BC 406, December 31
Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul.

1066, December 25
William the Conqueror was formally crowned William I, King of England.

1135, December 1
Henry, Beauclerc (King Henry I), 3rd son of William the Conqueror, dies while at war with his son-in-law, Geoffrey of Anjou. Henry had attained the throne by imprisoning his brother Robert and killing his other brother, William Rufus.

1135, December 22
Stephen, 1st cousin of Empress Matilda, grandson of William the Conqueror and nephew of Henry I, is crowned king by the citizens of London.

1154, December 19
Henry, son of Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou and Maine, accedes to the throne as King Henry II of England.

1167, December 24
King John, Lackland is born, the 4th child, without land.

1170, December 29
King Henry II orders the murder of an old personal friend, Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury. [Beckett was slain in his own catheral.]

1223, December 25
St. Francis of Assisi assembled one of the first Nativity scenes, in Greccio, Italy.

1421, December 6
King Henry VI is born to Henry V and Catherine of Valois. Herny VI became king at age 1 when his father died the following year. The Wars of the Roses began in full during his reign.

1460, December 30
Wars of the Roses: The Duke of York is defeated at the Battle of Wakefield.

1506, December
Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian political philosopher, submits a plan to Pierre Soderini for reorganizing the military.

1524, December 24
Died, in Cochin, India: Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama who had discovered a sea route around Africa to India.

1577, December 13
Sir Francis Drake departs Plymouth, England, with five ships on his most famous voyage: A three-year journey that would take him around the world.

1606, December 19
John Smith and the pilgrims leave Blackwall, England, to settle Jamestown. Smith makes notes that later appear in, Starving Time in Virginia.

1608, December 9
Born: English poet John Milton, in London.

1620, December 21, 26
After exploring the tip of Cape Cod, the pilgrims of the Mayflower finally come ashore at Plymouth, Massachusetts.

1642, December 13
Dutch navigator Abel Tasman (discovered Van Diemen's Land, later Tasmania) arrived in present-day New Zealand.

1642, December 25
Born: Sir Isaac Newton, at Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire.

1653, December 16
Oliver Cromwell became lord protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.

1657, December 27
Edward Hart issues a Remonstrance of the Inhabitants of Flushing, N.Y. against bigotry toward Quakers.

1701, December 31
England's King William III addresses Parliament on The French Question.

1732, December 19
Benjamin Franklin began publishing "Poor Richard's Almanac."

1738, December 1
Henry St. John Bolingbroke pens "The Idea of a Patroit King."

1738, December 31
Charles Cornwallis, the general who surrendered to George Washington to end the Revolutionary War, was born in London.

1769, December
Daniel Boone and his party of four are attacked by Indians in Kentucky. Boone is captured. He escapes to find his camp destroyed and his companions gone home. Boone stayed.

1770, December 16
Born: composer Ludwig van Beethoven, in Bonn, Germany.

1773, December 16
342 chests of tea go into the drink as rebels hold a Boston Tea Party.

1774, December
Isaac Backus delivers A Plea For Religious Freedom to the Mass. Legislature.

1775, December
Virginians defeat British forces in the battle of Great Bridge.

1775, December 7
John Paul Jones is commission as a lieutenant in the Continental Navy.

1775, December 22
A Continental naval fleet was formally organized.

1775, December 31
American Revolution: Gen. Richard Montgomery, after marching from Montreal to reinforce Col. Benedict Arnold's siege of Quebec, was killed during a snowstorm. Spearheading a charge into the city, Capt. Daniel Morgan and his riflemen were captured. (Morgan and his men were later released in a prisoner exchange).

1776, December 5
The first scholastic fraternity in America, Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA.

1776, December 7-8
George Washington's retreating army in the American Revolution crossed the Delaware River from New Jersey into Pennsylvania to elude Gen. Cornwallis.

1776, December 19
Thomas Paine began publishing the "The American Crisis" series of pamphlets, the first of which contained: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country… Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered." [His observations are still true today, as we have seen since 9.11.01]

1776, December 25-26, 28
-- Dec. 25-26: Gen. George Washington led a force across the Delaware River and in a surprise dawn attack captured 1,000 Hessians at Trenton, New Jersey.
-- Dec. 28: Washington writes a letter to Gen. McDougall and tells about the victory at Trenton… Promises to gain release of McDougall's son who had been captured in Canada.

1777, December 17
France formally recognized American independence.

1777, December 19
During the American Revolution, Washington makes camp at Valley Forge with about 11,000 men following the Oct. Battle of Germantown

1778, December
John Jay is elected President of the Second Continental Congress.

1779, December
In a court-martial, Benedict Arnold is found guilty of two minor financial offenses and reprimanded by Gen. George Washington.

1780, December 2
In the Revolutionary War, American Gen. Nathanael Greene takes command of forces in the South at Charlotte, N.C., after British Gen. Charles Cornwallis had nearly destroyed the army of Gen. Horatio Gates at Camden, S.C., in August.

1780, December 14
Alexander Hamilton weds Elizabeth Schuyler, daughter of Gen. Philip Schuyler, one of the many heroes in the Battle of Saratoga.

1781, December 15
Benedict Arnold sails for England (escapes) after having turned traitor, deserted, and then fought for the British.

1782, December 5
Martin Van Buren, the 8th president, is born in Kinderhook, New York, becoming the first native born U.S. president.

1782, December 19
Thomas Jefferson departs Monticello for France to enter peace talks with the British. Arriving in Philadelphia on the 27th, he is delayed two months by ice in the harbor at Baltimore. While he is waiting, a provisional treaty is reached in France, so he returned home, arriving May 15, 1783. [Nowadays, folks honk car horns to save one second!]

