Events
406
– Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine,
beginning an invasion of Gaul.
535 – Byzantine General Belisarius completes the
conquest of Sicily, defeating the Ostrogothic
garrison of Syracuse, and ending his consulship
for the year.
1225 – The Lý Dynasty of Vietnam ends after 216
years by the enthronement of the boy emperor Tran
Thai Tong, husband of the last Ly monarch, Ly
Chieu Hoang, starting the Trần Dynasty.
1229 – James I of Aragon the Conqueror enters
Medina Mayurqa (now known as Palma, Spain) thus
consummating the Christian reconquest of the island
of Majorca.
1600 – The British East India Company is chartered.
1660 – James II of England is named Duke of Normandy
by Louis XIV of France.
1687 – The first Huguenots set sail from France
to the Cape of Good Hope.
1695 – A window tax is imposed in England, causing
many householders to brick up windows to avoid
the tax.
1759 – Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease
at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Quebec:
British forces repulse an attack by Continental
Army General Richard Montgomery.
1790 – Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of
which issues have survived till today is published
for the first time.
1831 – Gramercy Park is deeded to New York City.
1853 – A dinner party is held inside a life-size
model of an Iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse
Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London,
England
1857 – Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small
logging town, as the capital of Canada.
1862 – American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs
an act that admits West Virginia to the Union,
thus dividing Virginia in two.
1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Stones
River begins near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
1878 – Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany,
filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke
gas engine, and he was granted the patent for
it in 1879.
1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent
lighting to the public for the first time, in
Menlo Park, New Jersey.
1906 – Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar signs the Persian
Constitution of 1906.
1907 – The first New Year's Eve celebration is
held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square)
in New York, New York.
1909 – Manhattan Bridge opens.
1923 – The chimes of Big Ben are broadcast on
radio for the first time by the BBC.
1944 – World War II: Hungary declares war on Nazi
Germany.
1946 – President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims
the end of hostilities in World War II.
1951 – The Marshall Plan expires after distributing
more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild
Europe.
1955 – The General Motors Corporation becomes
the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion
in a year.
1960 – The farthing coin ceases to be legal tender
in the United Kingdom.
1961 – RTÉ, Ireland's state broadcaster, launches
its first national television service.
1963 – The Central African Federation officially
collapses and splits into Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.
1965 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central
African Republic army, and his military officers
begins a coup d'état against the government of
President David Dacko.
1967 – The Youth International Party, popularly
known as the "Yippies", is founded.
1981 – A coup d'état in Ghana removes President
Hilla Limann's PNP government and replaces it
with the Provisional National Defence Council
led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.
1983 – The AT&T Bell System is broken up by
the United States Government.
1983 – In Nigeria a coup d'état led by Major General
Muhammadu Buhari ends the Nigerian Second Republic.
1986 – A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San
Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 and injures 140.
1991 – All official Soviet Union institutions
have ceased operations by this date and the Soviet
Union is officially dissolved.
1992 – Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved
in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce,
resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic
and Slovakia.
1994 – This date is skipped altogether in Kiribati
as the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands change
time zones from UTC−11:00 to UTC+13:00 and UTC-10:00
to UTC+14:00, respectively.
1994 – The First Chechen War: Russian army began
a New Year's storm of Grozny
1998– The European Exchange Rate Mechanism freezes
the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone,
and establishes the value of the euro currency.
1999 – Boris Yeltsin, the first president of Russia,
resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.
1999 – Five hijackers, who had been holding 155
hostages on an Indian Airlines plane, leave the
plane with two Islamic clerics that they had demanded
be freed.
1999 – The United States Government hands control
of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent
land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone)
to Panama. This act complied with the signing
of the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties.
2004 – The official opening of Taipei 101, the
tallest skyscraper at that time in the world,
standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft).
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Pope Sylvester I (Roman Catholic Church)
International Solidarity Day (Azerbaijan)
New Year's Eve (International observances), and
its related observances:
Last Day of the Year or Bisperás ng Bagong Taón,
special holiday between Rizal Day and New Year's
Day (The Philippines)
The first day of Hogmanay or "Auld Year’s
Night" (Scotland)
The seventh day of Christmas (Western Christianity)
For details, contact Datacentre
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