Little Christmas in Ireland


1066 – Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king before the Norman conquest, was crowned King of England.


1912 – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presented his theory of continental drift.


1941 – During his State of the Union Address, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt presented his Four Freedoms as fundamental freedoms humans everywhere in the world ought to enjoy.


1953 – The first Asian Socialist Conference, an organisation of socialist political parties in Asia, opened in Rangoon, Burma, with 177 delegates, observers and fraternal guests.


1994 – Two-time American Olympic figure skating medalist Nancy Kerrigan (pictured) was hit on the leg with a police baton by an assailant hired by the ex-husband of her rival Tonya Harding.



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Rōhatsu in Japan

1432 – The first battle of the Lithuanian Civil War between the forces of Švitrigaila and of Sigismund Kęstutaitis was fought near what is now the town of Ashmyany.

1813 – Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 (audio featured) premiered in Vienna, conducted by the composer himself.

1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: Following their successful attack three days earlier, a small Indian Navy strike force attacked the Port of Karachi again and created a de facto blockade.

1987 – A man shot and killed eight people at the Australia Post building in Melbourne, before jumping to his death.

2009 – Bombings carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq in Baghdad, Iraq, killed at least 127 people and injured 448.

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Mawlid (Shia Islam, 2017)

Independence Day in Finland (1917)

1060 – Béla I the Champion was crowned King of Hungary.

1917 – World War I: USS Jacob Jones became the first American destroyer to be sunk by enemy action when it was torpedoed by German submarine SM U-53.

1941 – The British Secret Intelligence Service established a facility known as "Camp X" in Ontario, Canada, to train covert agents in clandestine operations.

1957 – The first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite failed with an explosion (pictured) on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

1992 – The Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, India, was destroyed by Hindu Kar Sevaks, who believed that it was built on the birthplace of Rama.

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1639 – English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks (pictured) made the first successful prediction and observation of a transit of Venus.

1893 – First Matabele War: A patrol of British South Africa Company soldiers was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors.

1909 – The first Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League, was held.

1971 – The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force, an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, exploded a bomb at a Catholic-owned pub in Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing 15 people.

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.

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International Day of Persons with Disabilities

1800 – War of the Second Coalition: French forces defeated the Austrians and Bavarians in Hohenlinden, near Munich, forcing the Austrians to sign an armistice.

1904 – Himalia, the largest irregular satellite of Jupiter, was discovered by astronomer Charles Dillon Perrine at the Lick Observatory in San Jose, California.

1927 – Putting Pants on Philip, the first official film featuring the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, was released.

1967 – Cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard (pictured) performed the first successful human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

1992 – During extreme weather conditions, the oil tanker Aegean Sea ran aground off the coast of Galicia, Spain, spilling 67,000 tonnes of light crude oil.

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1804 – The coronation of Napoleon (pictured) as Emperor of the French was held at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

1823 – U.S. President James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine, a proclamation of opposition to European colonialism in the New World.

1950 – Korean War: With the conclusion of the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army expelled UN forces out of North Korea.

1988 – Benazir Bhutto took office as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of a Muslim-majority state.

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.

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World AIDS Day

1577 – Elizabeth I of England's principal secretary and spymaster Francis Walsingham was knighted.

1822 – Pedro I was formally crowned the first Emperor of Brazil, seven weeks after his reign began on his 24th birthday.

1955 – In a key event in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks (pictured) was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking 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 the Antarctic and setting the continent aside as a scientific preserve.

1991 – Over 92% of Ukrainian voters approved their country's independence as declared by the Ukrainian parliament on 24 August.

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1777 – El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, the first civil settlement in the Spanish colony of Alta California, was founded as a farming community.

1807 – Maria I of Portugal (pictured), the Braganza royal family and its court of nearly 15,000 people departed Lisbon for the colony of Brazil just days before Napoleonic forces invaded.

1947 – The United Nations General Assembly voted to approve the Partition Plan for Palestine, a plan to resolve the Arab–Israeli conflict in the British Mandate of Palestine by separating the territory into Jewish and Arab states.

1987 – Korean Air Flight 858 exploded over the Andaman Sea after two North Korean agents left a time bomb in an overhead compartment, killing all 115 people on board.

2007 – Philippine soldiers led by Senator Antonio Trillanes, on trial for the 2003 Oakwood mutiny, staged a mutiny and temporarily seized a conference room in The Peninsula Manila hotel.

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Declaration of Independence of Albania (1912)

1470 – Emperor Lê Thánh Tông of Annam (Vietnam) launched a military expedition against Champa, beginning the Cham–Annamese War.

1660 – At London's Gresham College, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, Christopher Wren and other leading scientists founded a learned society now known as the Royal Society (coat of arms pictured).

1895 – The first automobile race in the United States, the Chicago Times-Herald race, was held in Chicago.

1971 – Prime Minister of Jordan Wasfi al-Tal was assassinated by the Black September unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Cairo.

1987 – South African Airways Flight 295 suffered a catastrophic in-flight fire and crashed into the Indian Ocean east of Mauritius, killing all 159 on board.

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Feast day of Sylvester Gozzolini, and Feast of Christ the King (Catholic Church, 2017)

Constitution Day in India (1949)

1805 – The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, the longest aqueduct in Great Britain and the highest in the world, opened.

1842 – The University of Notre Dame (main building pictured) was founded by Rev. Edward Sorin, of the Congregation of Holy Cross, as an all-male institution in South Bend, Indiana, US.

1917 – Unable to resolve disputes with Eddie Livingstone, owner of the Toronto Blueshirts, the other ice hockey clubs of Canada's National Hockey Association officially agreed to break away and form the National Hockey League.

1942 – Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premiered at the Hollywood Theatre in New York City to coincide with the Allied invasion of North Africa and the capture of Casablanca.

1977 – A speaker claiming to represent the "Intergalactic Association" interrupted the Southern Television broadcast in South East England, warning viewers that "All your weapons of evil must be destroyed."

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