1783, December 4
Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York City.

1783, December 13
Thomas Jefferson takes seat with Congress in Annapolis after two months of trying to get a quorum: Jefferson left home Oct. 16; arrived in Trenton Nov. 3; Congress met and adjourned for lack of a quorum Nov. 4; planned to meet in Annapolis Nov. 26; got it together Dec. 13th… but only seven states!

1783, December 23
The Congress (in Annapolis) writes governors of absent states that it does not have a quorum and needs delegates to ratify the Treaty of Paris, to formally achieve independence. Finally, on Jan. 14, 1784, Connecticut and S. Carolina arrive and the Treaty is ratified before the deadline. Copies are immediately dispatched to the British delegation in Paris in three separate pouches. Gen. Josiah Harmar is honored as one of the couriers.

1783, December 23
George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Army and returned to his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia.

1787, December 7
Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution.

1787, December 12
Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the Constitution.

1787, December 18
New Jersey became the third state to ratify the Constitution.

1787, December 23
The H.M.S. Bounty departed Spithead, England, on its ill-fated voyage to Tahiti.

1789, December 15, 23
Dec. 15: Thomas Jefferson, back from France, informs President Washington by letter that he would like to decline the office of Secretary of State; leaves final decision to the President. Dec. 23: Jefferson arrives at Monticello and finds Washington's letter imploring him to take the new job.

1790, December 6
Congress moved its meeting place from New York to Philadelphia.

1790, December 13
Alexander Hamilton submits his Second Report on the Public Credit to Congress.

1791, December 5
-- Alexander Hamilton submits his Report on Manufactures to Congress.
-- Died: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer, in poverty in Vienna at age 35, leaving more than 600 works.

1791, December 15
Virginia is the 11th state to ratify the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution, meeting the "¾'s of the states" requirement, and thus creating the Bill of Rights.

1792, December
William Pitt's government tries Thomas Paine for treason and outlaws him but he had escaped to France.

1792, December 5
George Washington was re-elected president; John Adams, re-elected v.p.

1792, December 15
Alexander Hamilton is confronted by James Monroe and other congressmen over the Reynolds Affair. -- [You gotta read it, but you'll never believe it... We're not making this stuff up!]

1793, December
Napoleon Bonaparte drives British ships from Toulon and is made a brigadier general at the age of 24.

1795, December 23
Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, commander-in-chief of the British Army in America during the American Revolution, dies in Gibraltar while serving as governor.

1796, December 7
Electors chose John Adams to be the second president of the United States.

1796, December 15
Beloved Gen. 'Mad' Anthony Wayne, American Revolution hero, favorite of Gen. Washington and commander of U.S. forces at Battle of Fallen Timbers, dies at Fort Presque Isle, Penn., at age 51.

1799, December 3
Kentucky passes the Kentucky Resolution declaring that states can challenge unconstitutional federal laws such as the Alien and Sedition Law.

1799, December 14
Died: George Washington, at Mount Vernon, Virginia, of quinsy (a throat infection). His wife, Martha Custis, promptly burns letters and papers to preserve family privacy.

1799, December 23, 26
-- Dec. 23: President John Adams delivers a message to the Senate on the death of George Washington.
-- Dec. 26: A close friend of Washington, Col. Henry "Light Horse" Harry Lee eulogized him with, "First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen; second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life."

1802, December 2
Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor in ceremonies at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

1803, December 20
The Louisiana Purchase was completed as ownership formally transferred from France to the U.S. during ceremonies in New Orleans.

1804, December 2
Napoleon was crowned emperor of France.

1804, December 21
Born: British statesman Benjamin Disraeli, in London.

1807, December 22
At the urging of President Jefferson, the Embargo Act was passed. Designed to force peace with France and England it prohibited trade with Europe but the idea backfired and nearly ruined American merchants.

1808, December 29
Andrew Johnson, the 17th president, is born in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1809, December 16
Napoleon Bonaparte was divorced from Empress Josephine by an act of the French Senate because she had not given him a son.

1812, December 26
British warships blockaded the Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.

1812, December 29
The USS Constitution defeats the British vessel, HMS Java, off the coast of Brazil.

1813, December 29
During the War of 1812, the British burned the city of Buffalo, NY.

1814, December 24
The Treaty of Ghent ends the War of 1812, but someone forgot to tell Andrew Jackson and he went on to defeat the British in the Battle of New Orleans in January, 1815.

1816, December 4
James Monroe of Virginia was elected the 5th president of the U.S.

1816, December 11
Indiana became the 19th state admitted to the United States.

1817, December 10
Mississippi became the 20th state admitted to the United States.

1818, December 3
Illinois became the 21st state admitted to the United States.

1818, December 25
"Silent Night" was performed for the first time, at the Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorff, Austria.

1819, December 14
Alabama became the 22nd state admitted to the United States.

1822, December 27
Scientist Louis Pasteur was born in Dole, France.

1823, December 2
The Monroe Doctrine is delivered to Congress by President James Monroe.

1823, December 23
The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (later, "The Night Before Christmas") by Clement C. Moore was published in the Troy Sentinel (N.Y.).

1824, December 1
The presidential election was turned over to the House of Representatives when John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay all failed to get a majority of Electoral votes. [The House could only consider the top three: Jackson, Adams and Clay. 3rd place Clay threw his support to 2nd place Adams to give J.Q. the win.]

1825, December 26
The full length (363 miles) of the Erie Canal was opened.

1828, December 3
Andrew Jackson, was elected as the 7th president.

