Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December

Selected anniversaries / On this day archive

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

Pedro I of Brazil, later also Pedro IV of Portugal

1800 – French Revolutionary Wars: Austrian forces, led by Archduke John of Austria, defeated two divisions of the French First Republic, led by Paul Grenier, at the Battle of Ampfing.
1822 – Pedro I was crowned the first emperor of Brazil, seven weeks after his reign began on his 24th birthday.
1955 – Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, sparking the Montgomery bus boycott.
1974 – Two Boeing 727s, TWA Flight 514 and Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, crashed in the eastern United States in unrelated circumstances, killing 95 people on board both aircraft.
2019 – Vivianne Miedema scored six goals and had four assists for Arsenal W.F.C. in their 11–1 victory over Bristol City W.F.C., which broke the record for the most goals scored in a FA Women's Super League match.

Giovanni Morone (d. 1580)
Ardina Moore (b. 1930)
Ueli Maurer (b. 1950)
Kenshiro Abbe (d. 1985)

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December 2

1928 Ford Model A

1823 – U.S. president James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine, a proclamation of opposition to European colonialism in the New World.
1927 – The Ford Motor Company introduced the second version of the Model A (pictured), its first new model in 18 years.
1950 – Korean War: UN forces began a retreat from North Korea following defeat at the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River.
1989 – The Malayan Communist Party and the Malaysian government signed a peace accord to end a 21-year communist insurgency.
2015 – In San Bernardino, California, a married couple carried out a mass shooting at a Christmas party before fleeing and dying in a shootout with police.

Irene Vanbrugh (b. 1872)
Allen Wright (d. 1885)
Austen Deans (b. 1915)
Inori Minase (b. 1995)

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December 3

Coat of arms of Singapore

1800 – War of the Second Coalition: French forces defeated Austrian and Bavarian troops at the Battle of Hohenlinden, eventually resulting in the Austrians signing the Treaty of Lunéville.
1937 – Rupert Bruce-Mitford, the spiritus rector of research on the Sutton Hoo ship burial, joined the British Museum.
1959 – The current flag and coat of arms of Singapore (pictured) were adopted, six months after the island became self-governing within the British Empire.
1979 – Eleven people were crushed in a human stampede at a concert by British rock band the Who in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
2009 – A suicide bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, killed 25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal Government.

Gilbert Stuart (b. 1755)
Mary Baker Eddy (d. 1910)
Paul J. Crutzen (b. 1933)
Prince Sverre Magnus of Norway (b. 2005)

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December 4: Navy Day in India

The Battle of Pontvallain

1370 – Hundred Years' War: In two separate engagements in the Battle of Pontvallain (depicted), French forces wiped out an English army which had split up because of a dispute between the commanders.
1905 – The Great Seimas of Vilnius met to discuss national concerns within Lithuania: they decided to demand wide political autonomy within the Russian Empire.
1915 – World War I: Senior British and French figures, including prime ministers H. H. Asquith and Aristide Briand, met at Calais to discuss the future of the Salonika Front.
1992 – U.S. president George H. W. Bush ordered American troops into Somalia to help provide humanitarian aid and restore order during the ongoing Somali Civil War.

John Cotton (b. 1585)
Gregor MacGregor (d. 1845)
Gabriel Dessauer (b. 1955)
Hannah Arendt (d. 1975)

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December 5: Krampusnacht in parts of Central Europe

Nelson's Column during the Great Smog of London

1484 – Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, which gave the Dominican inquisitor Heinrich Kramer the explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
1952 – The "Great Smog of London" (pictured) began and lasted for five days, causing 12,000 deaths and leading to the Clean Air Act 1956.
1965 – The "glasnost meeting" took place in Moscow, becoming the first demonstration in the Soviet Union after World War II and marking the beginning of the civil rights movement in the country.
1972 – Gough Whitlam took office as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia and formed a duumvirate with his deputy Lance Barnard, ending 23 years of Liberal–Country Party government.

