- 724 18 Rabbit, ruler of powerful Maya city Copán, installs Cauac Sky as ruler of his vassal city of Quiriguá, who later famously captures and beheads 18 Rabbit in 738
Thomas Becket Assassinated
1170 English Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket assassinated before the high altar of Canterbury Cathedral by four knights
- 1566 Danish student and future astronomer Tycho Brache loses part of his nose in a sword duel over who is the better mathematician (he wore a prosthetic nose the rest of his life)
Vermeer Joins Painters Guild
1653 Dutch painter Jan Vermeer becomes a member of the Guild of Saint Luke for painters in Delft
- 1705 Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon's play "Idoménée" premieres in Paris
- 1708 Great Alliance occupies Gent
- 1778 British troops occupy Savannah, Georgia
- 1782 1st nautical almanac in US published by Samuel Stearns, Boston
- 1786 French Revolution: The Assembly of Notables is convoked
- 1812 The USS Constitution under the command of Captain William Bainbridge, captures the HMS Java off the coast of Brazil after a three hour battle
- 1813 British burn Buffalo, New York during War of 1812
Trail of Tears
1835 Treaty of New Echota is signed between the US government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction to cede all lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States
- 1837 Canadian militia destroy Caroline, a US steamboat docked at Buffalo
- 1837 Steam-powered threshing machine patented in Winthrop, Maine
- 1841 King and Grand Duke Willem II installs Order of Eikenkroon
- 1845 Texas admitted as 28th state of the Union
- 1848 Gas lights 1st installed at White House (Polk's administration)
- 1851 1st American Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) chapter opened in Boston, Massachusetts
- 1852 Emma Snodgrass arrested in Boston for wearing pants
"The Battle of the Huns"
1857 Franz Liszt's symphonic poem "Hunnenschlacht (The Battle of the Huns)" premieres in Weimar
- 1860 The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, HMS Warrior is launched
Battle of Chichasaw Bayou
1862 Battle of Chichasaw Bayou: confederate armies defeat General William T. Sherman
Wounded Knee Massacre
1890 US 7th Cavalry massacre 200+ captive Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota
"The Entertainer"
1902 Scot Joplin copyrights "The Entertainer" and several other piano rag compositions through the US Copyright Office
- 1903 French Equatorial Africa separates into Gabon, Chad and Ubangi-Shari (Central African Republic)
- 1906 Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Montreal Wanderers beat New Glasgow (NS), 7-2 for 17-5 aggregate challenge series victory
- 1908 Patent granted for a 4-wheel automobile brake, Clintonville, Wisconsin
Sun Yat-sen Elected
1911 Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen is elected the 1st President of the Republic of China
- 1911 Mongolia gains independence from the Qing dynasty
- 1911 Proclamation restores "Dei Gratia" from Canada's coins
- 1911 San Francisco Symphony forms
- 1913 1st movie serial "Adventures of Kathlyn" premieres in Chicago
- 1920 The Netherlands and Venezuela recover diplomatic relations
- 1920 Yugoslav government bans communist party
Mackenzie King Sworn In
1921 Mackenzie King is sworn in as the 10th Prime Minister of Canada
"Flying Down to Rio"
1932 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' 1st movie together "Flying Down to Rio", directed by Thornton Freeland, premieres in NYC
"Sons of the Desert"
1933 "Sons of the Desert" film directed by William A. Seiter starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy is released
- 1934 Federico Garcia Lorca's "Yerma" premieres in Madrid
- 1934 First collegiate basketball doubleheader is played at Madison Square Garden, NYC; New York University beats Notre Dame, 25-18; Westminster edges St. John's, 37-33
- 1934 Japan renounces Wash Naval Treaty of 1922 and London Treaty of 1930
- 1937 Constitution of Ireland (Irish: Bunreacht na hÉireann) is enacted and Irish free state is named Eire
'Hitler Will Have to Break Us or Lose the War'
1940 Worst German air raid on London as over 10,000 bombs including the 1st incendiary bombs are dropped on the city as part of the Blitz
- 1944 Belgian Walloon Nazi collaborator Léon Degrelle sentenced to death
- 1944 General Eisenhower's train returns to Versailles
Maurice Richards Fastest to 100
1945 Montreal right wing Maurice Richard scores twice in Canadiens' 5-4 loss to Chicago Black Hawks to record his 100th NHL career goal; reaches mark in 145 games, then fastest in history; since broken by Mike Bossy, 100 goals in 129 games
- 1947 Ship carrying Jewish immigrants driven away from Palestine
