Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December

December 1: Great Union Day in Romania; Rosa Parks Day in some states and cities in the United States; World AIDS Day (2024)

Juan Lavalle

• 1828 – Returning to Buenos Aires with troops who fought in the Cisplatine War, Juan Lavalle (pictured) deposed provincial governor Manuel Dorrego, reigniting the Argentine Civil Wars.
• 1918 – With the signing of the Act of Union, Denmark recognized the Kingdom of Iceland as a fully sovereign state in personal union through a common monarch.
• 1923 – The Gleno Dam in the Italian province of Bergamo failed due to poor workmanship, flooding the downstream valley and killing at least 356 people.
• 1971 – A period of political and economic reforms in the Socialist Republic of Croatia came to an end as the League of Communists of Yugoslavia decided to purge the state's reformist leadership.
• 1988 – Five armed men hijacked a bus carrying schoolchildren and a teacher in Ordzhonikidze (now Vladikavkaz, Russia), and were later given an Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft and ransom for the release of the hostages.

December 2

Benazir Bhutto

• 1899 – Philippine–American War: A 60-man Filipino rearguard was defeated at the Battle of Tirad Pass, but delayed the American advance long enough to ensure President Emilio Aguinaldo's escape.
• 1943 – World War II: The Luftwaffe conducted a surprise air raid on Allied ships in Bari, Italy, sinking twenty-eight vessels and releasing one ship's secret cargo of mustard gas.
• 1956 – Cuban Revolution: The yacht Granma, carrying Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 80 other members of the 26th of July Movement, reached the shores of Cuba.
• 1988 – Benazir Bhutto (pictured) took office as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of a Muslim-majority state.
• 2001 – Less than two months after disclosing accounting violations, the Texas-based energy firm Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, evaporating nearly $11 billion in shareholder wealth.

December 3

Christiaan Barnard

• 1283 – During the First Mongol invasion of Burma, the fort at Ngasaunggyan was overrun after a two-month siege.
• 1927 – Putting Pants on Philip, the first official film featuring the British-American comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, was released.
• 1967 – Cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard (pictured) performed the first successful human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.
• 1979 – Following the result of a two-day referendum, the current Constitution of Iran was adopted.
• 1990 – Mary Robinson took office as the first female president of Ireland.

December 4: Navy Day in India

2004 transit of Venus

• 1639 – Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree made the first successful observation of a transit of Venus (example pictured) from Earth.
• 1872 – The American brigantine Mary Celeste was found apparently abandoned under circumstances that remain unknown.
• 1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Navy launched a successful attack against the Pakistan Navy at Karachi, sinking three ships with no Indian casualties.
• 1980 – The English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded.
• 2006 – Six black teenagers assaulted a white student in Jena, Louisiana; the subsequent court cases became a cause célèbre for perceived racial injustice in the United States.

December 5: Krampusnacht in parts of Central Europe

Henry Knox's train of artillery

• 1456 – The first of two major earthquakes struck the Kingdom of Naples, killing up to 70,000 people.
• 1775 – American Revolutionary War: Continental Army colonel Henry Knox arrived at Fort Ticonderoga in New York to arrange the transport of 60 tons of artillery (depicted) to support the siege of Boston.
• 1807 – Napoleonic Wars: British ships began a raid on Griessie after the Dutch captain refused a British demand for surrender.
• 1918 – National Guards and Sokol volunteers protested in Zagreb, leading to an armed clash with regiments of the Home Guard and former Common Army.
• 1958 – Britain's first motorway, the Preston Bypass, opened to the public.

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

Blast cloud from the Halifax Explosion

• 1240 – After days of bombardment, Mongol invaders under Batu Khan breached the walls of Kiev and sacked the city.
• 1917 – A ship carrying TNT and picric acid in Halifax Harbour, Canada, caught fire after a collision and caused one of the largest accidental explosions in history (pictured).
• 1956 – In what became known as the Blood in the Water match at the Melbourne Olympics, the Hungarian water polo team defeated the Soviet Union 4–0 against the background of the Hungarian Revolution.
• 1988 – Self-government was granted to the Australian Capital Territory.
• 2017 – Under President Donald Trump, the United States government officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

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

Jack Fingleton

• 1936 – Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton (pictured) became the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Test innings.
• 1942 – Second World War: A small unit of Royal Marines launched Operation Frankton, in which they damaged six ships in the port of Bordeaux in German-occupied France.
• 1975 – The Indonesian military began a lengthy occupation of East Timor under the pretext of anti-colonialism.
• 2015 – The JAXA space probe Akatsuki entered into orbit around Venus to study the planet's atmosphere, five years after its first attempt failed.

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

Metallica

• 1504 – Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah wrote his Oran fatwa, arguing for the relaxation of Islamic law for forcibly converted Muslims in Spain.
• 1854 – Pope Pius IX promulgated the apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, proclaiming the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was conceived free of original sin.
• 1980 – English musician John Lennon was murdered at the entrance of the Dakota, where he resided in New York City.
• 1998 – The Australian Cricket Board's cover-up of Shane Warne and Mark Waugh's involvement with bookmakers was revealed.
• 2013 – Metallica (pictured) played a concert in Antarctica, becoming the first band to perform on all seven continents.

