Saturday, December 31

New Year's Eve (Gregorian calendar)

• 1695 – A window tax is imposed in England, causing many householders to brick up windows to avoid the tax.
• 1759 – Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum to the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin and began brewing Guinness.
  

Friday, December 30

• 1924 – Astronomer Edwin Hubble announced that Andromeda, previously believed to be a nebula, is actually another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe.
• 1947 – Michael, King of Romania, was forced to abdicate by the country's communist government.
  

Thursday, December 29

• 1835 – The United States signed the Treaty of New Echota with leaders of a minority Cherokee faction, which became the legal basis for the forcible removal known as the Trail of Tears.
• 1937 – The Constitution of Ireland, the founding legal document of the state known today as the Republic of Ireland, came into force.
• 2011 – Samoa and Tokelau are set to skip a day and jump to the other side of the international dateline on 29 December to align with trade partners Australia and New Zealand.
  

Wednesday, December 28

• 1867 – United States claims Midway Atoll, the first territory annexed outside Continental limits.
• 1879 – The Tay Bridge Disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses as a train passes over it, killing 75.

Tuesday, December 27

• 1947 – Heavy snow blanketed the Northeast USA. Burying New York City under 25.8 inches of snow in 16 hours.
• 1978 – The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in the South Pole recorded temperatures of 7.5F (−13.6C), making it the highest temperature to ever be recorded in the South Pole.
  

Monday, December 26

• 1135 – Coronation of King Stephen of England.
• 2004 – Thousands die in Asian tsunami.
  

Sunday, December 25

Christmas Day

• 1066 – William the Conqueror is crowned king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London.
• 1643 – Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean was found and named by Captain William Mynors of the East India Company vessel, the Royal Mary.
• 1950 – The Stone of Scone, the traditional coronation stone of Scottish, English, and more recently British monarchs, was stolen from London's Westminster Abbey.

Saturday, December 24

• 1818 – The first performance of "Silent Night" takes place in the church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria.
• 1955 – NORAD Tracks Santa for the first time in what will become an annual Christmas Eve tradition.
  

Friday, December 23

• 1823 – A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, is published anonymously.
• 1834 – Architect Joseph Aloysius Hansom patented his Patent Safety Cab on this day. The 2-wheeled, horse-driven vehicle with the driver seated above and behind the passengers, known as the hansom cab.
• 1986 – Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, the Rutan Voyager became the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, landing in California's Edwards Air Force Base after a nine-day trip.
  

Thursday, December 22

December Solstice (05:30 UTC, 2011)

• 1974 – Grande Comore, Anjouan and Mohéli voted to become the independent nation of the Comoros.
• 1989 – The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin has been opened for the first time in almost three decades. Thousands of German people flooded through from either side of the city.

Wednesday, December 21

• 1620 – The Mayflower Pilgrims landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, establishing the Plymouth Colony.
• 1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length cel-animated feature in film history, premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles.
  

Tuesday, December 20

• 1981 – A desperate search took place for eight members of RNLI Penlee life boat crew missing off the Cornish coast. The rescue attempt was taking place in winds coming from the south east at hurricane force 12, gusting to 90 knots and the sea reaching 60ft high. The crews of the lifeboat and the ship in distress were lost and some bodies were never recovered.
• 1999 – Portugal transferred sovereignty of Macau to China.
  

Monday, December 19

• 1843 – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, a novella about the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his conversion after being visited by three Christmas ghosts, was first published.
• 1932 - The British Broadcasting Corporation began transmitting overseas with its "Empire Service" to Australia.
  

Saturday, December 17

• 1862 – American Civil War: Union General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
• 1918 – About 1,000 demonstrators marched on Government House in Darwin, Australia, where they burnt an effigy of Administrator John Gilruth and demanded his resignation.
• 1970 – Soldiers fired at workers emerging from trains in Gdynia, Poland, beginning the government's brutal crackdown on mass anti-communist protests across the country.
  

Friday, December 16

• 1707 – The last recorded eruption of Japan's Mount Fuji.
• 1811 – The first two in a series of four severe earthquakes struck the Midwestern United States and made the Mississippi River appear to run backward.
• 1977 – The Queen unveils the new underground link from central London to Heathrow - the first from a capital city to its major airport.
  

