuccessful coup against Greek King Constantine II
- 1967 San Diego, CA records snow at a zero elevation after temperatures plunge 19 degrees (F) in eight hours.
- 1968 Brazilian President Da Costa e Silva issues Ato Institucional Número Cinco degree
- 1969 Arlo Guthrie releases "Alice's Restaurant"
- 1970 Greg Chappell scores 108 on Test debut v England at the WACA
Event of Interest
1970 Neil Simon's "Gingerbread Lady" premieres in NYC
Neil Simon
Election of Interest
1975 Australian Federal Election - Liberals with coalition under Malcolm Fraser win largest ever parliamentary majority
Malcolm Fraser
- 1975 Roy Fredericks hits 169 v Aust at WACA, hundred in 71 balls
- 1975 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1976 Golden Gate Bridge District starts ferry service to Larkspur
- 1976 Longest non-stop passenger airflight (Sydney to San Francisco 13h 14m)
- 1979 Strikes against price increases in Gdańsk, Poland
- 1979 Saudi Arabia raises marker crude price to $24 per barrel
- 1981 Poland's authoritarian communist government declares martial law and arrests Solidarity activists in a failed attempt to crush the opposition
- 1982 Earthquake hits Northern Yemen; 2,000 die
- 1983 Islander's Butch Goring scorings 4 goals against Oilers
- 1983 KYA-AM in San Francisco CA changes call letters to KOIT
- 1983 Martha Layne Collins inaugurated as Kentucky's 1st female governor
- 1984 Artificial heart recipient William Schroeder suffers 1st stroke
- 1987 Belgium Christian Democrats (CVP) loses parliamentary election
- 1987 Browns set club record for most points scored in a quarter, 28
- 1987 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1988 3 men end 29-hr all-466-station subway ride in NYC
Event of Interest
1988 Yasser Arafat addresses UN in Geneva
Yasser Arafat
Meeting of Interest
1990 South African President F. W. de Klerk meets with Nelson Mandela to talk of end of apartheid
Nelson Mandela
F. W. de Klerk
- 1990 US Secretary of State Baker questions Iraq's seriousness about Middle East peace
- 1991 Both Koreas sign an accord calling for reconcilliation
- 1991 NY assembly speaker Mel Miller is convicted of federal mail fraud
- 1992 FCC fines Infinity Broadcasting $600,000
- 1993 Deadline for Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza, they don't
- 1993 Dow Jones hits record 3764.43
- 1993 Fire in textile factory in Fuzjou China, 60 killed
- 1993 Space shuttle STS-61 (Endeavour 5), lands
- 1994 American Eagle commuter plane crashes in NC, killing 15
- 1995 US Federal Court votes that Cable companies must carry local stations
Election of Interest
1996 Kofi Annan is elected Secretary-General of the United Nations
Kofi Annan
- 2000 The "Texas 7" escape from the John Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas later going on a crime spree and killing police officer Aubrey Hawkins
- 2001 Indian Parliament Sansad attacked by terrorists. 15 people killed, including all terrorists
- 2002 Enlargement of the European Union: The European Union announces that Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia will become members from May 1, 2004.
Event of Interest
2003 Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit, during Operation Red Dawn by US forces
Saddam Hussein
Event of Interest
2004 Former Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet is put under house arrest, after being sued under accusations over 9 kidnapping actions and manslaughter. The house arrest is lifted the same day on appeal.
Augusto Pinochet
- 2006 The Baiji, or Chinese River Dolphin, announced as extinct.
- 2012 A car bombing in Qatana, outside Damascus, kills 16 people and injures 12
- 2012 Japan scrambles fighter jets in response to a Chinese plane in the Senkaku Islands dispute
- 2014 Divisions emerge between rich and poor nations at the UN climate change talks in Peru
- 2014 A civil rights protest march in Washington, D.C. takes place, against the police killing of unarmed black men
- 2014 The British Government announces it will send hundreds of troops to Iraq, to train Iraqi and Kurdish forces in the conflict with Islamic State
- 2014 Two US soldiers killed in a Taliban bombing of a NATO convoy in Kabul
- 2014 Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, criticizes UN Security Council for its lack of action over war crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan
- 2016 UN claims 82 civilians have been summary executed in Aleppo by pro-government forces
- 2017 Scientists begin checking interstellar asteroid Oumuamua for signs of alien technology through radio signals
- 2017 Prehistoric bones of a penguin as tall as a human (1.77m) found on Otago beach, New Zealand, reported in "Nature Communications"
Important Vote
2017 Prime Minister Theresa May's UK Conservative government loses key vote in Parliament for an amendment to allow MPs to vote on Brexit
Theresa May
- 2017 Democratic Republic of Congo jails for life 11 militiamen for raping 40 children, including a local MP
- 2017 Online dictionery Merriam-Webster's most searched word of the year is Feminism
- 2018 Cease-fire in port city of Hudaydah, Yemen, by Houthi rebels and Saudi-led coalition announced by the UN
- 2018 Passenger train collides with maintenance locomotive in Ankara, Turkey, killing at least 9 and injuring 47
- 2018 US Senate passes non-binding "war powers resolution" against long-term ally Saudi Arabia
- 2018 Apple announces new $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas and expansion in other US cities
December in History
![A King Salutes Remarkable Woman Soldier]()
A King Salutes Remarkable Woman Soldier
Whether she went to war out of love or duty, Phoebe Hessel, who died on this day, led a remarkable life on and off the battlefield.
December 12, 1821![Great Balls of Fire! The 'Bride' is 13]()
Great Balls of Fire! The 'Bride' is 13
Jerry Lee Lewis leapt to fame declaring there was ‘A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’. His fans were certainly shaken when told of his 13-year-old ‘bride’.
December 13, 1957![Heartbreak and Tragedy for Captain Scott]()
Heartbreak and Tragedy for Captain Scott
Beaten to the South Pole by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen on this day, only despair and death awaited British explorer Captain Robert Scott.
December 14, 1911![The Tower that Twice Defied Hitler]()
The Tower that Twice Defied Hitler
The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of France and twice managed to upstage Adolf Hitler. The man who built it, Gustave Eiffel was born on this day.
December 15, 1832
