Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2010 day arrangement |
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December 1: Union Day in Romania (1918); World AIDS Day
- 1640 – John IV was declared King of Portugal, resulting in the Portuguese Restoration War with Spain.
- 1822 – Pedro I was crowned the first Emperor of Brazil, less than two months after he actually began his reign on October 12.
- 1955 – African-American Civil Rights Movement: Seamstress Rosa Parks (pictured) was arrested for violating the racial segregation laws of Montgomery, Alabama, after refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, precipitating the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
- 1959 – Twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty, the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War, banning military activity in Antarctica and setting the continent aside as a scientific preserve.
- 1990 – Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France met 40 metres (131 ft) beneath the English Channel seabed.
More anniversaries: November 30 – December 1 – December 2
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December 2: National Day in the United Arab Emirates (1971) and Laos (1975)
- 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: French forces led by Emperor Napoleon I decisively defeated a Russo-Austrian army commanded by Czar Alexander I in the Battle of Austerlitz (pictured).
- 1823 – U.S. President James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine, a proclamation of opposition to European colonialism in the New World.
- 1942 – The Manhattan Project: Scientists led by Enrico Fermi initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the experimental nuclear reactor Chicago Pile-1.
- 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.
- 1971 – Abu Dhabi, Ajmān, Dubai, Fujairah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Qaiwain merged to form the United Arab Emirates.
- 1975 – The Pathet Lao overthrew the royalist government in Vientiane, forcing King Savang Vatthana to abdicate, and established the Lao People's Democratic Republic.
More anniversaries: December 1 – December 2 – December 3
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December 3: International Day of Disabled Persons
- 1800 – War of the Second Coalition: French forces under General Jean Moreau defeated the Austrians and Bavarians under Archduke John in Hohenlinden, near Munich, forcing the Austrians to sign an armistice.
- 1854 – At least 22 people were killed and 35 others were injured when rebelling miners at the Eureka Stockade clashed violently with the police and the military in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
- 1967 – Cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.
- 1971 – The formal initiation of hostilities of the Indo-Pakistani War began with the Pakistani Air Force launching pre-emptive airstrikes on several forward airbases and radar installations of the Indian Air Force.
- 1999 – NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander (artist's impression pictured) moments before it reached the atmosphere of Mars and disappeared.
More anniversaries: December 2 – December 3 – December 4
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December 4: Navy Day in India
- 1639 – English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks made the first observation of a transit of Venus (2004 transit pictured).
- 1676 – Scanian War: Forces led by Swedish Field Marshal Simon Grundel-Helmfelt defeated the invading army of Denmark–Norway under the command of King Christian V in an area north of Lund, Sweden.
- 1829 – The practice of sati was formally abolished in British India after years of campaigning by Ram Mohan Roy against the Hindu funeral custom of widows immolating themselves.
- 1909 – The Montreal Canadiens ice hockey club, the oldest professional hockey franchise in the world, was founded as a charter member of the National Hockey Association.
- 1977 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the President of the Central African Republic, had himself crowned as Emperor Bokassa I.
- 1992 – Operation Restore Hope: One day after the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 794, U.S. President George H. W. Bush ordered American troops into Somalia to help provide humanitarian aid and restore order after the dissolution of the country's central government during the ongoing Somali Civil War.
More anniversaries: December 3 – December 4 – December 5
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December 5: Father's Day in Thailand; St Nicholas's Eve in various European countries
- 1484 – Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, giving Dominican Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
- 1492 – Christopher Columbus (pictured) became the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola, now Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
- 1757 – Seven Years' War: Prussian forces under Frederick the Great defeated Austrian forces under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine at the Battle of Leuthen in Leuthen, present-day Poland.
- 1933 – Prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States officially ended when the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment.
- 1945 – Flight 19, a squadron of five Avenger TBM torpedo bombers of the U.S. Navy, disappeared in the area now known as the Bermuda Triangle.
More anniversaries: December 4 – December 5 – December 6
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December 6: Independence Day in Finland (1917); Constitution Day in Spain
- 1534 – Over 200 Spanish settlers led by conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar (pictured) founded what is now Quito, Ecuador.
- 1768 – The first weekly instalment of the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was released in Edinburgh, Scotland.
- 1865 – Slavery in the United States was officially abolished when the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.