Phillis Wheatley (d. 1784)
Arthur Currie (b. 1875)
Louise Bryant (b. 1885)
Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum (b. 1985)

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

Béla I of Hungary

1060 – Béla I (pictured) was crowned King of Hungary in Székesfehérvár.
1865 – Slavery in the United States was officially abolished with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
1942 – The Holocaust: Members of the German Ordnungspolizei massacred 31 people in Stary Ciepielów and Rekówka within occupied Poland for helping Jews.
1975 – Four members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army took two people hostage in a house on Balcombe Street in London, surrendering six days later.
1990 – An Italian Air Force military jet, abandoned by its pilot after an on-board fire, crashed into a high school near Bologna, killing 12 students and injuring 88 other people.

Maria de Dominici (b. 1645)
Marie Adélaïde of Savoy (b. 1685)
Winifred Hoernlé (b. 1885)
Devan Nair (d. 2005)

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

Solidus of Tiberius

574 – Suffering from mental illness, Eastern Roman emperor Justin II had his general Tiberius proclaimed Caesar, adopting him as his own son.
1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Prairie Grove ended a Confederate attempt to regain control of northwestern Arkansas.
1972 – Construction workers found the remains of Martin Bormann near Lehrter Station in Berlin, ending a decades-long search after his conviction in absentia at the Nuremberg trials.
1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
2014 – The annual furry convention Midwest FurFest was targeted in an unsolved chlorine gas attack.

Charles Garnier (d. 1649)
Theodor Schwann (b. 1810)
Joseph Cook (b. 1860)
Nicholas Hoult (b. 1989)

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

Portrait of Margaret Hughes by Peter Lely, 1672

1660 – Margaret Hughes (pictured) appeared professionally on the English stage; she is thought to have been the first woman to do so.
1880 – At an assembly of 10,000 Boers, Paul Kruger announced the fulfilment of the decision to restore the government and volksraad of the South African Republic.
1987 – A man shot and killed eight people at the Australia Post building in Melbourne, before jumping to his death.
2010 – The Japanese experimental spacecraft IKAROS flew by Venus at a distance of 80,800 km (50,200 mi), completing its planned mission to demonstrate solar-sail technology.
2024 – The Syrian civil war ended when Bashar al-Assad's party, the Syrian Ba'ath Party, surrendered to the Syrian opposition.

Adolph Menzel (b. 1815)
Georges Feydeau (b. 1862)
Ann T. Bowling (d. 2000)
Robert Austin Markus (d. 2010)

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December 9: International Anti-Corruption Day

Electron micrograph of the smallpox virus

1775 – American Revolutionary War: After their loss in the Battle of Great Bridge, British authorities were forced to evacuate from the Colony of Virginia.
1940 – Second World War: British and Commonwealth forces began Operation Compass, the first major Allied military operation of the Western Desert campaign.
1965 – A large, brilliant fireball was seen by thousands in midwestern North America before landing in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.
1979 – A World Health Organization commission of scientists certified the global eradication of smallpox (virus pictured), making it the only human infectious disease to date to have been completely eradicated.
1990 – In Serbia's first multi-party election, Slobodan Milošević won the presidential election and the Socialist Party of Serbia won the majority of seats in the National Assembly.

Nasr ibn Sayyar (d. 748)
Isabelle Urquhart (b. 1865)
Grete Wiesenthal (b. 1885)
McKayla Maroney (b. 1995)

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

Huckleberry Finn depicted by E. W. Kemble

1884 – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Finn depicted) by American author Mark Twain was first published in the United Kingdom and Canada, two months earlier than in the US.
1890 – The New York World Building, the then-tallest building in the United States at a height of 110 meters, was completed in New York City.
1907 – During the Brown Dog affair, protesters marched through London and clashed with police officers in Trafalgar Square over the existence of a memorial for animals that had been vivisected.
1942 – Edward Raczyński of the Polish government-in-exile issued a note that was the first official report on the Holocaust.
1989 – At the first open pro-democracy demonstration in Mongolia, journalist Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announced the formation of the Mongolian Democratic Union, which would be instrumental in ending communist rule four months later.

Margaret Eliza Maltby (b. 1860)
Giosuè Gallucci (b. 1864)
Pío Romero Bosque (d. 1935)
Sultan Kösen (b. 1982)

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December 11

Lunar Roving Vehicle, driven by Gene Cernan

1899 – Second Boer War: In the Battle of Magersfontein, Boers defeated British forces trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.
1925 – Pope Pius XI promulgated the encyclical Quas primas, establishing the Feast of Christ the King.
1972 – Apollo 17 (Lunar Roving Vehicle pictured), the last Apollo mission, landed on the Moon.
2005 – Demonstrations in Cronulla, a suburb of Sydney, against recent violence towards locals turned into a series of race riots.
2008 – American stockbroker Bernie Madoff was arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $64.8 billion Ponzi scheme, the largest in history.

