What happened this week (Dec 18th - Dec 24th) - Events

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Dec 18th

Events
218 BC - Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia - Hannibal's Carthaginian forces defeat those of the Roman Republic.
1271 - Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan" (元 yuán), officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of China.
1352 - Innocent VI is elected Pope.
1642 - Abel Tasman becomes first European to land in New Zealand
1787 - New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the United States Constitution.
1793 - Surrender of the frigate La Lutine by French royalists to Lord Hood; renamed HMS Lutine, she later becomes a famous treasure wreck.
1892 - The first performance of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker is held at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.
1900 - The Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook Narrow-gauge (2 ft 6 in or 762 mm) Railway (now the Puffing Billy Railway) in Victoria, Australia opened for traffic.
1926 - The first performance of Leoš Janáček's opera The Makropulos Affair is held in Brno, Czechoslovakia.
1935 - The Lanka Sama Samaja Party is founded in Sri Lanka.
1944 - World War II 77 B-29 Superfortress and 200 other aircraft of U.S. Fourteenth Air Force bomb Hankow China, a Japanese supply base.
1961 - Indonesia invades Netherlands New Guinea.
1966 - Saturn's moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker.


Dec. 19th

Events
324 - Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor.
1187 - Pope Clement III is elected.
1606 - The Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery depart England carrying settlers who, at Jamestown, Virginia, would found the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.
1777 - American Revolutionary War: George Washington's Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
1828 - Nullification Crisis: Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun pens the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828.
1835 - The first issue of The Blade newspaper is published in Toledo, Ohio.
1843 - A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, is first published in England.
1910 - Edward Douglass White is sworn in as the 9th Chief Justice of the United States.
1912 - William H. Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum which caught fire and killed over 1,000 people, is pardoned by President Taft after 3-and-a-half-years in Sing Sing prison .
1916 - World War I: Battle of Verdun - On the Western Front, the French Army successfully holds off the German Army and drives it back to its starting position.
1920 - King Constantine I restored as King of the Hellenes after the death of his son Alexander I of Greece and a plebescite.
1941 - Hitler becomes Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the German Army
1961 - India annexes Daman and Diu, part of Portuguese India.
1963 - Zanzibar receives its independence from the United Kingdom, to become a constitutional monarchy under Sultan Hamoud bin Mohammed.
1965 - Prison guard George Hodson is killed during Ronald Ryan and Peter Walker's escape from HM Prison Pentridge in Coburg, Victoria.
1967 - Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt is officially presumed dead.
1972 - Project Apollo: The last manned lunar flight, Apollo 17, crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth.
1974 - The Altair 8800 microcomputer kit goes on sale.
1974 - Nelson A. Rockefeller is sworn is as the 41st Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford.
1975 - A bomb explodes in the centre of Dundalk, Ireland, killing two people.
1981 - Sixteen lives are lost when the Penlee lifeboat goes to the aid of the stricken coaster Union Star in heavy seas.
1984 - The Sino-British Joint Declaration, stating that the People's Republic of China would resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and the United Kingdom would restore Hong Kong to China with effect from July 1, 1997, is signed in Beijing by Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher.
1988 - Lawn darts are banned from sale in the United States by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
1997 - Silkair Flight 185 crashes into the Musi River, near Palembang in Indonesia, killing 104.
1997 - The film Titanic is released.
1998 - Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives forwards articles I and III of impeachment against President Bill Clinton to the Senate.
2000 - The Leninist Guerrilla Units wing of the Communist Labour Party of Turkey/Leninist attack a Nationalist Movement Party office in Istanbul, killing one person and injuring three.
2001 - The fire at the World Trade Center, as a result of the September 11, 2001 attacks, is finally extinguished after three months.
2001 - A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Hövsgöl in Mongolia.
2001 - Argentine economic crisis: December 2001 riots - Riots erupt in Buenos Aires after Domingo Cavallo's corralito measures restrict the withdrawal of cash from bank deposits.
1969 - Capital punishment in the United Kingdom: Home Secretary James Callaghan's motion to remove the limit on the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act, which suspended the death penalty in England, Wales and Scotland for all crimes, except treason, piracy with violence, and certain crimes under the jurisdiction of the armed forces for a period of five years, is carried by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
1973 - Soviet Soyuz Programme: Soyuz 13, crewed by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk, is launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.
1996 - The Oakland, California school board passes a resolution officially declaring "Ebonics" a language or dialect.
1997 - HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium.
1999 - NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.
2001 - The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan, New York City, is damaged by fire.
2002 - 2003 California recall: Governor of California Gray Davis announces that the state would face a record budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier.


