Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December

Selected anniversaries / On this day archive

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December 1: World AIDS Day; Great Union Day in Romania; Rosa Parks Day in some states and cities in the United States

Pedro I of Brazil, later also Pedro IV of Portugal

1800 – French Revolutionary Wars: Austrian forces, led by Archduke John of Austria, defeated two divisions of the French First Republic, led by Paul Grenier, at the Battle of Ampfing.
1822 – Pedro I was crowned the first emperor of Brazil, seven weeks after his reign began on his 24th birthday.
1955 – Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, sparking the Montgomery bus boycott.
1974 – Two Boeing 727s, TWA Flight 514 and Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, crashed in the eastern United States in unrelated circumstances, killing 95 people on board both aircraft.
2019 – Vivianne Miedema scored six goals and had four assists for Arsenal W.F.C. in their 11–1 victory over Bristol City W.F.C., which broke the record for the most goals scored in a FA Women's Super League match.

Giovanni Morone (d. 1580)
Ardina Moore (b. 1930)
Ueli Maurer (b. 1950)
Kenshiro Abbe (d. 1985)

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December 2

1928 Ford Model A

1823 – U.S. president James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine, a proclamation of opposition to European colonialism in the New World.
1927 – The Ford Motor Company introduced the second version of the Model A (pictured), its first new model in 18 years.
1950 – Korean War: UN forces began a retreat from North Korea following defeat at the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River.
1989 – The Malayan Communist Party and the Malaysian government signed a peace accord to end a 21-year communist insurgency.
2015 – In San Bernardino, California, a married couple carried out a mass shooting at a Christmas party before fleeing and dying in a shootout with police.

Irene Vanbrugh (b. 1872)
Allen Wright (d. 1885)
Austen Deans (b. 1915)
Inori Minase (b. 1995)

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December 3

Coat of arms of Singapore

1800 – War of the Second Coalition: French forces defeated Austrian and Bavarian troops at the Battle of Hohenlinden, eventually resulting in the Austrians signing the Treaty of Lunéville.
1910 – Freda Du Faur became the first woman to climb Aoraki / Mount Cook, the highest peak in New Zealand.
1959 – The current flag and coat of arms of Singapore (pictured) were adopted, six months after the island became self-governing within the British Empire.
1979 – Eleven people were crushed in a human stampede at a concert by British rock band the Who in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
2009 – A suicide bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, killed 25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal Government.

Gilbert Stuart (b. 1755)
Mary Baker Eddy (d. 1910)
Paul J. Crutzen (b. 1933)
Prince Sverre Magnus of Norway (b. 2005)

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December 4: Navy Day in India

The Battle of Pontvallain

1370 – Hundred Years' War: In two separate engagements in the Battle of Pontvallain (depicted), French forces wiped out an English army which had split up because of a dispute between the commanders.
1905 – The Great Seimas of Vilnius met to discuss national concerns within Lithuania: they decided to demand wide political autonomy within the Russian Empire.
1915 – World War I: Senior British and French figures, including prime ministers H. H. Asquith and Aristide Briand, met at Calais to discuss the future of the Salonika Front.
1992 – U.S. president George H. W. Bush ordered American troops into Somalia to help provide humanitarian aid and restore order during the ongoing Somali Civil War.

John Cotton (b. 1585)
Gregor MacGregor (d. 1845)
Gabriel Dessauer (b. 1955)
Hannah Arendt (d. 1975)

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December 5: Krampusnacht in parts of Central Europe

Nelson's Column during the Great Smog of London

1484 – Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, which gave the Dominican inquisitor Heinrich Kramer the explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
1952 – The "Great Smog of London" (pictured) began and lasted for five days, causing 12,000 deaths and leading to the Clean Air Act 1956.
1965 – The "glasnost meeting" took place in Moscow, becoming the first demonstration in the Soviet Union after World War II and marking the beginning of the civil rights movement in the country.
1972 – Gough Whitlam took office as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia and formed a duumvirate with his deputy Lance Barnard, ending 23 years of Liberal–Country Party government.

Phillis Wheatley (d. 1784)
Arthur Currie (b. 1875)
Louise Bryant (b. 1885)
Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum (b. 1985)

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December 6: Saint Nicholas's Day (Western Christianity); White Ribbon Day in Canada; Independence Day in Finland (1917)

Béla I of Hungary

1060 – Béla I (pictured) was crowned King of Hungary in Székesfehérvár.
1865 – Slavery in the United States was officially abolished with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
1942 – The Holocaust: Members of the German Ordnungspolizei massacred 31 people in Stary Ciepielów and Rekówka within occupied Poland for helping Jews.
1975 – Four members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army took two people hostage in a house on Balcombe Street in London, surrendering six days later.
1990 – An Italian Air Force military jet, abandoned by its pilot after an on-board fire, crashed into a high school near Bologna, killing 12 students and injuring 88 other people.

