1154 King Henry II of England crowned King of England
1562 The Battle of Dreux was fought between the Huguenots and the Catholics, beginning the French Wars of Religion.
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)
1732 Benjamin Franklin began publishing “Poor Richard’s Almanac.”
1776 Thomas Paine published his first “American Crisis” essay.
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
1843 “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens is published, 6,000 copies sold
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.
1904 Dawson City hockey team begins 9 day walk to get a boat to Seattle to catch a train to Ottawa to play in Stanley Cup on Jan 13 1905
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
1941 US Office of Censorship created to control info pertaining to WW II
1971 Stanley Kubrick’s X-rated film “A Clockwork Orange” based on the book by Anthony Burgess and starring Malcolm McDowell premieres
1972 Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, ending the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.
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
1996 The school board of Oakland, CA, voted to recognize Black English, also known as “ebonics.” The board later reversed its stance.
1998 US House of Representatives votes to impeach President Bill Clinton, forwarding the articles of impeachment to the Senate for a trial https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/readers-respond/bal-clinton01-story.html
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.
2008 U.S. President George W. Bush signed a $17.4 billion rescue package of loans for ailing auto makers General Motors and Chrysler.
2016 At least 48 people die after drinking bath lotion in Irkutsk, Siberia, thinking it contained alcohol
2016 Truck driven into a Christmas market in Berlin kills 12, injures 48
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