Pieter Nuyts (d. 1655)
Isaac Shelby (b. 1750)
Max Born (b. 1882)
Emmanuelle Charpentier (b. 1968)

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

HMS Duchess

1388 – Unable to defend her possessions, Maria of Enghien sold the lordship of Argos and Nauplia to the Republic of Venice.
1939 – The Royal Navy destroyer HMS Duchess (pictured) collided with HMS Barham, the battleship she was escorting, and Duchess sank with heavy loss of life.
1942 – World War II: German troops began Operation Winter Storm, an attempt to relieve encircled Axis forces during the Battle of Stalingrad.
1964 – Jomo Kenyatta became the first president of the Republic of Kenya.
1979 – A magnitude-8.2 earthquake struck just off the shore of Tumaco, Colombia, causing at least 300 deaths, mostly by the resulting tsunami.

John Boydell (d. 1804)
Anne Liburd (b. 1920)
Doris Blackburn (d. 1970)
Evelyn S. Lieberman (d. 2015)

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

Haile Selassie

1294 – Saint Celestine V resigned the papacy after only five months to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit.
1577 – Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.
1862 – American Civil War: Union forces under Ambrose Burnside suffered severe casualties against entrenched Confederate defenders at the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia.
1957 – A 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck the Iranian Hamadan province, killing at least 1,130 people.
1960 – With Haile Selassie (pictured), Emperor of Ethiopia, out of the country, four conspirators staged a coup attempt to install Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen on the throne.

Paul Speratus (b. 1484)
Dick Van Dyke (b. 1925)
Dora Marsden (d. 1960)
Addie Viola Smith (d. 1975)

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

1925 Wozzeck poster

835 – In the Sweet Dew incident, Emperor Wenzong of the Tang dynasty conspired to kill the powerful eunuchs of the Tang court, but the plot was foiled.
1925 – Wozzeck (poster pictured) by composer Alban Berg, described as the first atonal opera, premiered at the Berlin State Opera.
1948 – American physicists Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann were awarded a patent for their cathode-ray tube amusement device, the first interactive electronic game.
1960 – Australian cricketer Ian Meckiff was run out on the last day of the first Test match between Australia and the West Indies, resulting in the first tied Test in cricket history.
1992 – War in Abkhazia: A helicopter carrying evacuees was shot down during the siege of Tkvarcheli, resulting in at least 52 deaths and catalysing more concerted Russian military intervention on behalf of Abkhazia.

Niccolò Perotti (d. 1480)
Giovanni Battista Cipriani (d. 1785)
Michael Owen (b. 1979)
Huang Zongying (d. 2020)

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December 15: First Day of Hanukkah (Judaism, 2025)

Constantine VIII

1025 – Constantine VIII (depicted) became the sole Byzantine emperor, 63 years after being crowned co-emperor.
1890 – Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa Lakota leader, was killed on Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota by U.S. Indian agency police.
1939 – The American historical epic film Gone With the Wind, adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name, premiered in Atlanta, Georgia.
1945 – The US-led occupying forces ordered the government of Japan to cease state support for Shinto.
2019 – Citizenship Amendment Act protests: 10 to 15 local women blockaded a major road in Delhi, India, to protest the exclusion of Muslims from the amended Citizenship Act.

David Teniers the Younger (bapt. 1610)
Sarah Trimmer (d. 1810)
Vallabhbhai Patel (d. 1950)
Bob Feller (d. 2010)

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December 16: Day of Reconciliation in South Africa

Gabriel Narutowicz

1740 – Prussian forces, led by Frederick the Great, moved into the Habsburg region of Silesia, starting the First Silesian War.
1850 – Settlers of the Canterbury Association aboard Randolph and Charlotte Jane arrived to establish a colony at Christchurch, New Zealand.
1922 – Gabriel Narutowicz (pictured), the first president of Poland, was assassinated only five days after having taken office.
1930 – German-American gangster Herman Lamm killed himself during a botched robbery attempt in Clinton, Indiana, to avoid being captured by police.
1997 – "Dennō Senshi Porygon", an episode of the Japanese television series Pokémon, induced epileptic seizures in 685 children.