- 1917 – A ship in Halifax Harbour carrying trinitrotoluene (TNT) and picric acid caught fire after a collision with another ship and exploded, devastating Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
- 1921 – The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed and then came into force exactly one year to the day later, establishing the Irish Free State, the first independent Irish state to be recognised by the British government.
- 1989 – Claiming that he was "fighting feminism", 25-year-old Marc Lépine embarked on a massacre, killing fourteen women, and wounding ten other women and four men, before committing suicide at École Polytechnique in Montreal.
More anniversaries: December 5 – December 6 – December 7
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December 7: Armed Forces Flag Day in India; Día de las Velitas in Colombia
- 43 BC – Cicero, widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists, was assassinated.
- 1724 – In Toruń, Royal Prussia, Polish authorities executed the city's mayor and nine other Lutheran officials following tensions between Protestants and Catholics.
- 1787 – Delaware became the first U.S. state to ratify the United States Constitution.
- 1815 – Michel Ney, Marshal of France, was executed by a firing squad near Paris' Jardin du Luxembourg for supporting Napoleon Bonaparte.
- 1941 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy made its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, intending to neutralize the United States Pacific Fleet from influencing the war Japan was planning to wage in Southeast Asia.
- 1972 – The crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft took the photograph "The Blue Marble" (pictured), the first clear image of an illuminated face of Earth, on their way to the Moon.
- 1988 – An earthquake with a moment magnitude of 6.9 struck the Spitak region of Armenia, then part of the Soviet Union, killing at least 25,000 people.
More anniversaries: December 6 – December 7 – December 8
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December 8: Constitution Day in Romania (1991); Feast of the Immaculate Conception in Roman Catholicism
- 1609 – Milan's Biblioteca Ambrosiana opened its reading room to the public, becoming the second public library in Europe.
- 1854 – In his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogmatic definition of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin.
- 1941 – The Holocaust: The Chelmno extermination camp in occupied Poland, the first such Nazi camp to kill the Jews of the Ghetto Litzmannstadt and the Warthegau by poison gas, began operating.
- 1980 – Former Beatle John Lennon (pictured) was assassinated in the entrance archway of the Dakota apartments in New York City.
- 1991 – Leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine signed the Belavezha Accords, agreeing to dissolve the Soviet Union and establish the Commonwealth of Independent States.
- 2004 – Twelve South American countries signed the Cusco Declaration, announcing the foundation of what is now the Union of South American Nations, an intergovernmental union modelled after the European Union.
More anniversaries: December 7 – December 8 – December 9
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December 9: Independence Day in Tanzania (1961); Army Day in Peru
- 1425 – Pope Martin V issued a papal bull establishing what later became the Catholic University of Leuven (Arenberg Castle pictured), the largest, oldest and most prominent university in Belgium.
- 1905 – Legislation establishing state secularism in France was passed by the Chamber of Deputies of France, triggering civil disobedience by French Catholics.
- 1979 – A World Health Organization commission of eminent scientists certified the global eradication of smallpox, making it the only human infectious disease to date to have been completely eradicated from nature.
- 1990 – Lech Wałęsa became the first person elected President of Poland in a direct presidential election after the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe.
- 2008 – Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich was arrested for a number of corruption crimes, including attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat that was being vacated by then-U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.
More anniversaries: December 8 – December 9 – December 10
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December 10: Human Rights Day; Constitution Day in Thailand (1932)
- 1508 – The Papal States, France, Aragon and the Holy Roman Empire formed the League of Cambrai, an alliance against the Republic of Venice.
- 1520 – In response to Pope Leo X's papal bull Exsurge Domine demanding that he retract 41 errors drawn from his 95 theses and subsequent writings, Martin Luther burned his copy of the bull outside Elster Gate in Wittenberg.
- 1898 – The Spanish–American War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, with Spain recognizing the independence of Cuba; and ceding Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico to the United States.
- 1901 – The first Nobel Prizes were awarded, on the anniversary of the 1896 death of their founder, Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel.
- 1907 – During the Brown Dog affair, about 1,000 protesters marched through London and then clashed with 400 police officers in Trafalgar Square over the existence of a memorial for animals which have been vivisected (pictured).
- 1948 – The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, representing the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled.
