WikiPedia:Selected anniversaries/December

• 1640 - John IV was declared King of Portugal, resulting in a war with Spain.
• 1822 - Pedro I was crowned the first Emperor of Brazil.
• 1955 - Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white man and was arrested for violating Montgomery, Alabama's racial segregation laws.
• 1990 - Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France met 40 metres beneath the English Channel seabed, establishing the first ground connection between the island of Great Britain and the mainland of Europe since the last ice age.

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• 1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned as Emperor of the French at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
• 1915 - Albert Einstein published the general theory of relativity.
• 1942 - Led by Enrico Fermi, a Manhattan Project team at the University of Chicago initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
• 1961 - Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was going to adopt Communism.

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• 1901 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt delivered a speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits."
• 1904 - The Jovian moon Himalia was discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at Lick Observatory in San Jose, California.
• 1937 - Issue 1 of The Dandy, the world's longest running comic, went on sale.
• 1967 - A team headed by Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, performed the first heart transplant on a human, operating on 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky.
• 1984 - The Bhopal gas disaster, the world's worst industrial accident, resulted in at least 18,000 deaths in the Indian city of Bhopal.

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• 1674 - Father Jacques Marquette founded a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan to minister to the Illinois Indians (the mission later grew into Chicago, Illinois).
• 1829 - Unaware of the depth of Indian opposition and with popular British support, British Lord William Bentinck carried a regulation declaring that all who abetted suttee in India were guilty of culpable homicide.
• 1952 - Great Smog of 1952: A "killer fog" descended on London ("Smog" for "smoke" and "fog" became a word).
• 1991 - Pan Am Airways ended operations.

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• 1492 - Christopher Columbus became the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic).
• 1560 - Francis II of France died and was succeeded by Charles IX of France.
• 1848 - California Gold Rush: In a message before Congress, U.S. President James K. Polk confirms that large amounts of gold had been discovered in northern California.
• 1979 - Sonia Johnson was formally excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for her outspoken criticism of the church concerning the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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Ad for Encyclopædia Britannica from National Geographic, 1913

• 1768 - The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published.
• 1922 - The Irish Free State came into existence, one year after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
• 1957 - The Project Vanguard attempt to launch the United States's first satellite was thwarted by a launchpad explosion.
• 1989 - Marc Lépine killed 14 women in the École Polytechnique Massacre in Montreal, leading to Canadian gun control laws.
• 1992 - The Babri Mosque in Ayodhya was destroyed by members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and associated groups, believing it was built on the birthplace of Rama.

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• 1732 - The Royal Opera House opened at Covent Garden, London.
• 1787 - Delaware became the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.
• 1941 - The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor provoked the United States to become a combatant in World War II.
• 1965 - Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras simultaneously lifted mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054
• 1972 - Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, was launched.

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• 1854 - Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin.
• 1980 - Mark David Chapman murdered former Beatle John Lennon.
• 1991 - Leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine met to dissolve the Soviet Union and establish the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
• 1993 - The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law by U.S. President Bill Clinton.

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• 1897 - Marguerite Durand, a French stage actress, journalist, and a leading suffragette, founded the feminist daily newspaper, La Fronde.
• 1958 - The John Birch Society was founded to fight the perceived threat of Communism in the United States.
• 1960 - Coronation Street was first screened on ITV in the United Kingdom.
• 1990 - Lech Wałęsa won the presidential election to become the first directly elected President of Poland.

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• 1868 - The first traffic lights were installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London.
• 1901 - The first Nobel Prizes were awarded, on the anniversary of the 1896 death of their creator, Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel.
• 1936 - Edward VIII, the only British monarch to have voluntarily relinquished the throne, signed his instrument of abdication.
• 1948 - The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• 1965 - The Grateful Dead played their first concert at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

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Map of Chechnya

• 1282 - Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last independent Prince of Wales, was killed in an ambush near Builth Wells.
• 1931 - The Statute of Westminster gave complete legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Irish Free State and Newfoundland.
• 1994 - Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troops into Chechnya
• 2001 - The People's Republic of China joined the World Trade Organization

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• 1531 - The Apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe: Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin saw the Virgin Mary outside of modern-day Mexico City.
• 1901 - Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, from Poldhu Wireless Station in Cornwall, England to St. John's, Newfoundland.
• 1915 - President Yuan Shikai of the Republic of China reinstated monarchy and declared himself emperor.
• 2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its 5-4 decision in Bush v. Gore, ordering that the Florida Recount of the ballots in the 2000 presidential election stop.

