- 536 Byzantine General Belisarius enters Rome while the Ostrogothic garrison peacefully leaves the city, returning the old capital to its empire
- 656 Battle of Kameel: Kalief Al ibn Abu Talib beats rebellion
- 730 Battle of Marj Ardabil, Turkic Khazar army led by Barjik defeats Umayyad force, with 20,000 killed including general al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah, whose head is mounted on a throne
- 1212 Frederick II (later also Holy Roman Emperor) crowned King of Germany in Mainz
- 1315 Swiss Woudsteden renews Eternal Covenant (Oath Society)
- 1425 Pope Martinus V forms University of Leuven
- 1570 The Geuzen (a confederacy of Calvinist Dutch nobles) under Herman de Ruyter occupies Loevestein
- 1625 Netherlands & England sign military treaty
- 1640 Settler Hugh Bewitt banished from Mass colony when he declares himself to be free of original sin
- 1658 Dutch troops occupy harbor city Quilon (Coilan) India
- 1738 Jews are expelled from Breslau Silesia
- 1747 Great Britain & Netherlands sign military treaty
- 1762 British parliament accepts Treaty of Paris
- 1783 First execution at Newgate Jail in London (now the site of the Central Criminal Court aka the Old Bailey), relocated from Tyburn (now the site of Marble Arch)
Historic Event
1793 Noah Webster establishes New York's 1st daily newspaper, the "American Minerva"
Historic Publication
1854 Alfred Tennyson's poem "Charge of the Light Brigade" is published in "The Examiner"
Palace of Westminster
1868 The first traffic lights are installed outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.
- 1869 Noble Order of Knights of Labor founded, Philadelphia
Historic Event
1878 Joseph Pulitzer buys the St. Louis Dispatch for $2,500
Historic Event
1889 US President Benjamin Harrison dedicates the Chicago Auditorium, designed by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, then largest building in the US
Historic Event
1900 President Paul Kruger of South Africa's Transvaal & Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands have a triumphant procession
- 1902 AL announces purchase of grounds for a stadium in NY
- 1903 Norwegian parliament votes unanimiously for female suffrage
- 1905 French Assembly National votes for separation of church & state
- 1906 NY American reports Belgian King Leopold II bribed US Senate commission on the Congo
- 1907 First Christmas Seals sold (Wilmington, Delaware, post office)
- 1908 The German Reichstag adopts a progressive social law restricting hours of factory work by young people and women
- 1909 1st US monoplane flown (Henry W Walden, Long Island, NY)
- 1910 French troops occupy the Moroccan harbor city of Agadir
- 1917 British forces under General Allenby capture Jerusalem
- 1918 French troops occupies Mainz
- 1922 Gabriel Narutowicz elected Polish president
- 1924 Michael Hainisch re-elected Austrian president
- 1924 Netherlands & Hungary trade treaty signed
- 1925 Pro football a hit in NYC; Grange & Bears beat Giants before 73,000
- 1931 Benn W Levy's "Springtime for Henry" premieres in NYC
- 1931 Japanese army attacks Chinese province of Jehol
- 1931 Spain becomes a republic
- 1933 Romania prohibits fascist Iron Guard
- 1935 Walter Liggett American newspaper editor and muckraker killed in gangland murder.
- 1938 State of California uses gas chamber instead of hanging for 2nd time in a week: Wesley Eudy and Fred Barnes executed for roles in Folsom Prison escape attempt resulting in murder of warden and guard (San Quentin State Prison, Marin County)
- 1939 Russian air raid on Helsinki
- 1940 British assault on Benghazi, Libya: first major allied offensive in North Africa
- 1940 Illegal Jewish immigrants to Haifa are deported to Mauritius
- 1940 South Australia all out for 47 v NSW, O'Reilly 5-11
- 1941 1st US WW II bombing mission in Far East, Luzon, Philippines
Historic Event
1941 300 Montgomery, San Francisco opens as new Bank of America HQ
Historic Event
1941 Adolf Hitler orders US ships to be torpedoed
- 1941 China declares war on Japan, Germany & Italy
- 1941 Citizen Register reports "Hostile planes reported nearing Westchester"
- 1948 UN General Assembly unanimously approves Convention on Genocide
- 1949 Dutch 2nd Chamber accepts Indonesian sovereignty
- 1951 West German voters approve merger of 3 states to form Baden-Wurttemberg
- 1952 Great Smog of London (England): Wind resumes, lifting city's worst smog after 4 days; over 8,000 deaths attributed to conditions; clean air legislation enacted in its wake [1] [2]
- 1953 General Electric announces all Communist employees will be fired
- 1957 1st Japanese ambassador to Israel
- 1958 Robert W. Welch Jr and 11 other men meet in Indianapolis to form the conservative and anti-Communist John Birch Society
- 1961 Tanganyika gains independence from Britain, takes name Tanzania - with Ukuru (Freedom) Torch lit on the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro
- 1962 "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" closes on Broadway
- 1962 Tanganyika becomes a republic within British Commonwealth
- 1965 Nikolai Podgorny replaces Anastas Mikoyan as president of Soviet Praesidium
Historic Event
1967 Nicolae Ceaușescu becomes President of Romania (overthrown in 1989)
Historic Invention
1968 In “The Mother of All Demos" Douglas Engelbart demonstrates the computer system NLS (oN-Line System) to a live audience in San Francisco. Shows for the first time, the mouse, word processing, windows, hypertext links, video conferencing, real-time collaboration, and other modern computing concepts. [1]
- 1968 The Derry Citizen's Action Committee (DCAC) calls for a halt to all marches and protests for a period of one month
- 1970 Dutch Antilles: government of Petronia falls