More anniversaries: December 9 – December 10 – December 11
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December 11: Hanukkah begins at sunset (Judaism, 2009); Republic Day in Burkina Faso (1958)
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- 1789 – The North Carolina General Assembly chartered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, currently the oldest public university in the United States and the only one to award degrees in the 18th century.
- 1886 – Dial Square, a football club from Woolwich, London that would eventually become known as Arsenal F.C., played their first match, winning 6–0 against Eastern Wanderers on an open field in the Isle of Dogs.
- 1936 – Facing increased opposition to his plans to marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson, Edward VIII (pictured) abdicated the throne, becoming the first British monarch to voluntarily do so since the Anglo-Saxon period.
- 1946 – The United Nations General Assembly created UNICEF, originally to help provide emergency food and health care to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II.
- 2006 – The International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust opened in Tehran "to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue", but was criticised worldwide as a "meeting of Holocaust deniers".
More anniversaries: December 10 – December 11 – December 12
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December 12: Independence Day in Kenya (1963)
- 1897 – Belo Horizonte, the first planned city of Brazil, was inaugurated as Cidade de Minas.
- 1901 – Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, from Poldhu Wireless Station in Cornwall, England to Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland.
- 1915 – President Yuan Shikai of the Republic of China reinstated the monarchy and declared himself Emperor.
- 1941 – At a meeting with the highest ranking officials of the Nazi party in the Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler declared the imminent destruction of the Jewish race.
- 1964 – Jomo Kenyatta became the first President of the Republic of Kenya.
- 2000 – The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its controversial 5–4 decision in Bush v. Gore, ordering the election recount of the ballots cast in Florida for the 2000 presidential election to stop, which effectively ended the election in favor of George W. Bush (pictured).
More anniversaries: December 11 – December 12 – December 13
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December 13: Republic Day in Malta (1974); Saint Lucy's Day
- 1769 – Dartmouth College (pictured) in present-day Hanover, New Hampshire, USA was established by a Royal Charter from British King George III and became the last university founded in the Thirteen Colonies before the American Revolution.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union forces under Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside suffered severe casualties against entrenched Confederate defenders at the Battle of Fredericksburg in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
- 1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese forces captured Nanjing in China and then began to commit numerous atrocities over the next several weeks, such as looting, rape and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians.
- 1981 – Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland, suspended Solidarity and imprisoned many union leaders.
- 2003 – Post-invasion Iraq: During Operation Red Dawn, American forces found former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hiding in a spider hole and captured him.
More anniversaries: December 12 – December 13 – December 14
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- 1819 – Alabama was admitted as the 22nd U.S. state, after the statehood of present-day Northern Alabama was delayed for several years by the lack of a coastline until Mobile was captured from Spain during the War of 1812.
- 1836 – The Toledo War, the mostly bloodless boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining Territory of Michigan, unofficially ended with a resolution passed by the controversial "Frostbitten Convention."
- 1896 – Glasgow Subway (pictured), the third oldest below-ground metro system in the world after the London Underground and the Budapest Metro, began operations in Glasgow, Scotland.
- 1900 – German physicist Max Planck presented a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law, suggesting that electromagnetic energy could only be emitted in quantized form.
- 1995 – The Dayton Agreement was signed in Paris to end the Bosnian War, establishing, among others, a new structure of government and political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
More anniversaries: December 13 – December 14 – December 15
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- 1467 – Troops under Stephen III of Moldavia defeated the forces of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary in present-day Baia, Romania.
- 1791 – The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, collectively known as the United States Bill of Rights, were ratified.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Union troops essentially destroyed the Army of Tennessee, one of the largest Confederate forces, at the Battle of Nashville.
- 1942 – World War II: The Americans engaged Imperial Japanese forces at the Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse in the hills near the Matanikau River area on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal Campaign.
- 1964 – The six-month long Canadian Great Flag Debate effectively ended when the Canadian House of Commons voted to replace the de facto national flag of Canada, the Canadian Red Ensign, with an official one designed by historian George Stanley, the Maple Leaf Flag (pictured).
More anniversaries: December 14 – December 15 – December 16
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December 16: National Day in Bahrain (1971); Victory Day in Bangladesh (1971); Independence Day in Kazakhstan (1991)
- 1598 – Admiral Yi Sun-sin's Korean navy defeated the Japanese fleet at the Battle of Noryang, the final naval battle of the Imjin War.