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• 1545 - The Council of Trent, one of the most important ecumenical councils of the Roman Catholic Church, opened in Trento, Italy.
• 1937 - Nanjing Massacre: The Imperial Japanese Army began several months of looting, raping and killing in Nanjing, China.
• 1996 - Kofi Annan was selected as Secretary-General of the United Nations.
• 2003 - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured near his home town of Tikrit during Operation Red Dawn.

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• 1896 - Glasgow Subway, the third oldest metro system in the world, began operations in Glasgow, Scotland.
• 1911 - Roald Amundsen and his team became the first people to reach the South Pole.
• 1918 - King Väinö I of Finland renounced the throne after the defeat of Imperial Germany in World War I.
• 1989 - Chile held its first free election in 16 years, and elected Patricio Aylwin as the new President of the Republic.
• 1995 - The Dayton Agreement was signed in Paris, France to end the Yugoslav wars.

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• 533 - Forces led by Belisarius defeated Gelimer and the Vandals at the Battle of Ticameron, completing the "Reconquest of North Africa" under Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.
• 1791 - The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, collectively known as the United States Bill of Rights, were ratified.
• 1891 - James Naismith invented basketball.
• 1994 - Netscape Navigator 1.0 was first released.

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• 1653 - Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.
• 1773 - The Sons of Liberty attended the Boston Tea Party.
• 1944 - WW2: Nazi Germany launched its final offensive in the western front, the Battle of the Bulge.
• 1971 - The Indo-Pakistani War ended when Pakistani forces in East Pakistan surrendered, leading to the establishment of Bangladesh.
• 1989 - The Romanian Revolution began in the city of Timişoara, as a protest against an attempt by the government to evict a dissident Methodist priest, László Tőkés, escalated.

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• 1843 - A Christmas Carol, a fictional short story about Ebenezer Scrooge, was first published by Charles Dickens with much success.
• 1903 - Orville and Wilbur Wright conducted the first successful flight of a powered fixed-wing aircraft.
• 1944 - Malmédy massacre: Waffen-SS troops under Jochen Peiper shot at about 150 unarmed prisoners of war with machine guns near Malmedy, Belgium.
• 1989 - The Simpsons made their debut as an animated series on the Fox television network.

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• 218 BC - Hannibal had his first great victory over the Roman Republic at the Battle of the Trebia.
• 1352 - Innocent VI was elected Pope, succeeding Clement VI.
• 1865 - Slavery in the United States was abolished when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted.
• 1961 - Indonesia invaded the Dutch East Indies to annex West Papua on New Guinea.
• 1987 - Programming language Perl was released by Larry Wall.

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• 1961 - The Indian Army invaded the Portuguese colony of Goa.
• 1974 - An early personal computer, the Altair 8800, went on sale.
• 1984 - The Peoples Republic of China and the United Kingdom signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, agreeing to transfer sovereignty of Hong Kong to the PRC in 1997.
• 1998 - The U.S. House of Representatives passed articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.

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• 1803 - As part of the Louisiana Purchase, New Orleans was transferred from France to the United States.
• 1860 - South Carolina seceded from the United States, leading to the American Civil War.
• 1917 - Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky founded the Cheka, the first Soviet secret police.
• 1995 - NATO began peacekeeping in Bosnia.
• 1999 - Portugal transferred sovereignty of Macau to the People's Republic of China.

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• 69 - Vespasian became the fourth Roman Emperor in the Year of the four emperors, and first of the Flavian dynasty.
• 1913 - Arthur Wynne published the first crossword puzzle in the New York World.
• 1958 - Charles de Gaulle was elected as the first President of the Fifth Republic of France.
• 1968 - Apollo 8 launched on what would be the first manned flight to orbit the Moon
• 1988 - Pan Am Flight 103: A terrorist bomb exploded and destroyed a Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270, including 11 on the ground.

