1843 – Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” was first published in England.
1154 – Henry II became King of England.
1487 – Opening ceremony of the sixth Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City) 4,000 prisoners of war are sacrificed to Aztec gods over four days
1562 – The Battle of Dreux was fought between the Huguenots and the Catholics, beginning the French Wars of Religion.
1642 – 4 of Abel Tasman’s crew killed at Wharewharangi (Murderers) Bay by Māori; Tasman’s ships depart without landing
1675 – King Philip’s War: Combined colonial millitias stake massive attack against the Great Swamp Fort, owned by the Narragansetts, totally destroying the settlement and killing or displacing hundreds of non-combatant women and children
1686 – Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Daniel Defoe’s famous novel)
1732 – Benjamin Franklin began publishing “Poor Richard’s Almanac.”
1776 – Thomas Paine published his first “American Crisis” essay.
1777 – General George Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, PA, to camp for the winter.
1783 – William Pitt the Younger becomes the youngest ever British Prime Minister at age 24
1823 – Georgia passes 1st US state birth registration law in US
1828 – Report by US Vice President John C. Calhoun defending the rights of states to nullify federal laws is presented to the South Carolina legislature but it takes no action
1842 – Hawaii’s independence was recognized by the U.S.
1843 – Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” was first published in England.
1887 – Jake Kilrain and Jim Smith fought in a bare knuckles fight which lasted 106 rounds and 2 hours and 30 minutes. The fight was ruled a draw and was halted due to darkness.
1903 – The Williamsburg Bridge opened in New York City. It opened as the largest suspension bridge on Earth and remained the largest until 1924. It was also the first major suspension bridge to use steel towers to support the main cable.
1907 – A coalmine explosion in Jacobs Creek, PA, killed 239 workers.
1910 – 1st US city ordinance requiring white & black residential areas in Baltimore
1922 – Theresa Vaughn, 24, confesses in court in Sheffield, England, to being married 61 times over 5 years in 50 cities in three countries
1932 – The British Broadcasting Corp. began transmitting overseas with its “Empire Service” to Australia.
1941 – US Office of Censorship created to control info pertaining to WW II
1942 – Robert Stroud, convicted murdered, transferred to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, where he becomes known as “Birdman of Alcatraz”
1952 – Queen Juliana of the Netherlands unveils statue “Docker” (“Dokwerker”), memorializing the February Strike of 1941 over the arrest of 450 Jews for the killing of a Nazi sympathizer; designed by Mari Andriessen, it was relocated in 1970 from Amsterdam’s Waterlooplein Market to Jonas Daniel Meijerplein (Square)
1957 – Air service between London and Moscow was inaugurated.
1959 – Walter Williams died in Houston, TX, at the age of 117. He was said to be the last surviving veteran of the U.S. Civil War.
1971 – A Clockwork Orange released
1972 – Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, ending the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.
1973 – Johnny Carson started a fake toilet-paper scare on the “Tonight Show.”
1975 – The Red Hand Commandos, a very secretive Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, explode a no-warning car bomb in Dundalk, killing 2 civilians and wounding 20
1980 – Iran requests $24 billion in US guarantees to free hostages
1984 – Britain and China signed an accord returning Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997.
1986 – OPEC reaches an accord that would cut production by 7 percent for the first six months of 1987 and would raise prices immediately toward a target world oil price of $18 per barrel
1986 – The Soviet Union announced it had freed dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile, and pardoned his wife, Yelena Bonner.
1989 – U.S. troops invaded Panama to overthrow the regime of General Noriega.
1996 – The school board of Oakland, CA, voted to recognize Black English, also known as “ebonics.” The board later reversed its stance.
1998 – U.S. President Bill Clinton was impeached on two charges of perjury and obstruction of justice by the U.S. House of Representatives.
1998 – A four-day bombing of Iraq by British and American forces ended.
2000 – The U.N. Security Council voted to impose sanctions on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers unless they closed all terrorist training camps and surrender U.S. embassy bombing suspect Osama bin Laden.
2000 – The Leninist Guerrilla Units wing of the Communist Labour Party of Turkey/Leninist attack a Nationalist Movement Party office in Istanbul, killing one person and injuring three.
2001 – Argentine economic crisis: December 2001 riots – Riots erupt in Buenos Aires after Domingo Cavallo’s corralito measures restrict the withdrawal of cash from bank deposits.
2008 – U.S. President George W. Bush signed a $17.4 billion rescue package of loans for ailing auto makers General Motors and Chrysler.
2012 – Election of First female President of South Korea, Park Geun-hye is the eleventh President of South Korea and also holds the distinction of being the first female head of state in Northeast Asia. She assumed office in February 2013.
2016 – Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead at an art gallery in Ankara by Turkish gunman
2016 – Truck driven into a Christmas market in Berlin kills 12, injures 48
2016 – US electoral college votes 304 to 227 to nominate Donald Trump for President over the objections of seven faithless electors
2018 – US President Donald Trump announces victory over the Islamic State and planned withdrawal of US troops from Syria
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