Dec 20th

Events
1522 - Suleiman the Magnificent accepts the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually re-settle on Malta and become known as the Knights of Malta.
1803 - Louisiana Purchase completed at a ceremony in New Orleans.
1860 - South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States.
1915 - World War I: Last Australian troops evacuated from Gallipoli.
1917 - Cheka, first Soviet secret police, founded.
1941 - World War II: First battle of the American Volunteer Group, better known as the "Flying Tigers" in Kunming, China.
1942 - World War II: Bombing of Calcutta by the Japanese.
1951 - Nuclear power first harvested when EBR-1 powers four light bulbs.
1952 - United States Air Force C-124 crashes and burns in Moses Lake, Washington killing 87.
1960 - National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam is formed.
1973 - The Spanish Prime Minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, is assassinated by a car bomb attack in Madrid
1981 - The first ever on-stage performance of the award-winning Broadway musical Dreamgirls at Imperial Theatre on Broadway.
1984 - The Summit tunnel fire is the largest underground fire in history, as a freight train carrying over 1 million litres of petrol derails near the town of Todmorden in the Pennines.
1988 - The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna.
1989 - United States invasion of Panama: United States sends troops into Panama to overthrow government of Manuel Noriega.
1991 - Paul Keating becomes Prime Minister of Australia.
1995 - NATO begins peacekeeping in Bosnia.
1995 - An American Airlines Flight 965 Boeing 757 crashes into a mountain 50 km north of Cali, Colombia killing 160.
1996 - NeXT merges with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X.
1999 - Vermont's Supreme Court rules that homosexual couples are entitled to the same benefits and protections as married heterosexual couples.
1999 - Macau is handed over to the People's Republic of China by Portugal.
2001 - Argentine economic crisis (1999-2002): President of Argentina Fernando de la Rúa is forced out of office.
2002 - US Senator Trent Lott resigns as majority leader.
2005 - 2005 New York City transit strike: New York City's Transport Workers Union Local 100 goes on strike, shutting down all New York City Subway and Bus services.
2005 - US District Court Judge John E. Jones III ruled against mandating teaching intelligent design in the Dover Area School District in his ruling of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.


Dec. 21st


Events
69 - Year of the four emperors: Following Galba, Otho and Vitellius, Vespasian becomes the fourth Emperor of Rome within a year.
1620 - Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
1861 - Medal of Honor: Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.
1872 - Challenger expedition: HMS Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sails from Portsmouth.
1912 - The movie Das Mirakel premiered in Germany.
1913 - Arthur Wynne's "word-cross", the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World.
1917 - Meiji Dairies, a Japanese dairy industry company, is founded.
1936 - First flight of the Junkers JU-88 bomber prototype.
1937 - The film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles.
1958 - French presidential election, 1958: Charles de Gaulle is elected President of France as his Union des Démocrates pour la République party gain 78.5% of the vote.
1962 - Rondane National Park is established as Norway's first national park.
1968 - Project Apollo: Apollo 8, crewed by Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
1973 - The Geneva Conference on the Arab-Israeli conflict opens.
1979 - Lancaster House Agreement: An independence agreement for Rhodesia is signed in London by Lord Carrington, Sir Ian Gilmour, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Dr S C Mundawarara.
1987 - The passenger ferry Doña Paz sinks after colliding with the oil tanker Vector 1 in the Tablas Strait in the Philippines, killing 1,565.
1988 - A bomb explodes on board Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, killing 270.
1999 - The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a van loaded with 950 kg of explosives which ETA intend to use to blow up Torre Picasso in Madrid.
2012 - The Long Count of the Maya calendar recycles according to the most popular correlation. A minority argues it does so on December 23, 2012.