Maria de Dominici (b. 1645)
Marie Adélaïde of Savoy (b. 1685)
Winifred Hoernlé (b. 1885)
Devan Nair (d. 2005)

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December 7: Feast day of Saint Ambrose (Christianity); National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in the United States (1941)

Solidus of Tiberius

574 – Suffering from mental illness, Eastern Roman emperor Justin II had his general Tiberius proclaimed Caesar, adopting him as his own son.
1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Prairie Grove ended a Confederate attempt to regain control of northwestern Arkansas.
1972 – Construction workers found the remains of Martin Bormann near Lehrter Station in Berlin, ending a decades-long search after his conviction in absentia at the Nuremberg trials.
1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
2014 – The annual furry convention Midwest FurFest was targeted in an unsolved chlorine gas attack.

Charles Garnier (d. 1649)
Theodor Schwann (b. 1810)
Joseph Cook (b. 1860)
Nicholas Hoult (b. 1989)

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December 8: Rōhatsu in Japan; Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Day in Ethiopia; Liberation Day in Syria

Portrait of Margaret Hughes by Peter Lely, 1672

1660 – Margaret Hughes (pictured) appeared professionally on the English stage; she is thought to have been the first woman to do so.
1880 – At an assembly of 10,000 Boers, Paul Kruger announced the fulfilment of the decision to restore the government and volksraad of the South African Republic.
1987 – A man shot and killed eight people at the Australia Post building in Melbourne, before jumping to his death.
2010 – The Japanese experimental spacecraft IKAROS flew by Venus at a distance of 80,800 km (50,200 mi), completing its planned mission to demonstrate solar-sail technology.
2024 – The Syrian civil war ended when Bashar al-Assad's party, the Syrian Ba'ath Party, surrendered to the Syrian opposition.

Adolph Menzel (b. 1815)
Georges Feydeau (b. 1862)
Ann T. Bowling (d. 2000)
Robert Austin Markus (d. 2010)

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December 9: International Anti-Corruption Day

Electron micrograph of the smallpox virus

1775 – American Revolutionary War: After their loss in the Battle of Great Bridge, British authorities were forced to evacuate from the Colony of Virginia.
1940 – Second World War: British and Commonwealth forces began Operation Compass, the first major Allied military operation of the Western Desert campaign.
1965 – A large, brilliant fireball was seen by thousands in midwestern North America before landing in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.
1979 – A World Health Organization commission of scientists certified the global eradication of smallpox (virus pictured), making it the only human infectious disease to date to have been completely eradicated.
1990 – In Serbia's first multi-party election, Slobodan Milošević won the presidential election and the Socialist Party of Serbia won the majority of seats in the National Assembly.

Nasr ibn Sayyar (d. 748)
Isabelle Urquhart (b. 1865)
Grete Wiesenthal (b. 1885)
McKayla Maroney (b. 1995)

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December 10: Human Rights Day; Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, Sweden

Huckleberry Finn depicted by E. W. Kemble

1884 – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Finn depicted) by American author Mark Twain was first published in the United Kingdom and Canada, two months earlier than in the US.
1890 – The New York World Building, the then-tallest building in the United States at a height of 110 meters, was completed in New York City.
1907 – During the Brown Dog affair, protesters marched through London and clashed with police officers in Trafalgar Square over the existence of a memorial for animals that had been vivisected.
1942 – Edward Raczyński of the Polish government-in-exile issued a note that was the first official report on the Holocaust.
1989 – At the first open pro-democracy demonstration in Mongolia, journalist Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announced the formation of the Mongolian Democratic Union, which would be instrumental in ending communist rule four months later.

Margaret Eliza Maltby (b. 1860)
Giosuè Gallucci (b. 1864)
Pío Romero Bosque (d. 1935)
Sultan Kösen (b. 1982)

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December 11

Lunar Roving Vehicle, driven by Gene Cernan

1899 – Second Boer War: In the Battle of Magersfontein, Boers defeated British forces trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.
1925 – Pope Pius XI promulgated the encyclical Quas primas, establishing the Feast of Christ the King.
1972 – Apollo 17 (Lunar Roving Vehicle pictured), the last Apollo mission, landed on the Moon.
2005 – Demonstrations in Cronulla, a suburb of Sydney, against recent violence towards locals turned into a series of race riots.
2008 – American stockbroker Bernie Madoff was arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $64.8 billion Ponzi scheme, the largest in history.