Thursday, December 15

• 1944 – Bandleader Glenn Miller's U.S. Army plane disappeared over the English Channel while en route to Paris.
• 1982 – Gibraltar's frontier with Spain was opened to pedestrian use after 13 years.
• 2005 – The F-22 Raptor, a stealth fighter aircraft that the United States Air Force claimed is unmatched by any known or projected fighter, entered into service despite a protracted and costly development period.

Glenn Miller's music lives on. I have quite a few CDs with his music.

Wednesday, December 14

• 557 – A large earthquake severely damaged the city of Constantinople.
• 1782 – In Avignon, France, the Montgolfier brothers conducted their first test of their hot air balloon.
• 2009 – The Tino Rangatiratanga flag representing the Maori people was officially recognized by the government of New Zealand.
  

Tuesday, December 13

• 1643 – First English Civil War: Parliamentary forces serving under Sir William Waller led a successful surprise attack on a winter garrison of Royalist infantry and cavalry.
• 1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese forces captured Nanjing in China and then began to commit numerous atrocities over the next several weeks.
• 1981 – Polish Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law, suspended Solidarity and imprisoned many union leaders.

Drive safely?

Police officer takes wrong turn and drives car up utility pole.
Makes me wonder about the safety of other road users if there are pole support wires on the roadside.
Video:

Monday, December 12

• 1915 – President Yuan Shikai of the Republic of China reinstated the monarchy and declared himself Emperor.
• 1918 – The Flag of Estonia was raised for the first time atop the Pikk Hermann in Tallinn.
• 1988 – Up to 35 people die and 100 others are injured after three trains are involved in a collision during morning rush hour in south London.
  

Sunday, December 11

• 1886 – The London-based football club Arsenal, then known as Dial Square, played their first match on the Isle of Dogs.
• 1907 – The New Zealand Parliament Buildings are almost completely destroyed by fire
• 2005 – A demonstration by Australians in Cronulla, New South Wales, against recent violence towards locals turned into a race riot.
  

Saturday, December 10

• 1799 – France became the first country to adopt the metric system as its system for weights and measures.
• 1884 – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American author Mark Twain was first published in the United Kingdom and Canada.
• 1911 – Calbraith Rodgers completed the first transcontinental flight across the United States.

Friday, December 9

• 1793 – New York City's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster.
• 1952 – The sunshine returns to London following four days of thick fog that brought the capital to a standstill.
• 1968 – The NLS, a computer collaboration system that was the first to employ the practical use of hypertext, the computer mouse, and other modern computing concepts, was publicly demonstrated for the first time in San Francisco.

Noah Webster was also responsible for a dictionary compilation.

Thursday, December 8

• 1912 – Leaders of the German Empire held an Imperial War Council to discuss the possibility that war might break out.
• 1991 – Leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine signed the Belavezha Accords, agreeing to dissolve the Soviet Union and establish the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Tuesday, December 6

• 1921 – The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed and then came into force exactly one year later, establishing the Irish Free State, the first independent Irish state to be recognised by the British government.
• 1983 – The first heart and lung transplant operation to be performed in Britain was successfully carried out today, at the specialist heart unit, Harefield Hospital, in north London,

Monday, December 5

St Nicholas's Eve in various European countries

• 1484 – Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, giving Dominican Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
• 1945 – Flight 19, a squadron of five U.S. naval TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, disappeared in the area now known as the Bermuda Triangle.
• 1952 – The "Great Smog" began in London and lasted for five days, causing 12,000 deaths and leading to the Clean Air Act 1956.

Sunday, December 4

• 1639 – English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks made the first observation of a transit of Venus.
• 1791 – The first edition of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published.
• 1872 – Crew from the Dei Gratia, a small British brig spot the Mary Celeste, at full sail near the Azores Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was seaworthy, its stores and supplies were untouched, but not a soul was onboard.
  

Saturday, December 3

• 1854 – Eureka Stockade: In what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 gold miners at Ballarat, Victoria, Australia are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences.
• 1967 – At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carries out the first heart transplant on a human (53-year-old Louis Washkansky).
  

Friday, December 2

• 1804 – Napoleon was crowned emperor of France.
• 1943 – World War II: The Luftwaffe conducted a surprise air raid on Allied ships in Bari, Italy, sinking 18 ships and releasing one ship's secret cargo of mustard gas.
• 1999 – The United Kingdom devolved political power in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive.

Thursday, December 1

• 1913 – Ford Motor Company began operating the world's first moving assembly line for the mass production of automobiles.
• 1955 – In a key event in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• 1990 - British and French workers digging the Channel Tunnel finally met under the English Channel.