1830, December 17
South American patriot Simon Bolivar died in Columbia.

1831, December 5
Former President John Quincy Adams took his seat as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

1831, December 27
Naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a voyage to the Pacific aboard the HMS Beagle. (Discoveries during the trip helped form the basis of his theories on evolution.)

1832, December 28
Citing political differences with President Andrew Jackson and a desire to fill a vacant Senate seat in South Carolina, John C. Calhoun becomes the first vice president in U.S. history to resign the office.

1835, December 11
In fight for Texas independence, Ben Milam is killed, but Mexican Gen. Cos surrenders San Antonio following the Siege of Bexar.

1835, December 29
The Treaty of New Echota is signed by the U.S. and the Cherokee Nation.

1836, December 7
Electors chose Martin Van Buren to be the eighth president of the U.S.

1839, December
Trail of Tears: Last group leaves Cherokee homeland with Chief Jesse Bushyhead and John Ross carrying records and laws of Cherokee Nation.

1842, December 20, 30
-- Dec. 20: In the struggle for Texas independence, some 300 members of the Somervell force (Mier Expedition) go on a raid into Mexico.
-- Dec. 30: The Mier Expedition is captured at Mier.

1843, December 19
"A Christmas Carol," by Charles Dickens, was first published in England.

1845, December 27
Ether is used as an anesthetic during childbirth for the first time by Dr. Crawford Williamson Long in Jefferson, Georgia.

1845, December 29
Texas became the 28th state admitted to the United States.

1846, December 28
Iowa became the 29th state admitted to the United States.

1848, December 5
President Polk triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California.

1851, December 24
Fire devastated the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroying about 35,000 volumes.

1852, December 30
Future President Rutherford B. Hayes married Lucy Ware Webb in Cincinnati.

1853, December 30
Gadsden Purchase completed by Minister to Mexico, James Gadsden.

1854, December 8, 9
-- Dec. 8: Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was free of original sin from the moment of her own conception.
-- Dec. 9: Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famous poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," was published in England (see Crimean War).

1856, December 28
Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president, is born in Staunton, Virginia.

1857, December 31
Britain's Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.

1859, December 2
Militant abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his raid on Harper's Ferry.

1860, December 20
Leading toward Civil War, South Carolina becomes first state to secede.

1860, December 29
The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, the HMS Warrior was launched.

1861, December
Civil War battles: fought in OK, WVA, KY, VA, and MO.

1861, December 9, 21
Senator James W. Grimes of Iowa introduced a bill for a new medal that became the Congressional Medal of Honor when it passed on Dec. 21st.

1861, December 14
Died: Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria.

1862, December
Civil War battles: fought in TN, AR, VA, NC, and MS.

1862, December 30-31
-- Dec. 30: The USS Monitor's engine fails; placed under tow.
-- Dec. 31: The USS Monitor sank off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC.
-- Dec. 31: President Lincoln signed an act to admit West Virginia to the Union. (W.Va. became the 35th state on June 20, 1863.)

1863, December
Civil War battles: fought in VA and TN.

1863, December 8
President Lincoln announced his plan for reconstruction of the South.

1864, December
Civil War battles: fought in GA, TN, NC, and VA.

1864, December 20, 22
-- Dec. 20: Confederate forces evacuated Savannah, Georgia, as Union Gen. William T. Sherman continued his "March to the Sea."
-- Dec. 22: Sherman sent a message to President Lincoln, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah."

1865, December 18
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery, was declared in effect after ratification by ¾ of the states.

1865, December 24
Several Civil War veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee, formed a terrorist organization under the guise of a private social club. They called it the Ku Klux Klan.

1869, December 10
Women were granted the right to vote in the Wyoming Territory.

1869, December 28
The Knights of Labor, a labor union of tailors in Philadelphia, hold the first Labor Day ceremonies in American history.

1870, December 12
Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina became the first black member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

1871, December 24
Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Aida" had its world premiere in Cairo, Egypt, to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal.

1872, December 11
Ulysses S. Grant makes another dumb move: capitulating to carpetbaggers and naming Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback America's first black governor (acting governor of Louisiana).

1875, December 4
William Marcy Tweed, the "Boss" of New York's Tammy Hall political organization, escaped from jail and fled the country.

1877, December
Thomas A. Edison exhibited his phonograph to magazine editors and later to President Rutherford Hayes. The device earned him the nickname, The Wizard of Menlo Park.

1877, December 31
President Hayes and his wife Lucy Ware Webb celebrated their silver anniversary (technically a day late) by re-enacting their wedding ceremony in the White House.

1879, December 20
Thomas A. Edison publicly demonstrated his incandescent light at Menlo Park, New Jersey.

1879, December 21
Born: Josef Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union (1929-1953), in Gori, near Tbilisi, Georgia.

1879, December 29
Born: Billy Mitchell, American Army General who is regarded as "Father of the U.S. Air Force."

1879, December 31
Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time (Menlo Park, New Jersey).

1880, December 31
Born: Gen. George Marshall, recipient of Nobel Prize in Peace 1953 for the Marshall Plan (died: 1959).

1884, December 6
Army engineers completed construction of the Washington Monument.

1886, December 8
The American Federation of Labor was formed in Columbus, Ohio.

1887, December 13
Alvin C. York, hero of WW I, was born Pall Mall in Tennessee.

1889, December 6
Died: Jefferson Davis, first and only president of the Confederate States of America, at age 81. [He was buried in New Orleans.]