Jane Austen (b. 1775)
Bertha Lamme Feicht (b. 1869)
Charles Brenton Fisk (d. 1983)
Bethwel Henry (d. 2020)

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December 17: International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

Aztec calendar stone

1790 – The Aztec sun stone (pictured), now a modern symbol of Mexican culture, was excavated in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City.
1862 – American Civil War: Union General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
1939 – World War II: After sustaining moderate damage in the Battle of the River Plate two days earlier, the German cruiser Graf Spee was scuttled by its commander, Hans Langsdorff, to avoid its internment by Uruguay.
1945 – The modern flag of Kurdistan was raised for the first time in Mahabad, Iran.
1990 – American gay rights activist William E. Woods brought three same-sex couples to fill out marriage licenses in Honolulu.

Domenico Cimarosa (b. 1749)
James White (d. 1825)
Kenneth E. Iverson (b. 1920)
Milla Jovovich (b. 1975)

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December 18: National Day in Qatar (1878)

Thomas Paine

1499 – Muslims in Granada began a rebellion against their Castilian rulers in response to forced conversions to Catholicism.
1792 – Thomas Paine (depicted) was found guilty of seditious libel for the publication of the second part of his book Rights of Man.
1867 – In Angola, New York, the last coach of a Lake Shore Railway train derailed, plunged 40 feet (12 m) down a gully, and caught fire, resulting in approximately 49 deaths.
1939 – Second World War: The Luftwaffe won a victory over the Royal Air Force in the Battle of the Heligoland Bight, greatly influencing both sides' future aerial warfare strategy.
2023 – A series of mass protests began in Belgrade, Serbia, alleging electoral irregularities in the Serbian parliament and Belgrade city assembly elections.

Henrietta Edwards (b. 1849)
Edwin Howard Armstrong (b. 1890)
Sia (b. 1975)
Alexei Kosygin (d. 1980)

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December 19

Henry II

1154 – Henry II (depicted) was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey, London.
1964 – The ruling junta of South Vietnam, led by Nguyễn Khánh, initiated a coup, dissolving the High National Council, a civilian advisory body.
1984 – 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.
1985 – Aeroflot Flight 101/435 was hijacked by its co-pilot; it landed in a cow pasture in China, where he was apprehended.
1997 – Titanic, the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time with a worldwide total of more than US$2.2 billion, was released in the United States.

Pope Urban V (d. 1370)
Mary Livermore (b. 1820)
Mileva Marić (b. 1875)
Phil Ochs (b. 1940)

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December 20

MV Doña Paz in port, 1984

1248 – Attempting to form an alliance with the Mongol Empire, Louis IX of France met with two of their envoys while en route to the Seventh Crusade.
1984 – Twelve-year-old Jonelle Matthews disappeared from her home in Greeley, Colorado; her body was not discovered until 2019.
1987 – The deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history occurred when the MV Doña Paz (pictured) sank after colliding with an oil tanker in the Tablas Strait in the Philippines, resulting in an estimated 4,385 deaths.
1995 – American Airlines Flight 965 crashed into a mountain in Buga, Colombia, killing 159 of the 163 people on board.
2007 – Pablo Picasso's Portrait of Suzanne Bloch was stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art before being recovered about three weeks later.

Pope Zephyrinus (d. 217)
Richard Boyle, 2nd Viscount Shannon (d. 1740)
Maya Lindholm (b. 1990)
Dawn Steel (d. 1997)

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December 21: December solstice (15:03 UTC, 2025); Dongzhi Festival in China (2025)

Sergei Prokofiev

1124 – Lamberto Scannabecchi was elected pope, taking the name Honorius II.
1872 – HMS Challenger departed Portsmouth on a scientific expedition that laid the foundations of oceanography.
1919 – After serving two years in prison for encouraging people to resist military conscription, anarchist Emma Goldman was deported from the United States to Russia.
1934 – Lieutenant Kijé, the first film composition by Sergei Prokofiev (pictured), premiered.
1995 – In accordance with the Oslo II Accord, Israeli troops withdrew from Bethlehem in preparation for the transfer of control to the Palestinian National Authority.

