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 Mongolia and China.
1642 – Abel Tasman becomes first European to
land in New Zealand.
1777 – The United States celebrates its first
Thanksgiving, marking the recent victory by
the Americans over General John Burgoyne in
the Battle of Saratoga in October.
1787 – New Jersey becomes the third state to
ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1793 – Surrender of the frigate La Lutine by
French Royalists to Lord Hood; renamed HMS Lutine,
she later becomes a famous treasure wreck.
1878 – John Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires
is executed in Pennsylvania.
1878 – The Al-Thani family become the rulers
of the state of Qatar
1888 – Richard Wetherill and his brother in-law
discover the ancient Indian ruins of Cliff Palace
in Mesa Verde.
1892 – premiere performance of The Nutcracker
Ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in St. Petersburg.
1898 – Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat sets the
first officially recognized land speed record
of 39.245 mph (63.159 km/h) in a Jeantaud electric
car.
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
is opened for traffic.
1912 – The Piltdown Man, later discovered to
be a hoax, is announced by Charles Dawson.
1916 – World War I: The Battle of Verdun ends
when German forces under Chief of Staff Erich
Von Falkenhayn are defeated by the French, and
suffer 337,000 casualties.
1917 – The resolution containing the language
of the Eighteenth Amendment to enact Prohibition
is passed by the United States Congress.
1932 – The Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth
Spartans 9-0 in the first ever NFL Championship
Game. Because of a blizzard, the game is moved
from Wrigley Field to the Chicago Stadium, the
field measuring 80 yards (73 m) long.
1935 – The Lanka Sama Samaja Party is founded
in Ceylon.
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.
1956 – Japan joins the United Nations.
1958 – Project SCORE, the world's first communications
satellite, is launched.
1966 – Saturn's moon Epimetheus is discovered
by Richard L. Walker.
1969 – Capital punishment in the United Kingdom:
Home Secretary James Callaghan's motion to make
permanent the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty)
Act 1965, which had temporarily suspended capital
punishment in England, Wales and Scotland for
murder (but not for all crimes) for a period
of five years.
1971 – Capitol Reef National Park is established
in Utah.
1972 – Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon
announces that the United States will engage
North Vietnam in Operation Linebacker II, a
series of Christmas bombings, after peace talks
collapsed with North Vietnam on the 13th.
1973 – Soviet Soyuz Programme: Soyuz 13, crewed
by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk,
is launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.
1973 – The Islamic Development Bank is founded.
1978 – Dominica joins the United Nations.
1987 – Larry Wall releases the first version
of the Perl programming language.
1989 – The European Community and the Soviet
Union sign an agreement on trade and commercial
and economic cooperation.
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.
2002 – 2003 California recall: Then 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.
2005 – The civil war in Chad begins when rebel
groups, allegedly backed by neighbouring Sudan,
launch an attack in Adré.
2006 – The first of a series of floods strikes
Malaysia. The death toll of all flooding is
at least 118, with over 400,000 people displaced.
2006 – United Arab Emirates holds its first-ever
elections.
2010 – Governmental protests begin in Tunisia,
beginning the 2010-2011 Middle East and North
Africa protests
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Flannan
Gatianus of Tours
O Adonai
Our Lady of Expectation
Sebastian (Eastern Orthodox)
Winibald
December 18 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Eponalia, feast of Epona, celebrated during
Saturnalia. (Roman Empire)
International Migrants Day (International)
National Day (Qatar)
New Jersey Day (New Jersey)
Republic Day (Niger)
For details, contact Datacentre
|