1890, December 15, 29
-- Dec. 15: Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull and 11 other tribe members were killed in Grand River, S.D., during a fracas with Indian police.
-- Dec. 29: The Army traps Big Foot and the last remaining hostile Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota, and massacres them all, including women and children. -- Dec. 29: Thomas Edison patents the radio.

1893, December 23
The Engelbert Humperdinck opera "Haensel und Gretel" was first performed, in Weimar, Germany.

1893, December 26
Chinese leader Mao Zedong was born in Hunan province.

1894, December 22
French anti-Semitism is clearly demonstrated with the conviction of innocent French army officer Alfred Dreyfus for treason. [Things haven't changed much … France is still an anti-Semitic nation.]

1895, December
Vladimir Ilich Lenin is arrested, questioned for a year, then exiled to Siberia.

1895, December 14
The future King George VI (r. 1936-1952) is born, the second son of George V and Mary of Teck. (George VI, father of the present Queen Eliazabeth II died Feb. 6, 1952, of cancer).

1895, December 28
Ten years after the first hazy motion pictures had been demonstrated, French film pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumiýre publicly unveil their Cinýmatographe at the Grand Cafý on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. About 30 people paid to see short films showing scenes from ordinary French life, including the feeding of a baby, a game of cards, street activity, a working blacksmith, and soldiers marching. One of the films, which showed the head-on arrival of a train, caused many patrons to flee in terror.

1897, December 12
"The Katzenjammer Kids," the pioneering comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks, made its debut in the New York Journal.

1898, December 10
A treaty was signed in Paris to end the Spanish-American War. Spain granted Cuba its freedom and ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the U.S.

1898, December 21
Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium.

1900, December 27
Militant prohibitionist Carry A. Nation carried out her first public smashing of a bar, at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kansas.

1901, December 5
Walt Disney was born in Chicago, Ill.

1901, December 12
Guglielmo Marconi sent the first wireless transatlantic communication in history.

1903, December 17
Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, went on the first successful manned powered-airplane flight in the Wright Flyer, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1903, December 30
About 600 people died when fire broke out at the recently opened Iroquois Theater in Chicago.

1904, December 27
James Barrie's play Peter Pan premiers in London.

1905, December 20
A mass strike begins in Moscow in protest of Czar Nicholas II.

1906, December 10
President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for helping to mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War.

1906, December 24
Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to broadcast a music program over radio, from Brant Rock, Massachusetts.

1907, December 9
Christmas seals went on sale for the first time, at the Wilmington, Delaware, post office; proceeds went to fight tuberculosis.

1907, December 19
239 workers died in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.

1911, December 14
Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, beating out an expedition led by Robert F. Scott.

1911, December 30
Sun Yat-sen was elected the first president of the Republic of China.

1913, December 1
The first drive-in automobile service station opened, in Pittsburg.

1913, December 12
Authorities in Florence, Italy, announced that the "Mona Lisa," stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1911, had been recovered.

1915, December
Allied forces in WW I began to evacuate troops from the Gallipoli Peninsula after suffering about 250,000 casualties.

1915, December 18
President Woodrow Wilson, widowed the year before, married Edith Bolling Galt at her Washington, D.C., home.

1916, December 15
World War I: The French outlasted the Germans in the Battle of Verdun: The city was destroyed as the French suffered 315,000 casualties and the Germans 280,000. Verdun had no tactical or strategic value to either side!

1916, December 16
Gregory Rasputin, the monk who'd wielded powerful influence over the Russian court, was murdered by a group of noblemen.

1917, December
Vladimir Ilich Lenin signs decree that establishes the Cheka, a political police force, and sets up rule by terror in Russia.

1917, December 9
As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, British General Allenby led an army to the Promised Land to quell the violence that had raged there for over 3,000 years. However, he soon learned that deliverance was unimportant to the Palestinians, Persians, Syrians, and Arabs who live there… They prefer to spend their time and energy killing Jews.

1917, December 12
Father Edward Flanagan founds Boy's Town near Omaha, Nebraska.

1917, December 26
The U.S. government took wartime control of U.S. railroads.

1918, December 4, 13
-- Dec. 4: President Woodrow Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles Peace Conference.
-- Dec. 13: Wilson arrived in France, becoming the first chief executive to visit Europe while in office.

1918, December 27
World War I: As the war ends, the Great Poland Uprising begins.

1920, December 20
British born comedian Bob Hope (Leslie Townes Hope, KBE) became a U.S. citizen.

1920, December 24
Enrico Caruso gave his last public performance, singing in Jacques Halevy's "La Juive" at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

1921, December 6
British and Irish representatives signed a treaty in London providing for creation of an Irish Free State.

1922, December 30
Vladimir Ilich Lenin proclaims that the Bolshevik government has established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.).

1923, December 6
A presidential address was broadcast on radio for the first time as President Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress.

1924, December
-- Covenant for the League of Nations is adopted.
-- Adolf Hitler is released from prison after serving nine months of a five-year sentence for the Beer Hall Putsch uprising.

1924, December 30
Edwin Hubble announced that the Hooker Telescope had revealed that the fuzzy nebulae seen earlier with less powerful telescopes were not part of our Milky Way galaxy but were actually other galaxies outside the Milky Way.

1926, December 25
Hirohito became emperor of Japan, succeeding his father; Emperor Yoshihito. (Hirohito was formally enthroned almost two years later.)

1928, December 11
Police in Buenos Aires thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Herbert Hoover.

1928, December 23
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) set up a permanent, coast-to-coast network.

1929, December 31
In celebration on New Year's Eve, Guy Lombardo plays Auld Lang Syne for the first time.

1931, December 10
Jane Addams became a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the first American woman so honored.

