1982 – The Man of the Year in “TIME” magazine was a computer. It was the first time a non-human received the honors.
1492 – 1st Spanish settlement La Navidad in the New World is founded by Christopher Columbus (modern Môle-Saint-Nicolas in Haiti)
1606 – First Performance of William Shakespeare’s King Lear
1620 – The Pilgrim Fathers landed at New Plymouth, MA, to found Plymouth Colony, with John Carver as Governor.
1705 – Fateh Singh (6) and Zorawar Singh (7), sons of Guru Gobind Singh, are murdered by Wazir Khan for refusing to convert to Islam; they are now among the most hallowed martyrs in Sikhism
1773 – Expulsion of tea ships from Philadelphia
1776 – The British suffered a major defeat in the Battle of Trenton during the American Revolutionary War.
1790 – Louis XVI of France gives his public assent to Civil Constitution of the Clergy during the French Revolution.
1805 – The Treaty of Pressburg December 26 ends hostilities between France and Austria
1825 – Several Imperial Russia army officers lead circa 3000 soldiers on the Senate Square in the failed Decembrist uprising.
1854 – Treaty of Medicine Creek signed by Nisqually, Puyallup and Coast Salish peoples with Isaac Ingalls Stevens, Governor of Washington Territory, giving up 2.5 million acres to preserve fishing and gathering rights
1862 – The largest mass-hanging in U.S. history took place in Mankato, Minnesota, killing 39.
1865 – The coffee percolator was patented by James H. Mason.
1883 – The Harbour Grace Affray between Irish Catholics and Protestant Orangemen causes five deaths in Newfoundland
1898 – Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium.
1908 – Texan boxer “Galveston Jack” Johnson knocked out Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia, to become the first black boxer to win the world heavyweight title.
1914 – US Government protests British interference with American merchant ships at sea, on the same day Germans announce they will treat food as contraband, subject to seizure; weakens America’s protest
1917 – During World War I, the U.S. government took over operation of the nation’s railroads.
1921 – The Catholic Irish Free State became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain.
1933 – The Nissan Motor Company is organized in Tokyo, Japan
1941 – Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.
1946 – Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas opens
1947 – Heavy snow blanketed the Northeast United States, burying New York City under 25.8 inches of snow in 16 hours. The severe weather was blamed for about 80 deaths.
1948 – Cardinal Mindszenty is arrested in Hungary and accused of treason and conspiracy.
1956 – Fidel Castro attempted a secret landing in Cuba to overthrow the Batista regime. All but 11 of his supporters were killed.
1959 – The first charity walk took place, along Icknield Way, in aid of the World Refugee Fund.
1966 – The first Kwanzaa is celebrated by Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach
1971 – Air Canada jet on flight from Thunder Bay to Toronto hijacked to Cuba.
1973 – 2 Skylab 3 astronauts walk in space for a record 7 hours
1978 – India’s former PM, Indira Gandhi, released from jail
1982 – The Man of the Year in “TIME” magazine was a computer. It was the first time a non-human received the honors.
1988 – Anti African student rebellion in Nanjing, China
1989 – A provisional government takes control of Romania, following the secret trial and execution of President Nicolae Ceausescu.
1991 – The Soviet Union’s parliament formally voted the country out of existence.
1994 – French commandos storm a hijacked Air France jet on the ground in Marseille, freeing 170 hostages and killing the Algerian hijackers.
1995 – Israel turned dozens of West Bank villages over to the Palestinian Authority.
1996 – Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, CO.
1998 – Iraq announced that it would fire on U.S. and British warplanes that patrol the skies over northern and southern Iraq.
1999 – Alfonso Portillo, a populist lawyer, won Guatemala’s first peacetime presidential elections in 40 years.
2000 – Michael McDermott, age 42, opened fire at his place of employment killing seven people. McDermott had no criminal history.
2002 – The first cloned human baby was born. The announcement was made the December 27 by Clonaid.
2004 – Under the Indian Ocean, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake sent 500-mph waves across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal. The tsunami killed at least 283,000 people in a dozen countries, including Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Sumatra, Thailand and India.
2005 – Boxing Day shooting on a busy shopping street in Toronto kills 1 and wounds 6 others
2006 – An oil pipeline in Lagos, Nigeria explodes, killing at least 260.
2018 – American Colin O’Brady is the first person to cross Antarctica solo and unassisted after 54 days at the Ross Ice Shelf
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