Pieter Nuyts (d. 1655)
Isaac Shelby (b. 1750)
Max Born (b. 1882)
Emmanuelle Charpentier (b. 1968)

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December 12: Beginning of the Yule Lads' arrival in Iceland

HMS Duchess

1388 – Unable to defend her possessions, Maria of Enghien sold the lordship of Argos and Nauplia to the Republic of Venice.
1939 – The Royal Navy destroyer HMS Duchess (pictured) collided with HMS Barham, the battleship she was escorting, and Duchess sank with heavy loss of life.
1942 – World War II: German troops began Operation Winter Storm, an attempt to relieve encircled Axis forces during the Battle of Stalingrad.
1964 – Jomo Kenyatta became the first president of the Republic of Kenya.
1979 – A magnitude-8.2 earthquake struck just off the shore of Tumaco, Colombia, causing at least 300 deaths, mostly by the resulting tsunami.

John Boydell (d. 1804)
Anne Liburd (b. 1920)
Doris Blackburn (d. 1970)
Evelyn S. Lieberman (d. 2015)

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December 13: Nanjing Massacre Memorial Day in China (1937)

Haile Selassie

1294 – Saint Celestine V resigned the papacy after only five months to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit.
1577 – Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.
1862 – American Civil War: Union forces under Ambrose Burnside suffered severe casualties against entrenched Confederate defenders at the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia.
1957 – A 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck the Iranian Hamadan province, killing at least 1,130 people.
1960 – With Haile Selassie (pictured), Emperor of Ethiopia, out of the country, four conspirators staged a coup attempt to install Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen on the throne.

Paul Speratus (b. 1484)
Dick Van Dyke (b. 1925)
Dora Marsden (d. 1960)
Addie Viola Smith (d. 1975)

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December 14: Martyred Intellectuals Day in Bangladesh (1971), Monkey Day

1925 Wozzeck poster

835 – In the Sweet Dew incident, Emperor Wenzong of the Tang dynasty conspired to kill the powerful eunuchs of the Tang court, but the plot was foiled.
1925 – Wozzeck (poster pictured) by composer Alban Berg, described as the first atonal opera, premiered at the Berlin State Opera.
1948 – American physicists Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann were awarded a patent for their cathode-ray tube amusement device, the first interactive electronic game.
1960 – Australian cricketer Ian Meckiff was run out on the last day of the first Test match between Australia and the West Indies, resulting in the first tied Test in cricket history.
1992 – War in Abkhazia: A helicopter carrying evacuees was shot down during the siege of Tkvarcheli, resulting in at least 52 deaths and catalysing more concerted Russian military intervention on behalf of Abkhazia.

Niccolò Perotti (d. 1480)
Giovanni Battista Cipriani (d. 1785)
Michael Owen (b. 1979)
Huang Zongying (d. 2020)

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December 15: First Day of Hanukkah (Judaism, 2025)

Constantine VIII

1025 – Constantine VIII (depicted) became the sole Byzantine emperor, 63 years after being crowned co-emperor.
1890 – Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa Lakota leader, was killed on Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota by U.S. Indian agency police.
1939 – The American historical epic film Gone With the Wind, adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name, premiered in Atlanta, Georgia.
1945 – The US-led occupying forces ordered the government of Japan to cease state support for Shinto.
2019 – Citizenship Amendment Act protests: 10 to 15 local women blockaded a major road in Delhi, India, to protest the exclusion of Muslims from the amended Citizenship Act.

David Teniers the Younger (bapt. 1610)
Sarah Trimmer (d. 1810)
Vallabhbhai Patel (d. 1950)
Bob Feller (d. 2010)

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December 16: Day of Reconciliation in South Africa

Slowed down special effect from "Dennō Senshi Porygon"

1640 – Prussian forces, led by Frederick the Great, moved his troops into the Habsburg region of Silesia, starting the First Silesian War.
1850 – Settlers of the Canterbury Association aboard Randolph and Charlotte Jane arrived to establish a colony at Christchurch, New Zealand.
1922 – Gabriel Narutowicz, the first president of Poland, was assassinated only five days after having taken office.
1930 – German-American gangster Herman Lamm killed himself during a botched robbery attempt in Clinton, Indiana, to avoid being captured by police.
1997 – "Dennō Senshi Porygon", an episode of the Japanese television series Pokémon, induced epileptic seizures in 685 children (effect pictured).