- 1970 OPEC meeting in Caracas establishes 55 percent as minimum tax rate and demands that posted prices be changed to reflect changes in foreign exchange rates
- 1971 Lewis F. Powell Jr. appointed to US Supreme Court
- 1973 Arab oil ministers announce a further production cut of 5 percent for January for non-friendly countries
- 1973 Sunningdale Agreement in Northern Ireland
- 1974 Dow Jones index hits 570.01
- 1974 Jack Brisco beats Giant Baba in Tokyo, to become NWA wrestling champ
- 1974 Johnson Grigsby freed after 66 years in jail in Indiana
- 1975 Iraq completes nationalization by taking over the BP, CFP, and Shell shares of the Basrah Petroleum Company
Historic Event
1975 US President Gerald Ford signs $2.3 Bn loan authorization for NYC
- 1975 Yelena Bonner accepts Soviet dissident Andrei Sacharov's Nobel Prize in Oslo
- 1978 Pioneer Venus 2 drops 5 probes into atmosphere of Venus
- 1980 61°F in Boston at 1 AM
- 1981 Porn star John Holmes charged with Laurel Canyon murders
Historic Event
1983 Counselor to Ronald Reagan, Edwin Meese says people go to soup kitchens "because food is free & that's easier than paying for it"
- 1983 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1984 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1984 Iranian commandos end 5-day hijacking of Kuwaiti plane
Historic Event
1985 Argentinian Junta leaders Jorge Rafael Videla and Emilio Eduardo Massera sentenced to life imprisonment for human rights violations in Buenos Aires
- 1985 Phoenix, Arizona, gets 3" of snow
- 1987 Palestine uprising begin in Israeli-occupied West Bank
- 1988 The Michael Hughes Bridge in Sligo, Ireland is officially opened.
- 1990 Gunda Niemann skates ladies world record 3k ladies (4:10.80)
- 1990 Houston scores most points against Cleveland, Oilers 58, Browns 14
Election of Interest
1990 Lech Wałęsa wins Poland's 1st direct presidential election in Poland
Operation Restore Hope
1992 US Marines and allied nations launch an amphibious and airborne operation in Mogadishu, Somalia to restore order to the war-torn nation. Authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 794 passed on December 3.
- 1993 Ivory Coast Premier Ouattara resigns
- 1994 5m meteor 1994 XM1 passes within 100,000 km of Earth
- 1994 US Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders resigns after comments about masturbation
- 1995 The Messel Pit in Germany inscribed on UNECO's World Heritage List as the world richest fossil site for Eocene period (57-36 million years ago) [1]
- 2003 A blast in the center of Moscow kills six people and wounds several more.
- 2006 Moscow suffers its worst fire since 1977, killing 45 women in a drug rehabitational center.
Historic Event
2008 Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is arrested by federal officials for a number of alleged crimes, including attempting to sell the United States Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama
- 2012 13 people are killed and 10 are injured after a bus rolls of a cliff and falls 100 meters in Taiwan
- 2012 6 people are killed and 41 are injured after a bus plunges 30 metres down a gorge in Guatemala
- 2012 Incumbent Ghanaian president John Mahama wins the general election amidst allegations of fraud
- 2012 The Social Liberal Union Party and Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta win by a landslide in the parliamentary elections
- 2014 CIA Torture Report released, detailing the CIA's use of torture on detainees between 2001-2006
- 2015 Amazon's best-selling book of the year is "Girl on a Train" by Paula Hawkins
- 2015 Attack on Kandahar airport by Taliban forces kills at least 37 before Afghan forces retake control
Historic Event
2015 German Chancellor Angela Merkel named Time Magazine's Person of the Year, for her handling of debt and refugee crises
- 2016 Ghanaian Presidential election won by Nana Akufo-Addo of the opposition New Patriotic Party
- 2016 Mosconi Cup nine-ball pool, London, England: Europe wins 7th consecutive title convincingly beating US, 11-3; MVP: Albin Ouschan (Austria)
Historic Event
2016 South Korean MPs vote to impeach President Park Geun-hye
Victory in Battle
2017 Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declares victory over the Islamic State in Iraq, ending more than 3 years of conflict
- 2017 Same-sex marriage is legalized in Australia after being signed into law by the Governor General
- 2018 Armenia's acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wins a snap election with 70.4% of the vote
- 2018 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
- 2018 Tens of thousands march on Delhi, India, to demand Hindi temple be built on contentious religious site in Ayodhya
- 2018 Winter storm hits US south east killing three, leaving hundreds of thousands without power, cancelling over 1,000 flights
- 2019 Chilean Air Force plane lost on flight to Antarctica with presumed loss of 38 lives
- 2019 US officials "deliberately misled" the public on progress of the Afghanistan war, hid that it was a lost cause, according to The Washington Post analysis of the "Afghanistan Papers"
- 2019 White Island / Whakaari volcano, a tourist attraction in New Zealand erupts killing 16
- 2020 Canada approves the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine for COVID-19
- 2020 United Arab Emirates is the first country to authorize China's Sinopharm vaccine for COVID-19 saying it is 86% effective
- 2021 More than 40 camels disqualified from the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival beauty contest after Botox injections and other cosmetic enhancements were discovered [1]
- 2021 Truck with a trailer carrying 150 migrants crashes in Chiapas, Mexico, killing 54 [1]
Historic Event
2022 Sheet of paper on which scientist Charles Darwin defended his theory of evolution in 1865 sells for a record $882,000 at Sotheby's [1]