William H. Osborn (b. 1820)
Adele Goldstine (b. 1920)
Milan Marjanović (d. 1955)
K. T. Oslin (d. 2020)

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December 22

President Obama signing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act

1807 – In an effort to avoid engaging in the Napoleonic Wars, the United States Congress passed the Embargo Act, forbidding American ships from engaging in trade with foreign nations.
1920 – The Congress of Soviets approved the GOELRO plan, the first Soviet plan for national economic recovery and development.
1939 – Members of the All-India Muslim League observed a "Day of Deliverance" to celebrate the resignations of members of the Indian National Congress over the decision to enter the Second World War at the request of the United Kingdom.
1997 – Hussein Farrah Aidid relinquished the disputed title of President of Somalia.
2010 – The United States repealed its "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay, lesbian and bisexual people in the military (signing pictured).

Cynesige (d. 1060)
Alan Bush (b. 1900)
Tommy Flowers (b. 1905)
Angela James (b. 1964)

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December 23: Night of the Radishes in Oaxaca City, Mexico; Festivus

Signature of Yohl Ikʼnal

583 – Yohl Ikʼnal (signature pictured) acceded to the throne of the Maya city-state of Palenque.
1815 – Jane Austen's novel Emma was first published, the last novel released during her lifetime.
1958 – Tokyo Tower, then the world's tallest freestanding tower, opened.
1984 – An engine fire caused Aeroflot Flight 3519 to crash shortly after takeoff from Krasnoyarsk, USSR, killing all but one of the 111 people on board.
1990 – About 88 percent of eligible voters in Slovenia voted to secede from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
1997 – The Pioneer Helmet, one of only six Anglo-Saxon helmets to be discovered, was first placed on public display.

Francis Tresham (d. 1605)
Joseph Smith (b. 1805)
Edward Blyth (b. 1810)
Joan Lindsay (d. 1984)

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December 24

"Silent Night"

1818 – The Christmas carol "Silent Night" (audio featured) by Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber was first performed in a church in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria.
1865 – Six Confederate veterans of the American Civil War founded a social club they named the Ku Klux Klan, which later became a white supremacist group.
1918 – Forces united in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes defeated Hungarian forces to end the occupation of Međimurje.
1925 – Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by name in a children's story in the London Evening News.
1955 – According to legend, the NORAD Tracks Santa program began after children began calling the Continental Air Defense Command Center to inquire about Santa Claus's whereabouts due to a misprinted phone number in an advertisement.

Yang Bin (d. 950)
Johnny Gruelle (b. 1880)
Anthony Fauci (b. 1940)
Shūmei Ōkawa (d. 1957)

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December 25: Christmas (Western Christianity; Gregorian calendar); Quaid-e-Azam Day in Pakistan

Coronation of Baldwin I of Jerusalem

1100 – Baldwin I was crowned the first king of Jerusalem (depicted) in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
1725 – J. S. Bach led the first performance of the Christmas cantata Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110, making laughter audible in singing.
1990 – British computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee introduced WorldWideWeb, the world's first web browser and WYSIWYG HTML editor.
2000 – Russian president Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill officially adopting a new national anthem, with music by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov originally composed for the anthem of the Soviet Union.
2024 – After the loss of aircraft systems, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 crashed near Aktau International Airport while attempting to perform an emergency landing after being hit by a Russian defense missile.

Makan ibn Kaki (d. 940)
Lady Grizel Baillie (b. 1665)
Sadiq al-Mahdi (b. 1935)
Sissy Spacek (b. 1949)

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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)

Babe Ruth

1709 – The opera Agrippina, described as George Frideric Handel's first masterpiece, premiered in Venice.
1800 – Philip Gidley King, Governor of New South Wales, ordered the formation of the Governor's Body Guard of Light Horse, described as the first full-time military unit raised in Australia.
1825 – Imperial Russian Army officers led about 3,000 soldiers in protest against Nicholas I's assumption of the throne after his elder brother Konstantin removed himself from the line of succession.
1919 – American baseball player Babe Ruth (pictured) was sold by the Boston Red Sox to their rivals, the New York Yankees, beginning the 84-year-long "Curse of the Bambino".
2015 – A violent tornado moved through several suburbs of Dallas, United States, killing ten and injuring almost 500 others.