Jane Austen (b. 1775)
Bertha Lamme Feicht (b. 1869)
Charles Brenton Fisk (d. 1983)
Bethwel Henry (d. 2020)

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December 17: International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

Aztec calendar stone

1790 – The Aztec sun stone (pictured), now a modern symbol of Mexican culture, was excavated in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City.
1862 – American Civil War: Union General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
1939 – World War II: After sustaining moderate damage in the Battle of the River Plate two days earlier, the German cruiser Graf Spee was scuttled by its commander, Hans Langsdorff, to avoid its internment by Uruguay.
1945 – The modern flag of Kurdistan was raised for the first time in Mahabad, Iran.
1990 – American gay rights activist William E. Woods brought three same-sex couples to fill out marriage licenses in Honolulu, leading to the eventual legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States.

Domenico Cimarosa (b. 1749)
James White (d. 1825)
Kenneth E. Iverson (b. 1920)
Milla Jovovich (b. 1975)

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December 18: National Day in Qatar (1878)

Thomas Paine

1499 – Muslims in Granada began a rebellion against their Castilian rulers in response to forced conversions to Catholicism.
1792 – Thomas Paine (depicted) was found guilty of seditious libel for the publication of the second part of his book Rights of Man.
1867 – In Angola, New York, the last coach of a Lake Shore Railway train derailed, plunged 40 feet (12 m) down a gully, and caught fire, resulting in approximately 49 deaths.
1939 – Second World War: The Luftwaffe won a victory over the Royal Air Force in the Battle of the Heligoland Bight, greatly influencing both sides' future aerial warfare strategy.
2023 – A series of mass protests began in Belgrade, Serbia, alleging electorial irregularities in the Serbian parliament and Belgrade city assembly elections.

Henrietta Edwards (b. 1849)
Edwin Howard Armstrong (b. 1890)
Sia (b. 1975)
Alexei Kosygin (d. 1980)

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December 19

Henry II

1154 – Henry II (depicted) was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey, London.
1964 – The ruling junta of South Vietnam, led by Nguyễn Khánh, initiated a coup, dissolving the High National Council, a civilian advisory body.
1984 – China and the United Kingdom signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, agreeing to the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China on 1 July 1997.
1985 – Aeroflot Flight 101/435 was hijacked by the co-pilot and landed in a cow pasture in China, where he was apprehended.
1997 – Titanic, the third-highest-grossing film of all time, with a worldwide total of more than US$1.8 billion, was released in the United States.

Pope Urban V (d. 1370)
Mary Livermore (b. 1820)
Mileva Marić (b. 1875)
Phil Ochs (b. 1940)

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December 20

MV Doña Paz in port, 1984

1248 – Attempting to form an alliance with the Mongol Empire, Louis IX of France met with two of their envoys while en route to the Seventh Crusade.
1984 – Twelve-year-old Jonelle Matthews disappeared from her home in Greeley, Colorado; her body was not discovered until 2019.
1987 – The deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history occurred when the MV Doña Paz (pictured) sank after colliding with an oil tanker in the Tablas Strait in the Philippines, resulting in an estimated 4,385 deaths.
1995 – American Airlines Flight 965 crashed into a mountain in Buga, Colombia, killing most of those on board.
2007 – Pablo Picasso's Portrait of Suzanne Bloch was stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art before being recovered about three weeks later.

Pope Zephyrinus (d. 217)
Richard Boyle, 2nd Viscount Shannon (d. 1740)
Maya Lindholm (b. 1990)
Dawn Steel (d. 1997)

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December 21: December solstice (15:03 UTC, 2025); Dongzhi Festival in China (2025)

Sergei Prokofiev

1124 – Lamberto Scannabecchi was elected pope, taking the name Honorius II.
1872 – HMS Challenger departed Portsmouth on a scientific expedition that laid the foundations of oceanography.
1919 – After serving two years in prison for encouraging people to resist military conscription, anarchist Emma Goldman was deported from the United States to Russia.
1934 – Lieutenant Kijé, the first film composition by Sergei Prokofiev (pictured), premiered.
1995 – In accordance with the Oslo II Accord, Israeli troops withdrew from Bethlehem in preparation for the transfer of control to the Palestinian National Authority.