1931, December 25
New York's Metropolitan Opera broadcast an entire opera over radio for the first time: "Hansel and Gretel" by Engelbert Humperdinck.

1932, December 5
Albert Einstein was granted a visa, making it possible for him to flee Hitler's Germany and come to the United States.

1932, December 19
The British Broadcasting Corporation began transmitting overseas with its Empire Service to Australia.

1932, December 27
Radio City Music Hall opened in New York.

1933, December 5
National Prohibition came to an end as Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, repealing the 18th Amendment.

1933, December 17
In the first world championship football game, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants, 23-21.

1934, December 1
Sergei M. Kirov, a collaborator of Josef Stalin, was assassinated in Leningrad, resulting in a massive purge.

1934, December 29
Japan renounced the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930.

1936, December 11
Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson.

1936, December 30
The United Auto Workers union staged its first "sit-down" strike, at the Fisher Body Plant Number One in Flint, Michigan. [Automobile]

1937, December 11
Italy withdrew from the League of Nations.

1937, December 12
Japanese aircraft sank the U.S. gunboat Panay on China's Yangtze River. (Japan apologized, and paid $2.2 million reparations.)

1938, December 15
Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Jefferson Memorial were held in Washington, D.C.

1939, December 2
New York's La Guardia Airport began operations as an airliner from Chicago landed at one minute past midnight.

1939, December 14
The Soviet Union was dropped from the League of Nations.

1939, December 17
The German pocket battleship Graf Spee was scuttled by its crew, ending the World War II Battle of the River Plate off Uruguay.

1940, December 9
In World War II British troops opened their first major offensive in N. Africa.

1940, December 18
Adolf Hitler signed a secret directive ordering preparations for a Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. (Operation Barbarossa was launched June 22, 1941.)

1940, December 29
Battle of Britain: Germany dropped incendiary bombs on London killing nearly 3,000 civilians.

1940, December 30
California's first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena, was officially opened.

1941, December
In World War II, the German advance into Russia was halted outside of Moscow.

1941, December 7
Without warning, the Empire of Japan forces attacked American and British territories and possessions in the Pacific, including the home base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

1941, December 8
-- President Roosevelt delivers his "A date which will live in infamy" speech to a joint session of Congress. ... The United States declares war on Japan.
-- The New York Times reports on events of Sunday, Dec. 7th.

1941, December 9
China declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy.

1941, December 11
The United States declares war on Germany and Italy; after they had declared war on the United States.

1941, December 22, 26
-- Dec. 22: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington for a wartime comference with President Franklin Roosevelt.
-- Dec. 26: Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.

1941, December 23
WW II: American forces on Wake Island surrendered to the Japanese.

1941, December 25
WW II: Japan announced the surrender of the British-Canadian garrison at Hong Kong.

1942, December 1
To support World War II military effort, nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States.

1942, December 2
Enrico Fermi conducts an experiment at the University of Chicago and produces the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

1942, December 4
-- Pres. Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created in 1935 to provide jobs during the Depression.
-- U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time in World War II.

1943, December 1
President Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin ended their Tehran conference on WW II strategy.

1943, December 24
President Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces as part of Operation "Overlord."

1944, December 13
During World War II the U.S. cruiser Nashville was badly damaged in a Japanese kamikaze suicide attack that claimed 138 lives.

1944, December 15
-- A single-engine plane carrying bandleader Glenn Miller disappeared over the English Channel while en route to Paris.
-- American forces invaded Mindoro Island in the Philippines.
-- The Senate approved the promotions of Henry H. Arnold, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and George C. Marshall to the five-star rank of General of the Army and the nominations of William D. Leahy, Ernest J. King and Chester W. Nimitz as Admirals of the Fleet.

1944, December 16
The WW II Battle of the Bulge began as German forces launched a surprise counter-attack against allied forces in Belgium.

1944, December 17
During World War II, the U.S. Army announced it was ending its policy of excluding Japanese-Americans from the West Coast.

1944, December 18
In a pair of rulings, the Supreme Court upheld the wartime relocation of Japanese-Americans, but also said undeniably loyal Americans of Japanese ancestry could not be detained.

1944, December 22, 26
-- Dec. 22: In World War II, during the Battle of the Bulge, Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe of the surrounded 101st Airborne Division replied "Nuts!" when the Germans demanded that he surrender.
-- Dec. 26: The 101st was relieved by Patton's 4th Armored Division.

1944, December 26
Tennessee Williams' play "The Glass Menagerie" was first performed publicly at the Civic Theater in Chicago.

1944, December 30
King George II of Greece proclaimed a regency to rule his country, virtually renouncing the throne.

1944, December 31
WW II: Hungary declared war on Germany.

1945, December 4
The Senate approved U.S. participation in the newly created United Nations.

1945, December 20
The Office of Price Administration announced the end of tire rationing, effective Jan. 1, 1946.

1945, December 21
Died: Gen. George S. Patton, in Heidelberg, Germany, of injuries from a car accident.

1945, December 27
28 nations signed an agreement creating the World Bank.

1946, December 11
The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.

1946, December 14
The United Nations General Assembly voted to establish U.N. headquarters in New York.

1946, December 25
Comedian W.C. Fields died in Pasadena, California.

1946, December 31
President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.

1947, December 6
Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Harry Truman.

1947, December 12
The United Mine Workers union withdrew from the American Federation of Labor.

1947, December 23
The Transistor is invented at Bell Labs in New Jersey.

1947, December 27
The children's television program "Howdy Doody" made its debut on NBC.

1948, December 10
The U.N. General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

1948, December 23
Former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese World War II leaders were executed in Tokyo.