Dec. 22nd


Events
1603 - Mehmed III Sultan of the Ottoman Empire dies and is succeeded by his son Ahmed I.
1790 - Storm and capture Russian armies And. Century of Suvorov of a Turkish fortress Izmail.
1807 - The Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries, is passed by the U.S. Congress, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson.
1809 - The Non-Intercourse Act, lifting the Embargo Act except for the United Kingdom and France, passes the U.S. Congress.
1849 - The execution of Fyodor Dostoevsky is canceled at the last second.
1851 - The first freight train is operated in Roorkee in India.
1864 - Savannah, Georgia falls to General William Tecumseh Sherman, concluding his "March to the Sea".
1885 - Ito Hirobumi, a samurai, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.
1894 - The Dreyfus affair begins, in France, when Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted of treason, on antisemitic grounds.
1920 - Opening of 8-th All-Russia congress of Advice in Moscow (on December, 29th). The statement of the GOELRO plan.
1937 - The Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic in New York City.
1944 - World War II: German troops demand the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium, prompting the famouse one word reply by General Anthony McAuliffe: "NUTS!" See Battle of the Bulge.
1944 - World War II: Vietnam People's Army is formed to resist Japanese occupation of Vietnam.
1947 - The Constituent Assembly of Italy approves its constitution.
1956 - Colo is born, the first gorilla to be bred in captivity.
1963 - Cruise ship Lakonia burns 180 miles north of Madeira with the loss of 128 lives.
1964 - Comedian Lenny Bruce is convicted of obscenity.
1964 - First SR-71 (Blackbird) flight.
1965 - In the United Kingdom, a 70mph speed limit is applied to all rural roads including motorways for the first time. Previously, there had been no speed limit.
1974 - Grande Comore, Anjouan and Mohéli vote to become the independent nation of Comoros. Mayotte remains under French administration.
1984 - Subway vigilante Bernhard Hugo Goetz shoots four African-American men on an express train in The Bronx borough of New York City.
1988 - Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber tapper, unionist and environmental activist, is assassinated.
1989 - After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceauşescu's Communist dictatorship.
1989 - Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.
1989 - Two tourist coaches collide on the Pacific Highway north of Kempsey NSW (Kempsey bus crash).
1990 - Lech Wałęsa is sworn in as President of Poland.
1997 - Acteal massacre: Attendees at a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic activists for indigenous causes in the small village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas are massacred by paramilitary forces.
1999 - The Spanish Civil Guard finds near Calatayud (Zaragoza) another van loaded by ETA with 750 kg of explosives (see related event on December 21, 1999).
1999 - Tandja Mamadou becomes President of Niger.
2001 - Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, hands over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by President Hamid Karzai.
2001 - Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.
2001 - Cc the cat, the first cloned pet, is born.


