Independence
day
Tanzania
UN
Day
International
Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims
of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention
of this Crime
International
Anti-Corruption Day
Events
of the day
480 – Odoacer, first Germanic
king of Italy, occupies Dalmatia and establishes
his political power with the co-operation of the
Roman Senate.
730 – Battle of Marj Ardabil: the Khazars annihilate
an Umayyad army and kill its commander, al-Djarrah
ibn Abdullah.
1425 – The Catholic University of Leuven is founded.
1531 – The Virgin of Guadalupe first appears to
Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico City.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: British troops
lose the Battle of Great Bridge, and leave Virginia
soon afterward.
1793 – New York City's first daily newspaper,
the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster.
1824 – Patriot forces led by General Antonio José
de Sucre defeat a Royalist army in the Battle
of Ayacucho, putting an end to the Peruvian War
of Independence.
1835 – The Texian Army captures San Antonio, Texas.
1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established
in Montreal, Quebec.
1856 – The Iranian city of Bushehr surrenders
to occupying British forces.
1861 – American Civil War: The Joint Committee
on the Conduct of the War is established by the
U.S. Congress.
1872 – In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes
the first serving African-American governor of
a U.S. state.
1875 – The Massachusetts Rifle Association, "America's
Oldest Active Gun Club", is founded.
1888 – Statistician Herman Hollerith installs
his computing device at the United States War
Department.
1897 – Activist Marguerite Durand founds the feminist
daily newspaper, La Fronde, in Paris.
1905 – In France, the law separating church and
state is passed.
1911 – A mine explosion near Briceville, Tennessee,
kills 84 miners in spite of rescue efforts led
by the United States Bureau of Mines.
1917 – World War I: In Palestine, Field Marshal
Edmund Allenby captures Jerusalem.
1922 – Gabriel Narutowicz is announced the first
president of Poland.
1931 – The Constituent Cortes approves the constitution
which establishes the Second Spanish Republic.
1935 – Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor
and muckraker, is killed in gangland murder.
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanjing
– Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen.
Asaka Yasuhiko launch an assault on the Chinese
city of Nanjing.
1940 – World War II: Operation Compass – British
and Indian troops under the command of Major-General
Richard O'Connor attack Italian forces near Sidi
Barrani in Egypt.
1941 – World War II: The Republic of China, Cuba,
Guatemala, the Republic of Korea, and the Philippine
Commonwealth, declare war on Germany and Japan.
1941 – World War II: The 19th Bombardment Group
attacks Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan,
Luzon.
1946 – The "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials"
begin with the "Doctors' Trial", prosecuting
doctors alleged to be involved in human experimentation.
1946 – The Constituent Assembly of India meets
for the first time to write the Constitution of
India.
1950 – Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in
jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information
about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union.
His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution
of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
1953 – Red Scare: General Electric announces that
all communist employees will be discharged from
the company.
1956 – Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, a Canadair
North Star, crashes near Hope, British Columbia,
Canada, killing all 62 people on board.
1958 – The John Birch Society is founded in the
United States.
1960 – The first episode of the world's longest-running
television soap opera Coronation Street is broadcast
in the United Kingdom.
1961 – The trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Israel
ends with verdicts of guilty on 15 criminal charges,
including charges of crimes against humanity,
crimes against the Jewish people and membership
of an outlawed organization.
1961 – Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain.
1962 – The Petrified Forest National Park is established
in Arizona.
1965 – The Kecksburg UFO incident: a fireball
is seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; witnesses
report something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh.
In 2005 NASA admits that it examined the object.
1966 – Barbados joins the United Nations.
1968 – NLS (a system for which hypertext and the
computer mouse were developed) is publicly demonstrated
for the first time in San Francisco.
1969 – United States Secretary of State William
P. Rogers proposes his plan for a ceasefire in
the War of Attrition; Egypt and Jordan accept
it over the objections of the PLO, which leads
to civil war in Jordan in September 1970.
1971 – The United Arab Emirates join the United
Nations.
1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Air Force
executes an airdrop of Indian Army units, bypassing
Pakistani defences.
1973 – British and Irish authorities sign the
Sunningdale Agreement in an attempt to establish
a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and
a cross-border Council of Ireland.
1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is
certified, making smallpox the first and to date
only human disease driven to extinction.
1981 – Philadelphia Police Department officer
Daniel Faulkner is killed during a routine traffic
stop; Mumia Abu-Jamal is later convicted for it
and he goes on to become "perhaps the world's
best known death-row inmate" before his sentence
is commuted to life without parole in December
2011.
1987 – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The First
Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
1988 – The Michael Hughes Bridge in Sligo, Ireland
is officially opened.
2000 – The Supreme Court of the United States
stays the sixth Florida recount.
2003 – A blast in the center of Moscow kills six
people and wounds several more.
2008 – The Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich,
is arrested by federal officials for a number
of crimes including attempting to sell the United
States Senate seat being vacated by President-elect
Barack Obama's election to the Presidency.
2009 – The Norwegian spiral anomaly appears in
the sky over Norway.
Holidays
and observances
Anna's
Day, marks the day to start the preparation process
of the lutefisk to be consumed on Christmas Eve,
as well as a Swedish name day, celebrating all
people named Anna. (Sweden and Finland)
Christian Feast Day:
Feast of the Conception of the Most Holy Theotokos
by St. Anne (Orthodox Church)
Juan Diego
Leocadia
Nectarius of Auvergne
Peter Fourier
December 9 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Independence Day, celebrate the independence of
Tanganyika from Britain in 1961. (Tanzania)
International Anti-Corruption Day (International)
National Heroes Day, formerly V.C. Bird Day. (Antigua
and Barbuda)
Yuri's Day in the Autumn (Russian Orthodox Church)
For details, contact Datacentre