1949, December 8
The Chinese National government fled from mainland China to Formosa (now Taiwan) as the Communists under Mao Zedong pressed their attack.

1950, December 10
Ralph J. Bunche was presented the Nobel Peace Prize, the first black American to receive the award.

1950, December 16
President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight "Communist imperialism."

1950, December 27
Lt. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway takes command of the Eighth Army in the Korean War after Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker is killed in a Jeep accident.

1951, December
The Organization of American States (OAS) is chartered.

1951, December 24
Gian Carlo Menotti's "Amahl and the Night Visitors," the first opera written specifically for television, was first broadcast by NBC TV.

1954, December 2
The U.S. Senate voted to condemn Wisconsin Republican Joseph R. McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."

1955, December 1
Rosa Parks, a black seamstress in Montgomery, Ala., refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. Parks was arrested, sparking a yearlong boycott of the busses. [NAACP leaders shrewdly kept it quiet that they had "planted" Parks on the bus to provoke white authorities and bring national attention to the outrageous law. The ploy worked, as people nationwide rallied to Rosa Parks and racist laws where struck down by the courts and congress.]

1955, December 5
The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to form the AFL-CIO under its first president, George Meany.

1956, December 18
Japan was admitted to the United Nations.

1957, December 6
-- AFL-CIO members voted to expel the Inernational Brotherhood of Teamsters. [The Teamsters were readmitted in 1987.]
-- America's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit blew up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

1957, December 17
The U.S. successfully test-fired the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time.

1957, December 19
Meredith Wilson's musical play "The Music Man" opened on Broadway.

1958, December 1
The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Flower Drum Song" opened on Broadway.

1958, December 9
The anti-Communist 'John Birch Society' was formed in Indianapolis.

1958, December 10
The first domestic passenger jet flight took place in the U.S. as a National Airlines Boeing 707 flew 111 passengers from New York to Miami in about 2½ hours.

1960, December 16
134 people were killed when a United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation collided over New York City.

1961, December 11
A U.S. aircraft carrier carrying Army helicopters arrived in Saigon with the first direct American military support for South Vietnam's battle against Communist guerrillas.

1961, December 31
The Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $12-13 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.

1961, December 15
Former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death by an Israeli court.

1962, December 14
The U.S. space probe Mariner II approached Venus, transmitting information about the planet.

1963, December 7
Videotaped instant replay was used for the first time in a live sports telecast during the Army-Navy game as CBS re-showed a one-yard touchdown run by Army quarterback Rollie Stichweh. (Navy beat Army, 21-15.)

1963, December 12
Kenya gained its independence from Britain.

1963, December 20
The Berlin Wall was opened for the first time to West Berliners, who were allowed one-day visits to relatives in the Eastern sector for the holidays.

1964, December 10
Martin Luther King Jr., received the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway.

1964, December 13
In El Paso, Texas, President Johnson and Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz set off an explosion that diverted the Rio Grande, reshaping the U.S.-Mexican border and ending a century-old dispute.

1965, December 1
An airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States began in which thousands of Cubans were allowed to leave their homeland.

1965, December 4
The U.S. launched Gemini VII with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Cmdr. James A. Lovell aboard.

1965, December 9
Nikolai V. Podgorny replaced Anastas I. Mikoyan as president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

1965, December 15
Two U.S. manned spacecraft, "Gemini Six" and "Gemini Seven," maneuvered to within ten feet of each other while in orbit.

1966, December 15
Walt Disney, movie producer and founder of "Disney," died in Los Angeles.

1967, December 3
Surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant. The patient, Louis Washkansky, lived 18 days with the new heart.

1967, December 10
Died: American soul singer Otis Redding (1941 - 1967), in the crash of his private plane in Wisconsin.

1968, December 20
Died: Author John Steinbeck, in New York at age 66.

1968, December 21
Apollo 8, the first mission to carry humans beyond Earth orbit, was launched on a mission to orbit the moon.

1968, December 23
82 crew members of the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo were released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been illegally captured on the high-seas outside the territorial waters of N. Korea.

1968, December 24
The Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve television broadcast.

1968, December 27
Apollo Eight with its three astronauts made a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific.

1968, December 31
Prototype of world's first supersonic transport is tested: Russian Tu-144. The prototype later proved unstable.

1969, December 1
The U.S. held the first military draft lottery since World War II.

1969, December 18
Britain's Parliament abolished the death penalty for murder.

1970, December 2
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) got its start as it began operating under director William Ruckelshaus.

1971, December 18
In Chicago, Jesse Jackson announced the founding of Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity). He later added the Rainbow Coalition. The organizations are fronts used to coerce money from corporations under threats of adverse publicity of boycotts, picket lines, etc. [Example of coercion: Toyota paid him $8,000,000]. Much of the money is used to fund voter registration, especially illegal immigrants from South and Central Americas, the Caribbean and Mexico. Estimates are that Jackson's operations have illegally registered from 3,000,000 to 7,000,000 illegal immigrants. American media will not report on Jackson's activities for fear of being labeled racist or because most elite-media outlets are "Progressive Democrat" (socialist) and believe that the sleazy, illegal practices help their cause.

1971, December 21
The U.N. Security Council chose Kurt Waldheim to succeed U Thant as Secretary-General.

1972, December 7
-- America's last moon mission to date was launched as Apollo 17 blasted off from Cape Canaveral.
-- Imelda Marcos, wife of Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, was stabbed and seriously wounded by an assailant who was then shot dead by her bodyguards.

1972, December 19
Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, winding up the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.