John Fothergill (d. 1780)
Bazoline Estelle Usher (b. 1885)
Raja Pervaiz Ashraf (b. 1950)
Gust Zarnas (d. 2000)

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December 27

Radio City Music Hall

1657 – Citizens of New Netherland presented the Flushing Remonstrance to Peter Stuyvesant, the director general of the colonial province, requesting an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship.
1932 – New York City's Radio City Music Hall (pictured) opened with the world's largest auditorium at the time.
1985 – The body of murdered American primatologist Dian Fossey was discovered inside her cabin in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda.
2009 – During protests in Tehran against the recent presidential election, Iranian security forces opened fire on demonstrators.
2024 – Acting president and prime minister of South Korea Han Duck-soo was impeached by the National Assembly.

Bertha of Savoy (d. 1087)
Kjell Eriksson (b. 1975)
Timothée Chalamet (b. 1995)
Zou Heng (d. 2005)

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December 28

Neptune

1065 – Westminster Abbey, built by Edward the Confessor as the first Romanesque church in England, was first consecrated.
1612 – Galileo Galilei became the first person to observe the planet Neptune (pictured), although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.
1908 – An earthquake registering 7.1 M_w struck near Messina, which, along with the subsequent tsunami, killed at least 75,000 people in southern Italy.
1925 – The Tokyo Grand Sumo Association became the All Japan Sumo Association at the instigation of Prince-Regent Hirohito, laying the foundations for the world's sole professional sumo association.
2014 – Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed into the Java Sea after the pilots mishandled a non-critical error in the cockpit, which resulted in all 162 people on board being killed in the crash.

Wang Zongbi (d. 925)
William Carstares (d. 1715)
Charles Fernández (b. 1995)
Quackity (b. 2000)

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December 29

Terminal at LaGuardia Airport after the 1975 bombing

1845 – The Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States, becoming the 28th state to be admitted to the Union.
1860 – To counter the French Navy's Gloire, the world's first ironclad warship, the Royal Navy launched HMS Warrior, the world's first iron-hulled armoured warship.
1890 – Sioux Wars: The United States Army killed 250 to 300 Lakota men, women and children at the Wounded Knee Massacre, beginning the Ghost Dance War.
1915 – First World War: The French parliament passed a law granting the land occupied by British war graves as "the free gift of the French people".
1975 – Planted by unknown perpetrators, a bomb exploded (aftermath pictured) at LaGuardia Airport in New York City, killing 11 people and seriously injuring 74 others.

Maria Margaretha Kirch (d. 1720)
Ezra Meeker (b. 1830)
Christina Rossetti (d. 1894)
Marie Menken (d. 1970)

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December 30: Tenth of Tevet (Judaism, 2025); Rizal Day in the Philippines (1896)

Tropical Storm Zeta

1460 – Wars of the Roses: At the Battle of Wakefield, Lancastrian forces destroyed the Yorkist army and killed Richard of York at Sandal Magna in West Yorkshire, England.
1845 - University of Galway, University College Cork and Queen's University Belfast were established as part of the Queen's University of Ireland.
1935 – Second Italo-Ethiopian War: The Italian Air Force destroyed a Swedish Red Cross field hospital in Dolo, Ethiopia, in retaliation for the earlier execution of an Italian prisoner of war.
2000 – A series of bombings occurred around Metro Manila in the Philippines, killing 22 people and injuring around 100 others.
2005 – Tropical Storm Zeta was declared a tropical depression, making it the record-breaking 28th tropical cyclone of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, the most active in recorded history until 2020.

Rudyard Kipling (b. 1865)
Elmira Minita Gordon (b. 1930)
C. Harold Wills (d. 1940)
V (b. 1995)

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December 31: Saint Sylvester's Day (Western Christianity)

Roberto Clemente

1759 – Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum to the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin and began brewing Guinness.
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.
1950 – Korean War: North Korean troops attacked United Nations forces in the first of two battles at Wonju.
1965 – Central African military officers led by Jean-Bédel Bokassa began a coup d'état against the government of President David Dacko.
1972 – Puerto Rican baseball player Roberto Clemente (pictured) died in a plane crash en route to deliver aid to victims of that year's Nicaragua earthquake.

Carlo Gimach (d. 1730)
C. D. Howe (d. 1960)
Richie McCaw (b. 1980)
Gabby Douglas (b. 1995)

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Selected anniversaries / On this day archive

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An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2025 day arrangement