- 1653 – The Protectorate: Oliver Cromwell (pictured) became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England.
- 1773 – Boston Tea Party: To prevent the unloading of tea that was taxed without their consent under the Tea Act, a group of colonists destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor.
- 1893 – Czech composer Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
- 1971 – Pakistani forces in East Pakistan surrendered, ending both the Indo-Pakistani War and the Bangladesh Liberation War.
- 1998 – The United States and United Kingdom launched a major four-day bombing campaign on Iraqi targets in response to Iraq's failure to comply with several U.N. Security Council resolutions as well as their interference with U.N. Special Commission inspectors.
More anniversaries: December 15 – December 16 – December 17
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December 17: National Day in Bhutan (1907)
- 1819 – The Republic of Gran Colombia in South America was established, with Simón Bolívar as its first president.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
- 1903 – In Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, USA, Orville and Wilbur Wright aboard the Wright Flyer (pictured) conducted the first successful flight of a powered fixed-wing aircraft.
- 1918 – Protesting government policies concerning political representation, unemployment and taxation, about 1,000 demonstrators marched on Government House in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, where they burnt an effigy of the Administrator of the Northern Territory John Gilruth and demanded his resignation.
- 1944 – Nazi German troops under Joachim Peiper killed unarmed prisoners of war, captured during the Battle of the Bulge, with machine guns near Malmedy, Belgium.
- 1989 – The Simpsons, currently the longest running American prime time entertainment series, made its debut on the Fox television network with the episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire".
More anniversaries: December 16 – December 17 – December 18
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December 18: Islamic New Year (2009, 1431 AH); Mourning of Muharram in Shia Islam begins (2009); Republic Day in Niger (1958)
- 1271 – Mongol ruler Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty in present-day Mongolia and China.
- 1892 – The first performance of the fairy tale-ballet The Nutcracker, composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and based on the story by E. T. A. Hoffmann, was held at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
- 1912 – The Piltdown Man: At a meeting of the Geological Society of London, amateur British archaeologist Charles Dawson claimed that he had been given a fragment of a skull that was discovered at a gravel pit near Uckfield, East Sussex, England, which later turned out to be a forgery.
- 1966 – Epimetheus (pictured), one of the moons of Saturn, was discovered, but was mistaken as Janus. It took 12 years to determine that they are two distinct objects sharing the same orbit.
- 1972 – Vietnam War: A few days after peace talks collapsed, the United States began Operation Linebacker II against North Vietnam, the largest heavy bomber strikes launched by the U.S. Air Force since the end of World War II.
More anniversaries: December 17 – December 18 – December 19
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December 19: Hanukkah ends at sunset (Judaism, 2009); Liberation Day in Goa (1961)
- 1154 – Henry II was crowned King of England in London's Westminster Abbey.
- 1843 – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (pictured), a novella about the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his conversion after being visited by three Christmas ghosts, was first published.
- 1984 – The People's Republic of 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.
- 1997 – The film Titanic was released, eventually becoming the highest-grossing film of all time with a worldwide total of over US$1.8 billion.
- 1998 – The U.S. House of Representatives passed articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.
More anniversaries: December 18 – December 19 – December 20
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- 1860 – South Carolina became the first of eleven slave states to secede from the United States, leading to the eventual creation of the Confederate States of America and later the American Civil War.
- 1917 – The Cheka (emblem pictured), the first Soviet secret police, was established by a decree issued by Vladimir Lenin.
- 1973 – Spanish Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco was assassinated by a bomb planted by members of the Basque nationalist and separatist organisation ETA.
- 1989 – American forces invaded Panama to overthrow the government of Manuel Noriega.
- 1999 – Portugal transferred sovereignty of Macau to the People's Republic of China.
More anniversaries: December 19 – December 20 – December 21
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December 21: Total lunar eclipse begins 06:32 UTC (2010); December Solstice (17:47 UTC, 2009); Dongzhi, Yalda, Yule, and other winter solstice festivals (Northern Hemisphere, 2009); Midsummer festivities (Southern Hemisphere, 2009)
- 1872 – HMS Challenger (pictured), commanded by Captain George Nares, sailed from Portsmouth, England, on a scientific expedition that eventually made many discoveries that laid the foundation of oceanography.