1972, December 26
Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president, died in Kansas City, Missouri.

1972, December 30
The United States halted its heavy bombing of North Vietnam.

1973, December 1
Died: David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, in Tel Aviv at age 87.

1973, December 6
House minority leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew.

1974, December 19
Nelson A. Rockefeller was sworn in as the 41st vice president of the U.S. He was replacing Gerald R. Ford who had become president in August.

1975, December 12
Sara Jane Moore pleaded guilty to a charge of trying to kill President Gerald R. Ford.

1975, December 17
Lynette Fromme was sentenced in federal court in Sacramento, Calif., to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Gerald R. Ford.

1975, December 26
The Soviet Union inaugurated the world's first supersonic transport service with a flight of its Tupolev-144 (Tu-144) airliner from Moscow to Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. (Flights had been run on a trial basis since November 1.)

1975, December 29
A bomb exploded in the main terminal of New York's LaGuardia Airport, killing 11 people.

1976, December 20
Died: Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, at age 74.

1977, December 4
Jean-Bedel Bokassa, ruler of the Central African Empire, crowned himself emperor in a ceremony believed to have cost more than $100 million.

1977, December 25
Died: Communist, U.S. hater, Sir Charles Chaplin, in Switzerland, age 88. [He recieved the financial rewards from Americans and his American movies until death… A true hypocrite and an exquisite example of pure human crap.]

1978, December 4
San Francisco got its first female mayor as City Supervisor Dianne Feinstein was named to replace the assassinated George Moscone.

1978, December 8
Died: Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, in Jerusalem, age 80. [Meir grew up in the U.S. and was an American citizen before moving to Israel.]

1978, December 13
The Philadelphia Mint began stamping the Susan B. Anthony dollar, which went into circulation the following July.

1978, December 20
Former White House chief of staff H.R. Halderman was released from prison after serving 18 months for his role in the Watergate cover-up.

1978, December 21
Police in Des Plaines, Ill., arrested John W. Gacy Jr. and began unearthing the remains of 33 men and boys that Gacy was later convicted of murdering.

1978, December 27
Spain became a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship.

1978, December 31
Diplomats of Taiwan struck their colors from the embassy flagpole in Washington, D.C., marking the end of diplomatic relations with the U.S. [President Carter had rolled over for mainland Communist China by agreeing to deny the people of Taiwan the right to proclaim their independence.]

1979, December 5
Feminist Sonia Johnson was formally excommunicated by the Mormon Church because of her outspoken support for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment [never ratified] to the Constitution.

1979, December 27
Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown and executed, was replaced by Babrak Karmal.

1980, December 8
Rock star John Lennon was shot to death outside his New York City apartment by a deranged fan.

1980, December 18, 23
-- Dec. 18: U.S.S.R. Premier Alexei N. Kosygin died at age 76.
-- Dec. 23: A state funeral was held in Moscow for Alexei N. Kosygin.

1981, December 11
The U.N. Security Council chose Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru to be the fifth secretary-general of the United Nations.

1981, December 17
Members of the Red Brigades terrorist group kidnapped Brigadier General James L. Dozier, the highest-ranking U.S. Army official in southern Europe, from his home in Verona, Italy. (Dozier was rescued 42 days later.)

1982, December 2
Doctors at the U. of Utah Medical Center implanted an artificial heart in the chest of dentist Dr. Barney Clark, who lived 112 days with the device.

1982, December 16
Congress continued a practice started in 1973 of trashing the Constitution for political advantage as a Democrat-controlled committee cited Republican EPA head Anne M. Gorsuch for contempt of Congress because she refused to turn private Executive Branch files over to Congress. She thus became the first Cabinet-level officer ever to be cited for refusing to let Congress plunder around in the private files of the Executive Branch to see what they could find for use against the President's party in the next election. [Naturally, the question arises, who is going to gain access to the private institutional files of Congress? Who gets access to the private individual member files of Congress? Should we let the Judicial Branch plunder congressional files? Who gets to plunder the private files of the Judicial Branch? — Have the S.O.B.s never heard of the Constitution and the Separation of Powers?]

1984, December 3
More than 4,000 people died within hours of a cloud of gas escaping from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India. (Over the years, according to the Indian government, another 15,000 have died from residual effects of the gas.)

1984, December 4
A five-day hijack drama began as four armed men seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran, where the hijackers killed American passenger Charles Hegna. [The world said, "ho hum."]

1984, December 10
South African Bishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize.

1984, December 19
-- Britain and China signed an accord returning Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997.
-- A fire at the Wilberg Mine near Orangeville, Utah, killed 27 people.

1984, December 22
NYC resident Berhard Goetz shot four black men on a Manhattan subway who were attempting to rob him. [NYC prosecuted Goetz, apparently for denying the men their right to commit robbery.]

1985, December 12
248 American soldiers and eight crew members were killed when an Arrow Air charter crashed after takeoff from Gander, Newfoundland.

1985, December 27
American naturalist Dian Fossey was found murdered in Rwanda.

1986, December 16
Ronald W. Pelton, a former National Security Agency employee convicted of selling defense secrets to the Soviet Union, was sentenced by a judge in Baltimore to life in prison.

1986, December 23
The experimental solar powered airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, non-fueled, round-the-world flight as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

1987, December 7
43 people were killed in the crash of a Pacific Southwest Airlines jetliner in California after a gunman apparently opened fire on a fellow passenger and the two pilots.

1987, December 8
-- President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty calling for destruction of intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
-- The "intefadeh" (Arabic for uprising) by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories began.