Dec. 23rd

Events
619 - Boniface V becomes Pope.
1493 - Georg Alt's German translation of Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle is published.
1783 - George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.
1823 - The poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (AKA The Night Before Christmas) is published in the Sentinel.
1888 - Vincent van Gogh cuts off the lower part of his left ear, takes it to a brothel, and gives it to a prostitute named Rachel.
1913 - The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve.
1916 - World War I: Battle of Magdhaba - Allied forces defeat Turkish forces in Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
1921 - Visva-Bharati University inaugurated.
1936 - Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1937 - First flight of the Vickers Wellington bomber.
1941 - World War II: Japanese Imperial Army occupied Wake Island.
1947 - The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
1948 - Seven former Japanese leaders sentenced to death by hanging at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East were executed at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo.
1954 - The first human kidney transplant is performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
1958 - Dedication of Tokyo Tower, world's highest self-supporting iron tower.
1970 - The North Tower of the World Trade Center is topped out at 1,368 feet, making it the tallest building in the world.
1972 - The Nicaraguan capital of Managua is struck by a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, killing more than 10,000.
1972 - All 16 survivors of the October 13 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 are rescued.
1979 - Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet forces occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital.
1982 - The Environmental Protection Agency announces it has identified dangerous levels of dioxin in the soil of Times Beach, Missouri.
1986 - Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California and becomes the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world.
1990 - History of Slovenia: 88% of Slovenia's population vote for independence from Yugoslavia in a referendum.
2004 - Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean is hit by an 8.1 magnitude earthquake.
2005 - Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 217 from Baku, Azerbaijan to Aktau, Kazakhstan crashed shortly after takeoff killing 23 people.
2005 - Chad declares a state of war against Sudan following a December 18th attack on Adre, which left about 100 people dead.


Dec. 24th


Events
640 - John IV becomes Pope.
1294 - Pope Boniface VIII is elected Pope, replacing St. Celestine V, who had abdicated.
1515 - Thomas Wolsey is named the English Lord Chancellor.
1715 - Swedish troops occupy Norway.
1777 - Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, was discovered by James Cook.
1800 - Assassination attempt on Napoleon Bonaparte's life.
1814 - The Treaty of Ghent was signed which ended the War of 1812.
1818 - "Silent Night" composed by Franz Xaver Gruber.
1851 - Library of Congress burns.
1865 - Several US Civil War Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan.
1906 - The first radio program, consisting of a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech, is broadcast.
1914 - World War I: The "Christmas truce" begins.
1924 - Albania becomes a republic.
1929 - Assassination attempt of Argentine President Hipólito Yrigoyen.
1939 - World War II: Pope Pius XII makes a Christmas Eve appeal for peace.
1941 - Hong Kong falls to the Japanese Imperial Army.
1941 - World War II: Kuching is conquered by Japanese forces.
1942 - World War II: French monarchist, Ferdinand Bonnier de La Chapelle, assassinates French Vichy admiral Darlan in Algiers
1943 - World War II: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the Supreme Allied Commander.
1946 - France's Fourth Republic founded.
1951 - Libya becomes independent from Italy. Idris I is proclaimed King of Libya.
1953 - Tangiwai disaster: A railway bridge collapse at Tangiwai, New Zealand sends a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River, killing 153 people.
1953 - NBC's Dragnet becomes the first network-sponsored television program.
1954 - Laos becomes independent.
1966 - A Canadair CL44 chartered by the United States military crashes into a small village in South Vietnam, killing 129.
1968 - The crew of the USS Pueblo is released by North Korea after being held for 11 months on suspicion of spying.
1968 - The crew of Apollo 8 enter into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so.
1969 - Curt Flood writes to Bowie K. Kuhn, the Commissioner of Baseball, asking to be declared a free agent .
1974 - Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Australia.
1979 - The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan to support the country's Marxist government.
1979 - The first European Ariane rocket is launched.
1985 - A black bull blocks the Cross Harbour Tunnel in Hong Kong for three hours.
1987 - Japanese legendary rock band BOØWY declares their breakup at the Shibuya Kokaido.
1997 - The Sid El-Antri massacre (or Sidi Lamri) in Algeria kills 50-100 people.
1997 - The Dominican Republic becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
2000 - The Texas 7 holds up a sports store in Irving, Texas. Police officer Aubrey Hawkins is shot during the robbery.
2002 - The New Delhi Metro opens.
2003 - The Spanish police thwart an attempt by ETA to detonate 50 kg of explosives at 3:55 p.m. inside Madrid's busy Chamartín Station.
2004 - The 2004 Christmas Eve Snowstorm delivers an extremely unusual snowfall to the southern United States.