- 1948 Canada recognizes Israel
- 1948 US State Department announces work on placing objects into Earth orbit
- 1949 1st UHF television station operating regular basis Bridgeport, Connecticut
- 1949 Hungary nationalized its industries
- 1952 1st transistorized hearing aid offered for sale (Elmsford NY)
- 1954 Kingdom of Netherlands, with Netherlands & Netherlands Antilles as autonomous parts, comes into being
"You'll Never Know"
1955 Barbra Streisand's 1st recording "You'll Never Know" at age 13
Hill F1 Champion
1962 British driver Graham Hill wins the South African Grand Prix at Prince George Circuit in a BRM; takes out his first F1 World Drivers Championship by 12 points from Scotsman Jim Clark
"Thunderball"
1965 "Thunderball", 4th James Bond film starring Sean Connery and Claudine Auger premieres in Tokyo, Japan
- 1965 CBS purchases NFL TV rights for 1966-68 at $18.8 million per year
"My World is Empty Without You"
1965 The Supremes release single "My World is Empty Without You"
NY Jets Beat Oakland Raiders
1968 AFL Championship, Shea Stadium, NYC: New York Jets beat Oakland Raiders 27-23; Joe Namath 3 TD passes sparks Jets to win
- 1968 Israeli commandos destroy 13 Lebanese airplanes
Award to Gerd Müller
1970 Ballon d'Or: Bayern Munich striker Gerd Müller wins award for best European football player ahead of West Ham United defender Bobby Moore and Cagliari forward Luigi Riva
- 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act (United States) signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon
- 1972 "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" film written and directed by Werner Herzog, starring Klaus Kinski premieres in West Germany
- 1972 Eastern Tristar Jumbo Jet crashes near Everglades killing 101
- 1972 Life magazine ceases publication
- 1972 President of Sinn Féin Ruairi O Bradaigh is arrested and held under new legislation in Republic of Ireland
- 1972 Test Cricket debut of Jeff Thomson and Max Walker v Pakistan at MCG
- 1975 11 killed, 75 hurt by terrorist bomb at LaGuardia Airport in NYC
- 1977 Ronald Ribman's "Cold Storage" premieres in NYC
Bahktiar Asked to Form Government
1978 Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi asks Shapour Bahktiar to form a civilian government
- 1978 Spain constitution goes into effect
- 1978 Test Cricket debut of Allan Robert Border, v England at the MCG
- 1979 Red Army beats NY Islanders 3-2 at Nassau Coliseum
- 1980 Shuttle STS-1 moves from Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) to Launch Complex 39A
- 1981 Ballon d'Or: German 1-2-3 with Bayern Munich forward Karl-Heinz Rummenigge taking title of Europe's best football player for the 2nd straight year; beats teammate Paul Breitner and Barcelona midfielder Bernd Schuster
Sports History
1982 American college football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant ends his career with University of Alabama (323 wins)
Bob Marley Stamp
1982 Jamaican Post issues commemorative postage stamp featuring reggae singer Bob Marley
- 1983 Australian cricket batsman Graham Yallop completes a painstaking 268 (716 mins) v Pakistan in the drawn 4th Test in Melbourne
Gavaskar Surpasses Bradman
1983 Indian cricket opening batsman Sunil Gavaskar scores an unbeaten 236 in drawn 6th Test v West Indies at Chennai; his 4th Test double century and 30th century, surpassing Don Bradman's record of 29
- 1983 US formally notifies UNESCO that it will withdraw from the organization on the Jan 1, 1985, in protest over perceived anti-Western bias, efforts to restrict press freedom and wasteful management methods
- 1984 5th United Negro College Fund
Rajiv Gandhi Election Win
1984 Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi claims victory in parliamentary elections
- 1984 NHL St. Louis Blues launch 27 shots in 1 period during 5-1 loss to visiting New York Islanders; NY goaltender Kelly Hrudey finishes game with 47 saves
Gretzky Reaches 100 Points
1984 Wayne Gretzky scores his NHL career 32nd hat trick & adds 3 assists in Edmonton's 6-3 win over Detroit Red Wings for his 100th point in just 35 games; 2nd fastest in history - recorded 100 points in 34 games in 1983
- 1987 Ballon d'Or: Milan's Dutch midfielder Ruud Gullit wins best football player in Europe award ahead of Paulo Futre (Porto/Atlético Madrid) and Real Madrid striker Emilio Butragueño
- 1987 US Food and Drug Administration first approves the use of Prozac (fluoxetine hydrochloride) to treat depression [1]
- 1988 Soviet Red Army Team edges NY Islanders, 3-2 at Nassau Coliseum
- 1988 Toronto’s Ed Olczyk and Gary Leeman score goals just 4 seconds apart in the 3rd period, tying the NHL record for fastest 2 goals by one team; Leafs beat the Quebec Nordiques, 6-5.