- 1883 – The Royal Canadian Regiment and The Royal Canadian Dragoons, the oldest regular regiments of the Canadian Army, were both formed.
- 1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length cel-animated feature in film history, premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles.
- 1979 – The Lancaster House Agreement was signed, ending biracial rule in Zimbabwe Rhodesia following negotiations between representatives of the Rhodesian government and the Patriotic Front.
- 1988 – A total of 270 people were killed when a bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103 exploded while the plane was in flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, launching an eventual three-year joint investigation by Britain's Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary and the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation.
More anniversaries: December 20 – December 21 – December 22
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December 22: Mother's Day in Indonesia
- 1808 – German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (pictured) premiered his Fifth Symphony, currently one of the most popular and well-known compositions in all of European classical music, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.
- 1885 – Itō Hirobumi, a samurai from Chōshū, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.
- 1947 – The Constitution of the Italian Republic was enacted by the Constituent Assembly.
- 1963 – A total of 128 people died when the ocean liner TSMS Lakonia burned at sea 180 miles (290 km) north of Madeira.
- 1989 – Berlin's historic Brandenburg Gate re-opened after nearly 30 years, symbolizing the unity of East and West Germany.
- 2001 – Burhanuddin Rabbani of the Northern Alliance handed over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by Hamid Karzai.
More anniversaries: December 21 – December 22 – December 23
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December 23: The Emperor's Birthday in Japan
- 962 – Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city of Aleppo.
- 1620 – Construction of the Plymouth Colony, an English colonial venture in what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA, began two days after the first landing party arrived at the site.
- 1823 – A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, was first published anonymously. Authorship was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore.
- 1888 – During a bout of mental illness, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (self-portrait pictured) stalked his friend French painter Paul Gauguin with a razor, and then afterwards cut off the lower part of his own left ear and gave it to a prostitute.
- 1972 – The Nicaraguan capital of Managua was struck by a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, killing more than 10,000 people.
- 1986 – Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, Voyager became the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, landing in California's Edwards Air Force Base after a nine-day trip.
More anniversaries: December 22 – December 23 – December 24
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- 1777 – An expedition led by English explorer James Cook reached Christmas Island, the largest coral atoll in the world.
- 1814 – The Treaty of Ghent was signed in Ghent, present-day Belgium, ending the War of 1812 between the United Kingdom and the United States.
- 1865 – Six Confederate veterans of the American Civil War founded the Ku Klux Klan, which would later become a white supremacist group.
- 1964 – The Vietcong bombed the Brinks Hotel in Saigon, killing two US Army officers, raising fears of an escalation in the Vietnam War.
- 1968 – Astronaut William Anders of the NASA spacecraft Apollo 8, the first manned voyage to orbit the Moon, took the famous photograph known as "Earthrise" (pictured), showing the Earth rising above the lunar surface.
- 1974 – Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin, Australia, eventually destroying more than 70 percent of the city.
More anniversaries: December 23 – December 24 – December 25
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December 25: Christmas (Gregorian Calendar)
- 800 – In Rome's St. Peter's Basilica, Frankish King Charlemagne (bust pictured) was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III as a rival of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople.
- 1100 – Baldwin of Boulogne was crowned as the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: George Washington and his army crossed the Delaware River to launch a surprise attack on Hessian mercenaries at the Battle of Trenton.
- 1941 – World War II: The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began after Mark Aitchison Young, the Governor of Hong Kong, surrendered the territory to Japan after 18 days of fierce fighting.
- 2003 – The Beagle 2 space probe, part of the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission, disappeared shortly before its scheduled landing on Mars.
More anniversaries: December 24 – December 25 – December 26
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December 26: Boxing Day; Kwanzaa begins; St. Stephen's Day in Western Christianity
- 1606 – The first recorded performance of the play King Lear, a tragedy by William Shakespeare (pictured) based on the legend of King Lear of Britain, was held.
- 1790 – French Revolution: Louis XVI of France gave his Royal Assent to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, subordinating the Roman Catholic Church in France to the French government.
- 1806 – War of the Fourth Coalition: French troops under Napoleon engaged Russian forces in both the Battles of Pultusk and Golymin.
- 1898 – At the French Academy of Sciences, physicists Pierre and Marie Curie announced the discovery of a new element, naming it radium.