December 9: International Anti-Corruption Day

First computer mouse

• 1688 – In one of two substantial military actions in England during the Glorious Revolution, forces loyal to William of Orange were decisively victorious at the Battle of Reading.
• 1897 – French actress, journalist and leading suffragette Marguerite Durand founded the feminist newspaper La Fronde.
• 1968 – Douglas Engelbart gave what became known as "The Mother of All Demos", publicly debuting the computer mouse (pictured), hypertext, and the bit-mapped graphical user interface using the computer system NLS.
• 2008 – Rod Blagojevich, the governor of Illinois, was arrested on corruption charges, including for attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by president-elect Barack Obama.

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

Raúl Alfonsín

• 1508 – The Papal States, France, Aragon and the Holy Roman Empire formed the League of Cambrai, an alliance against the Republic of Venice.
• 1848 – Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte won France's first presidential election, and was elected as the first and only president of the French Second Republic.
• 1901 – On the fifth anniversary of the death of their founder, Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm.
• 1970 – Around the northern Thai village of Mae Salong, remnants of Chinese anti-communist forces now fighting on behalf of the Thai government launched a five-year campaign against local communist insurgents.
• 1983 – Raúl Alfonsín (pictured) became the first democratically elected president of Argentina to take office after more than seven years of military dictatorship.

December 11

Old Well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• 1789 – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (structure pictured), one of the oldest public universities in the United States and the only one to award degrees in the 18th century, was chartered.
• 1886 – The London-based football club Arsenal, then known as Dial Square, played their first match on the Isle of Dogs.
• 1920 – Irish War of Independence: Following an Irish Republican Army ambush of an Auxiliary patrol, British forces burned and looted numerous buildings in Cork.
• 2006 – Criticized worldwide as a "meeting of Holocaust deniers", the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust opened in Tehran.

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

George W. Bush

• 627 – At the Battle of Nineveh, the Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeated the forces of Sasanian emperor Khosrow II, commanded by Rhahzadh, near present-day Mosul, Iraq.
• 1936 – Republic of China leader Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped by Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang, a former warlord of Manchuria.
• 1988 – Three trains collided near Clapham Junction railway station in London, killing 35 people and injuring 484 others.
• 2000 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore that the recount of ballots cast in Florida for the presidential election be stopped, effectively making George W. Bush (pictured) the winner.
• 2021 – At the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Max Verstappen overtook Lewis Hamilton on the final lap to become World Drivers' Champion.

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

The Sherman Fairchild Sciences complex at Dartmouth College

• 1643 – First English Civil War: Roundhead forces under Sir William Waller led a successful surprise attack in Hampshire on a winter garrison of Cavalier infantry and cavalry.
• 1769 – Dartmouth College (campus pictured) was established by royal charter in present-day Hanover, New Hampshire.
• 1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese forces, capturing the Chinese city of Nanjing, began committing numerous atrocities over the next several weeks, including looting, rape and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians.
• 1989 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army engaged in a fierce firefight with the King's Own Scottish Borderers at a vehicle checkpoint complex in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.
• 2011 – A man threw grenades and fired a rifle at crowds in Liège, Belgium, causing 6 deaths and injuring more than 120 others, before killing himself.

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

Japanese battlecruiser Haruna

• 1650 – English domestic servant Anne Greene survived being hanged for infanticide.
• 1836 – The Toledo War, a mostly bloodless territorial dispute between Ohio and the Michigan Territory, was unofficially ended with a resolution passed by the controversial "Frostbitten Convention".
• 1913 – Haruna (pictured), the fourth and last Japanese battlecruiser of the Kongō class, was launched and went on to serve in both world wars.
• 2008 – During a press conference in Baghdad, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at U.S. president George W. Bush and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, yelling "This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq".

December 15

American forces at the Battle of Arawe

• 1796 – War of the First Coalition: The French navy launched an expedition to Ireland to assist the Society of United Irishmen in a rebellion against the British.
• 1871 – Sixteen-year-old Ella Stewart sent the first telegraphed message from Arizona Territory.
• 1943 – World War II: Australian and American forces (pictured) began the Battle of Arawe against Japanese forces on New Britain as a diversion before a larger landing at Cape Gloucester.
• 1970 – The Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 touched down on the surface of Venus, making the first successful landing of a spacecraft on another planet.
• 2013 – The South Sudanese Civil War began when three opposition leaders voted to boycott the meeting of the National Liberation Council in Juba.

December 16: Day of Reconciliation in South Africa

Boston Tea Party

• 1598 – Led by Admiral Yi Sun-sin, the Korean navy were victorious at Battle of Noryang, ending the Japanese invasions of Korea.
• 1773 – American Revolution: A group of colonists threw chests of tea into Boston Harbor (pictured) to protest British taxation without representation.
• 1938 – Adolf Hitler instituted the Cross of Honour of the German Mother, an order of merit for German mothers with at least four children.
• 1997 – Amid an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the British government banned the sale of beef on the bone for human consumption.
• 2012 – A woman was gang-raped and fatally assaulted on a bus in Delhi, generating protests across India against inadequate security for women.