- 1988 Victorian Post Office Museum in Australia closes
- 1989 Jane Pauley says goodbye to NBC's "Today" show
- 1989 Riots break-out after Hong Kong decides to forcibly repatriate Vietnamese refugees.
Havel Czechoslovakian President
1989 Václav Havel is selected to be president of Czechoslovakia by the Federal Assembly shortly after the Velvet Revolution
- 1989 Wayne Gretzky and Martina Navratilova, named athletes of decade by the Associated Press
- 1991 12th United Negro College Fund "Parade of Stars" telethon, hosted by Lou Rawls airs from Aquarius Theatre in Hollywood, and The Apollo Theatre in Harlem, NYC
China Airlines Crash
1991 Boeing 747-200F freight plane of China Airlines crashes into mountain shortly after takeoff from Chiang Kai-shek International Airportat Taipei, Taiwan, killing 5-member crew
- 1992 Governor Cuomo grants Jean Harris (Scarsdale Diet Dr killer) clemency
Courtney Love Sues
1993 Courtney Love sues doctors for leaking news of her methadone treatment
- 1993 Todd Bridges arrested for transporting methamphetamine (speed)
Warne's Famous Hat-trick
1994 Australian cricket's spin king Shane Warne dismisses England's Phil DeFreitas, Darren Gough and Devon Malcolm for a famous hat-trick in 2nd Test win in Melbourne
- 1994 B737-400 flies into a mountain at Edremit East Turkey, 54 killed
- 1994 Bangladesh government of Zia resigns
- 1994 Last Dutch electro-magnetic telephone exchange shuts down
- 1997 Hong Kong begins slaughtering all its chickens to prevent bird flu
- 1997 Orville Lynn Majors, 36, arrested for many deaths under his care
- 1997 Russia signs agreement to build a $3B nuclear power plant in China
- 1998 Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the 1970s genocide in Cambodia that claimed over a million people
- 2001 Mesa Redonda shopping center fire, Lima, Peru, at least 291 killed.
- 2007 American boxer Steve Cunningham defends his IBF cruiserweight title for the first time with a 12th-round TKO of local favourite Marco Huck in Bielefeld, Germany
- 2012 200 people are executed by the Syrian army in Homs
- 2012 21 security personnel are killed by Pakistani Taliban near Peshawar
- 2012 5 people are killed in a Tupolev Tu-204 plane crash in Moscow
- 2013 16 people are killed and 40 are wounded by a suicide bomb attack at Volgograd-1 railway station, Russia
Schumacher's Ski Accident
2013 7-time world F1 motor racing champion Michael Schumacher suffers a serious head injury in a ski accident in the French Alps; his condition still remains unclear
- 2013 Chaparrastique volcano erupts in El Salvador
- 2013 Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says barrel bombs on Aleppo have killed 517 people since 15th December
- 2015 Ebola epidemic in Guinea declared over by WHO, 2,500 died over 2 years
Obama Punishes Russia
2016 US President Barack Obama retaliates against Russia for hacking American computer systems and trying to influence the 2016 presidential election by ejecting 35 Russian spies and imposing sanctions
- 2018 40 militants killed in Giza and El-Arish by Egyptian police after attack on a tourist bus the day before killed four
- 2018 85th Orange Bowl: #1 Alabama beats #4 Oklahoma, 45-34
- 2018 Record lowest temperature of -111C registered by American satellite Noaa-20 in the western Pacific at top of large storm [1]
- 2020 Milwaukee Bucks break NBA record for most 3-pointers made by a team in a single game with 29 in a dominant 144-97 victory over the Heat in Miami
- 2022 Rashid Khan is named the captain of Afghanistan's T20I team
- 2022 Social medial personality Andrew Tate arrested in Romania on charges of sex trafficking and rape, following an exchange with Greta Thunberg over Twitter [1]