- 2006 – The Hengchun earthquake struck off the southwest coast of Taiwan, coincidentally on the second anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that devastated the coastal communities across Southeast and South Asia, and on the third anniversary of the 2003 Bam earthquake that destroyed areas of southeastern Iran.
More anniversaries: December 25 – December 26 – December 27
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December 27: Tenth of Tevet (Judaism, 2009); Day of Ashura (Islam, 2009); St. Stephen's Day in Eastern Christianity
- 537 – The current Hagia Sophia building in Istanbul, originally built as a church before it later became a mosque in 1453 and then a museum in 1935, was inaugurated.
- 1831 – Aboard HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin left Plymouth, England, on what became a historic expedition to South America that made his name as a naturalist.
- 1904 – Scottish author and dramatist J. M. Barrie's stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, about a mischievous little boy who can fly, premiered in London.
- 1918 – A public speech by famed Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski (pictured) in Poznań sparked the Greater Poland Uprising against Germany.
- 2007 – Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was assassinated while she was leaving a political rally of Pakistan Peoples Party supporters at Liaquat National Bagh in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
More anniversaries: December 26 – December 27 – December 28
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December 28: Proclamation Day in South Australia (1836); Day of the Holy Innocents in Western Christianity
- 1065 – Westminster Abbey (pictured) in London, built by Edward the Confessor between 1045 and 1050, was consecrated.
- 1768 – Taksin the Great was crowned king of the newly established Thonburi Kingdom in the new capital at Thonburi, present-day Thailand.
- 1836 – At the Old Gum Tree near present-day Adelaide, Royal Navy Rear-Admiral John Hindmarsh read a proclamation establishing the British province of South Australia.
- 1973 – U.S. President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law, a wide-ranging environmental law designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation."
- 1989 – In one of Australia's most serious natural disasters, a 5.6 ML earthquake struck Newcastle, New South Wales, killing 13 people and injuring more than 160 others, and causing an estimated AU$4 billion in damages.
More anniversaries: December 27 – December 28 – December 29
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- 1170 – Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket was slain in his own cathedral by four knights of Henry II of England.
- 1845 – The Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States, becoming the 28th state admitted into the union.
- 1860 – To counter the French Navy's La Gloire, the world's first ironclad warship, the British Royal Navy launched the world's first iron-hulled armoured battleship, HMS Warrior.
- 1911 – Sun Yat-sen was elected in Nanking as the provisional President of the Republic of China by provincial representatives.
- 1930 – During an address in Allahabad, poet and philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (pictured) introduced what became known as the Two-Nation Theory outlining a vision for the creation of an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern India.
More anniversaries: December 28 – December 29 – December 30
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December 30: Rizal Day in the Philippines
- 1880 – Paul Kruger, who would eventually become the international face of the Boer resistance during the Second Boer War, was elected President of the Transvaal Republic.
- 1896 – Philippine Revolution: Nationalist José Rizal (pictured) was executed by a firing squad in Manila after Spanish authorities convicted him of rebellion, sedition, and conspiracy.
- 1903 – In the deadliest single-building fire in United States history, the Iroquois Theater Fire claimed 602 lives in Chicago.
- 1922 – The Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, legalizing the creation of a union of several Soviet republics in the form of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was ratified.
- 1947 – Michael, King of Romania, was forced to abdicate as the Kingdom of Romania became Communist Romania.
- 2006 – Former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein was executed after being found guilty of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi Special Tribunal.
More anniversaries: December 29 – December 30 – December 31
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December 31: New Year's Eve in the Gregorian calendar; Hogmanay in Scotland
- 1775 – American Revolutionary War: At the Battle of Quebec, British forces repulsed an attack by the Continental Army to capture Quebec City and enlist French Canadian support.
- 1857 – Queen Victoria selected Ottawa as the capital of the British colony of Canada.
- 1960 – The farthing, a British coin first minted in England in the 13th century, ceased to be legal tender.
- 1972 – American baseball player Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash en route to deliver aid to victims of the Nicaragua earthquake.
- 1999 – Boris Yeltsin, the first President of Russia, resigned and named Vladimir Putin as Acting President.
- 2004 – Taipei 101 (2008 New Year firework pictured) in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan, one of the world's tallest skyscrapers, opened to the public.
More anniversaries: December 30 – December 31 – January 1
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