December 17: International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

Memorial to victims of the 1970 Polish protests

• 942 – William Longsword of Normandy was ambushed and assassinated by supporters of Arnulf I, Count of Flanders, while both were at a peace conference to settle their differences.
• 1948 – The Finnish Security Police was established to remove communist leadership from its predecessor, the State Police.
• 1967 – Harold Holt, the prime minister of Australia, disappeared while swimming near Portsea, Victoria; his body was never recovered.
• 1970 – Polish soldiers fired at workers (memorial pictured) emerging from trains in Gdynia, beginning the government's crackdown on mass anti-communist protests across the country.
• 2010 – Arab Spring: Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor in Sidi Bouzid, set himself on fire in protest against police harassment, triggering the Tunisian revolution.

December 18: National Day in Qatar (1878)

Atlas rocket carrying SCORE

• 1622 – Portuguese forces and their Imbangala allies defeated the Kongo army at the Battle of Mbumbi.
• 1932 – Playing indoors at Chicago Stadium on a modified American football field, the Chicago Bears defeated the Portsmouth Spartans in the first playoff game of the National Football League.
• 1958 – The United States launched SCORE (rocket pictured), the world's first communications satellite.
• 1963 – Ghanaian and other African students organized a protest in Moscow's Red Square in response to the alleged murder of medical student Edmund Assare-Addo.
• 2017 – An Amtrak Cascades passenger train derailed near DuPont, Washington, killing three people and injuring sixty-five others.

December 19

Frontispiece to A Christmas Carol

• 1828 – Nullification crisis: American vice president John C. Calhoun's South Carolina Exposition and Protest, written to protest the Tariff of Abominations, was presented to the South Carolina House of Representatives.
• 1843 – A Christmas Carol (illustration pictured), a novella by Charles Dickens about the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation after being visited by ghosts, was published.
• 1983 – The Jules Rimet Trophy, awarded to the winner of the FIFA World Cup, was stolen from the offices of the Brazilian Football Confederation.
• 1997 – SilkAir Flight 185 crashed into the Musi River in Indonesia, killing 104 people.
• 2013 – The European Space Agency's spacecraft Gaia was launched with the goal of constructing the largest and most precise star catalogue ever made.

December 20

Russian and U.S. Implementation Force troops

• 1852 – Led by George Cathcart, British troops defeated Basuto and Taung forces at the Battle of Berea in present-day Lesotho, leading to an offer of peace from King Moshoeshoe I.
• 1940 – The superhero Captain America made his first published appearance in the comic book Captain America Comics #1.
• 1980 – NBC aired the American football match between the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins without announcers.
• 1995 – Mandated by the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War, the NATO-led Implementation Force (troops pictured) began peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• 1999 – Portugal transferred the sovereignty over Macau, which it had administered since the mid–16th century, to China.

December 21: December solstice (09:20 UTC, 2024)

Crew of Apollo 8

• 1620 – The Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower landed at present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, to establish the Plymouth Colony.
• 1963 – An attempt by Greek Cypriot police to search certain Turkish Cypriot women in Nicosia escalated into island-wide violence, leading to 538 deaths and the displacement of nearly 27,000 people.
• 1968 – Apollo 8 launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a trajectory to the Moon; its crew (pictured) became the first humans to visit another celestial body.
• 1988 – A bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103 detonated over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.
• 2018 – Operatives of the British Special Boat Service boarded the container ship Grande Tema in the Thames Estuary to detain four stowaways who had threatened the crew.

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.
• 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.

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.

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.
• 1999 – Jihadists linked to al-Qaeda hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 to force the release of Islamist figures held in prison in India.

December 25: Christmas (Western Christianity; Gregorian calendar); Hanukkah (Judaism) begins at sunset; Quaid-e-Azam Day in Pakistan

Mikhail Gorbachev

• 1046 – Henry III was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement II.
• 1724 – Johann Sebastian Bach led the first performance of Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, based on the Christmas hymn written by Martin Luther in 1524.
• 1831 – A Baptist preacher named Samuel Sharpe began an unsuccessful eleven-day slave revolt in Jamaica.
• 1991 – In a nationally televised speech, Mikhail Gorbachev (pictured) resigned as President of the Soviet Union.
• 2009 – A fire destroyed Longford's 19th-century St Mel's Cathedral, considered the "flagship cathedral" of the Irish midlands.

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.

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.

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.
• 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 – The passenger ferry Norman Atlantic caught fire in the Adriatic Sea, killing an estimated 28 people.

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.
• 1994 – Turkish Airlines Flight 278 crashed on approach to Van Ferit Melen Airport in Van, Turkey, killing 57 of the 76 people on board.

December 30: 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.
• 1969 – Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos began his second term after being re-elected in a landslide.
• 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.

December 31: 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.