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• 1864 - In the American Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea ended with the capture of Savannah, Georgia.
• 1885 - Ito Hirobumi, a samurai from Choshu, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.
• 1989 - Romanian Revolution: After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu took over as President of Romania, ending the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceauşescu .
• 2001 - Burhanuddin Rabbani of the Northern Alliance handed over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by Hamid Karzai.
• 2001 - Cc the cat, the first cloned pet, was born.

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• 1823 - A Visit From St. Nicholas, attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, was first published.
• 1947 - The transistor, invented by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley, was first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
• 1954 - The first successful human organ transplant: Drs. Joseph Murray and J. Hartwell Harrison transplanted a kidney to a patient from his twin brother.
• 1972 - Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris made the Immaculate Reception of the football passed "to" him by quarterback Terry Bradshaw near the end of a playoff game.
• 1990 - The Republic of Slovenia voted to secede from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

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• 1777 - Christmas Island, the oldest atoll in the world, was discovered by Captain James Cook.
• 1865 - Confederate veterans founded the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group.
• 1906 - Reginald Fessenden transmitted the first radio broadcast ever.
• 1914 - British and German soldiers interrupted World War I to celebrate Christmas, beginning the Christmas truce.
• 1974 - Cyclone Tracy destroyed most of Darwin, Australia.

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• 800 - Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, a title that had been out of use in the West since the abdication of Romulus Augustulus in 476.
• 1818 - "Silent Night", a Christmas carol by Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber, was first performed in a church in Austria.
• 1868 - The Republic of Ezo was founded in Hokkaido by rebels loyal to the deposed Tokugawa shogunate. In the first elections ever held in Japan, they elected Admiral Enomoto Takeaki as their President.
• 1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union.

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Marie Curie

• 1790 - French Revolution: Louis XVI of France gave his royal assent to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
• 1898 - Pierre and Marie Curie announced the discovery of a new element, later to be named radium.
• 1966 - The first Kwanzaa was celebrated by Maulana Karenga, a professor at CSU Long Beach
• 1991 - The Supreme Soviet officially dissolved itself and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
• 2004 - An earthquake in the Indian Ocean generated a tsunami that killed upwards of 200,000 people, mostly in Indonesia.

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• 1831 - Aboard HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin left Plymouth, England on what became an historic expedition to South America.
• 1904 - Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a stage play by J. M. Barrie, premiered in London.
• 1918 - A public speech by famed Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski in Poznań sparked the Greater Poland Uprising against Germany.
• 1945 - The World Bank came into existence following international ratification of the Bretton Woods Agreement.
• 1949 - Queen Juliana of the Netherlands signed the papers that relinquished sovereignty of most of Dutch East Indies, now known as Indonesia.

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• 1065 - The Westminster Abbey, built by Edward the Confessor between 1045 and 1050, was consecrated.
• 1835 - Osceola led his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the U.S. Army.
• 1879 - The Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapsed as a train passed over it, killing all on board.
• 1895 - History of cinema: Using their cinematographe, the Lumière brothers showed motion pictures to a paying audience for the first time.
• 1999 - Saparmurat Niyazov was proclaimed President for Life in Turkmenistan.

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• 1170 - Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket was slain in his own cathedral on orders from Henry II of England.
• 1845 - The Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States, becoming the state of Texas.
• 1890 - The United States Army killed over 400 members of the Great Sioux Nation at the Wounded Knee Massacre.
• 1911 - Sun Yat-sen was elected the first President of the Republic of China.
• 1937 - The Irish Free State was replaced by a new state called Ireland when a new constitution was adopted.

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• 1853 - Gadsden Purchase: The United States bought 30,000 square miles of land south of the Gila River and west of the Rio Grande from Mexico for 10 million U.S. dollars.
• 1880 - Paul Kruger became the President of the Transvaal Republic.
• 1927 - The Ginza Line, the oldest subway line in Asia, opened in Tokyo, Japan.
• 1947 - King Michael was forced to abdicate as Romania became a People's Republic.
• 1965 - Ferdinand Marcos became President of the Philippines.

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