William H. Osborn (b. 1820)
Adele Goldstine (b. 1920)
Milan Marjanović (d. 1955)
K. T. Oslin (d. 2020)

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December 22

Aerial view of the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill

856 – An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.9 struck the eastern Alborz mountains in Persia, causing an estimated 200,000 deaths.
1948 – Chaired by Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, the Emergency Government of the Republic of Indonesia was established to counter Dutch attempts to re-assert colonial control.
1988 – Brazilian unionist and environmental activist Chico Mendes was murdered at his home in Xapuri.
1992 – When on approach to Tripoli International Airport, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 1103 collided with a Libyan Air Force jet, resulting in all 159 people on board the airliner being killed while both occupants survived in the air force jet.
2008 – A dike ruptured at a waste containment area for a coal-fired power plant in Kingston, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion gallons (4.2 million m³) of coal fly ash slurry (aftermath pictured) in the largest industrial spill in US history.

Carl Friedrich Abel (b. 1723)
William Hyde Wollaston (d. 1828)
Meghan Trainor (b. 1993)
Dina Belenkaya (b. 1993)

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December 23: Night of the Radishes in Oaxaca City, Mexico; Festivus

Vincent van Gogh

1776 – American Revolutionary War: American troops, overwhelmed by British reinforcements, retreated from the Battle of Iron Works Hill.
1888 – During a bout of mental illness, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (pictured) severed part of his left ear and gave it to a woman in a brothel in Arles, France.
1916 – First World War: Allied forces gained a strategic victory at the Battle of Magdhaba on the Sinai Peninsula.
1957 – Leading the Australia national cricket team, Ian Craig became the youngest-ever Test cricket captain at the time.
2008 – The Guinean military engineered a coup d'état, announcing that it planned to rule the country for two years prior to a new presidential election.

Carl Gustaf Wrangel (b. 1613)
Dost Mohammad Khan (b. 1792)
Carla Bruni (b. 1967)
Bea Szenfeld (b. 1972)

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December 24

Christmas Island (Kiritimati)

759 – The Tang-dynasty poet Du Fu departed for Chengdu, where he lived for the next five years and composed poems about life in his thatched cottage.
1777 – An expedition led by English explorer James Cook reached Christmas Island (pictured), the largest coral atoll in the world.
1814 – The United Kingdom and the United States signed a peace treaty in Ghent, present-day Belgium, ending the War of 1812.
1979 – The Soviet government deployed troops in Afghanistan, starting the Soviet–Afghan War.
1994 – Air France Flight 8969 was hijacked by four terrorists and, after the execution of three passengers, were then overpowered by the French GIGN in Marseille.

Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik (d. 738)
George Crabbe (b. 1754)
Adam Exner (b. 1928)
Turid Birkeland (d. 2015)

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December 25: Christmas (Western Christianity; Gregorian calendar); Quaid-e-Azam Day in Pakistan

Baldwin 1

1100 – Baldwin I was crowned the first king of Jerusalem (depicted) in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
1725 – J. S. Bach led the first performance of the Christmas cantata Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110, making laughter audible in singing.
1831 – A Baptist preacher named Samuel Sharpe began an unsuccessful eleven-day slave revolt in Jamaica.
1991 – In a nationally televised speech, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union.
2024 – After the loss of aircraft systems, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 crashed near Aktau International Airport while attempting to perform an emergency landing after being hit by a Russian defense missile.

Humphrey Bogart (b. 1899)
Atal Bihari Vajpayee (b. 1924)
Billy Martin (d. 1989)
Zail Singh (d. 1994)

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December 26: Saint Stephen's Day (Western Christianity); Boxing Day in the Commonwealth; Wren Day in Ireland and the Isle of Man; Kwanzaa begins (African diaspora in the Americas)

Flannan Isles Lighthouse

1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou began with Confederate defenders engaging Union forces who were attempting to capture the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
1871 – Thespis, the first comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan, premiered at the Gaiety Theatre in London.
1943 – Second World War: The German battleship Scharnhorst was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape during an attempt to attack Arctic convoys.
2004 – A major earthquake and tsunami devastated communities around the Indian Ocean, killing an estimated 227,898 people in 14 countries.
2015 – A violent tornado moves through several suburbs of Dallas, Texas, killing ten and injuring almost 500 others. It was the deadliest tornado to ever hit Texas during the month of December.

Willy Corsari (b. 1897)
Elizabeth David (b. 1913)
Milagros Benet de Mewton (d. 1948)
Stanisław Kot (d. 1975)

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December 27

Charles Darwin

537 – The reconstructed Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was inaugurated; built as a church, it later became a mosque and a museum.
1831 – HMS Beagle departed Plymouth, England, on a voyage to South America that established Charles Darwin (pictured) as a naturalist.
1939 – A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck central Turkey, destroying 90 per cent of the buildings in the area, and causing over 32,000 deaths.
1979 – Soviet–Afghan War: Soviet troops stormed Tajbeg Palace outside Kabul and killed Afghan president Hafizullah Amin and his 100–150 elite guards.
2007 – Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated while leaving a Pakistan People's Party political rally at Liaqat National Bagh in Rawalpindi.

Prince Rupert of the Rhine (b. 1619)
Agda Meyerson (d. 1924)
Amy Vanderbilt (d. 1974)
Timothée Chalamet (b. 1995)

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December 28

Depiction of Alaric II

484 – Alaric II (depicted) succeeded his father Euric as King of the Visigoths.
1916 – Up to 1,000 lumber workers initiated a labor strike against the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company in Minnesota, United States, which lasted over a month.
1925 – The Tokyo Grand Sumo Association becomes the All Japan Sumo Association at the instigation of Prince-Regent Hirohito, laying the foundations for the world's sole professional sumo association.
1964 – Vietnam War: Viet Cong regiments penetrated the eastern perimeters of the village of Bình Giã, beginning the Battle of Binh Gia.
2009 – Tibetan dissident filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen was imprisoned for subversion by Chinese authorities after a secret trial.
2014 – Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed into the Java Sea after the pilots mishandled a non-critical error in the cockpit, which resulted in all 162 people on board being killed.

Antoine Furetière (b. 1619)
Arthur Hunter Palmer (b. 1819)
Barbara Judge (b. 1946)
Susan Sontag (d. 2004)

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December 29

Capture of HMS Java by USS Constitution

1812 – War of 1812: In a three-hour single-ship action, HMS Java (drawing shown) was captured by USS Constitution off the coast of Brazil.
1876 – A railway bridge collapsed over the Ashtabula River in Ohio, killing 92 people and injuring 64 others on a Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway train.
1928 – The Northern Expedition, a military campaign by the National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang, ended with the complete control of the Republic of China.
1959 – American physicist Richard Feynman gave a speech entitled "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" at Caltech, anticipating the field of nanotechnology.
2024 – Jeju Air Flight 2216 crashed at Muan International Airport while attempting to perform a belly-landing after losing engine thrust to a flock of Baikal teal.

Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee (b. 1844)
Jürgen Ehlers (b. 1929)
Ann Demeulemeester (b. 1959)
Twinkle Khanna (b. 1973)

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December 30: Tenth of Tevet (Judaism, 2025); Rizal Day in the Philippines (1896)

Pro-government rally in Tehran, Iran

999 – In Ireland, the combined forces of Munster and Meath crushed a rebellion by Leinster and Dublin.
1940 – The Arroyo Seco Parkway, one of the first freeways built in the U.S., connecting downtown Los Angeles with Pasadena, California, was officially dedicated.
1954 – The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation was established to consolidate criminal investigation and intelligence into a single agency.
2006 – Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, was executed after being found guilty of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi High Tribunal.
2009 – Pro-government counter-demonstrators held rallies (pictured) in several Iranian cities in response to recent anti-government protests on the holy day of Ashura.

Bernard Gui (d. 1331)
LeBron James (b. 1984)
Joshua (b. 1995)
Erica Garner (d. 2017)

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December 31: Dissolution of Czechoslovakia (1992); Saint Sylvester's Day (Western Christianity)

Taipei 101

1909 – The Manhattan Bridge, connecting Lower Manhattan to Downtown Brooklyn and considered to be the forerunner of modern suspension bridges, opened to traffic.
1983 – Two Australian biologists published an article titled "A Synopsis of the Class Reptilia in Australia", initiating the Wells and Wellington affair.
1986 – Three disgruntled employees set fire to the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, killing more than 90 people and injuring 140 others, making it the second-deadliest hotel fire in American history.
1999 – In accordance with the Torrijos–Carter Treaties, Panama assumed full control of the Panama Canal Zone from the United States.
2004 – Taipei 101 (pictured) in Taipei, Taiwan, opened to the public as the world's tallest building.

Ibn Hawshab (d. 914)
Richard Montgomery (d. 1775)
Cornelius Gallagher (b. 1854)
Siw Malmkvist (b. 1936)

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Selected anniversaries / On this day archive

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An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2025 day arrangement