1987, December 20
More than 3,000 people were killed when the Dona Paz, a Philippine passenger ship, collided with the tanker Vector off Mindoro island.

1987, December 23
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of President Ford in 1975, escaped from the Alderson Federal Prison for Women in West Virginia. (She was recaptured two days later.)

1988, December 7
A major earthquake in the Soviet Union devastated northern Armenia; official estimates put the death toll at 25,000.

1988, December 21
270 people were killed when Pan Am Flight 103 crashed at Lockerbie, Scotland. It was later determined that Libyan terrorist had planted a bomb on board.

1989, December 20
The United States launched Operation "Just Cause," sending troops into Panama to topple the government of General Manuel Noriega.

1989, December 25
-- Died: former baseball player and manager Billy Martin, in a traffic accident in Fenton, N.Y.
-- Ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed following a popular uprising.

1989, December 28
Alexander Dubcek, former Czechoslovak leader and architect of the "Prague Spring," is elected chairman of the new multiparty Czechoslovak parliament.

1990, December 9
Solidarity founder Lech Walesa won Poland's presidential runoff by a landslide signaling a new beginning for eastern Europe.

1991, December 3
Islamic terrorist in Lebanon released Alan Steen, an American they had kidnapped then held and tortured for nearly five years.

1991, December 16
The U.N. General Assembly rescinded its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism by a vote of 111-25. [However, the vote didn't change the fact that the U.N. as a body is anti-Semitic.]

1991, December 22
The body of Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, an American hostage murdered by his terrorist captors, was found dumped along a highway in Lebanon. [The U.S. and the rest of the world said, "ho hum."]

1991, December 25
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on television to announce his resignation as the eighth and final leader of a communist superpower that had already gone out of existence.

1991, December 26
The Supreme Soviet met and formally dissolved the U.S.S.R.

1992, December 3
The Greek tanker Aegean Sea spilled 21.5 million gallons of crude oil when it ran aground at La Coruna, Spain.

1992, December 9
Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation. (The couple's divorce became final Aug. 28, 1996.)

1992, December 17
President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in separate ceremonies.

1993, December 2
Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot to death by security forces in Medellin, Columbia.

1993, December 8
President Bill Clinton signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which went into effect at the start of 1994.

1993, December 9
The Air Force destroyed the first of 500 Minuteman II missile silos marked for elimination under an arms control treaty.

1994, December 5
In Congress, Republicans chose Newt Gingrich to be Speaker of the House of Representatives; the first GOP House Speaker in four decades.

1994, December 10
Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin received the Nobel Peace Prize, pledging to pursue their mission of healing the anguished Middle East.

1994, December 20
-- Former President Jimmy Carter succeeded in getting Bosnia's warring factions to agree to a temporary cease-fire.
-- Intel announced it would replace all flawed Pentium computer chips.
-- Marcelino Corniel, a homeless man, was shot and mortally wounded by White House security officers as he brandished a knife near the execution mansion.
-- Died: Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, in Athens, Ga., at age 85.

1994, December 21
A firebomb exploded on a crowded New York City subway train, injuring 48 people. (Unemployed computer programmer Edward Leary was later convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 94 years in prison.)

1994, December 24
Islamic terrorist hijacked an Air France Airbus A-300 carrying 227 passengers at the Algiers airport; three passengers were killed during the siege before the hijackers were killed by French commandos in Marseille two days later. [The world said, "ho hum."]

1995, December 9
The NAACP selected its new leader: Congressman Kweisi Mfume, (D-Md).

1996, December 3
Hawaii legalized same-sex marriages.

1996, December 5
General Motors announced the first electrical automobiles available for sale to the general public.

1996, December 6
Madeleine Albright named Secretary of State: First woman to hold position.

1996, December 21
Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, admitted he violated House Rules by lying to the HOR's Ethics Committee.

1996, December 29
War-weary guerrilla and government leaders in Guatemala signed an accord ending 36 years of civil war.

1997, December 11
More than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to "control the Earth's greenhouse gases" by shutting down America's power plants, factories and automobiles. — The U.S. refused to sign.

1997, December 23
A jury in Denver convicted Terry Nichols of involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing, declining to find him guilty of murder.

1998, December 19
President Clinton was impeached by the Republican-controlled House for perjury before a federal grand jury and for his obstruction of justice in a civil case brought by Paula Jones. Democrats in the Senate closed ranks and on a strict party line, voted for acquittal. However, he was found guilty of lying to a court and fined by a federal judge. His law license was revoked after he left office.

1998, December 20
Nkem Chukwu gave birth in Houston to five girls and two boys, 12 days after giving birth to another child, a girl. (However, the tiniest of the octuplets died a week later.)

1998, December 26
Iraq announced its intention to fire upon US and British warplanes patrolling the northern and southern "no-fly zones" that had been created by the "cease fire" agreement of the Gulf War.

1999, December 20
Died: Country music legend Hank Snow, in Nashville, Tenn., at age 85.

1999, December 24
Terrorist hijackers seized an Indian Airlines jet with 189 people aboard, forcing the aircraft on a journey across South Asia and into the Middle East. (The eight-day ordeal resulted in the death of one passenger and India's release of three jailed pro-Kashmir militants in exchange for the rest of the hostages.) [The world said "ho hum" as India proved to potential terrorist everywhere that hijacking and terrorism is worthwhile.]

1999, December 31
-- The U.S. relinquishes control of the Panama Canal to Panama.
-- Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia; replaced by Vladimir Putin.

2000, December 4
Following the presidential election, the U.S. Supreme Court remands the Gore v. Bush case back to the Fla. Supreme Court directing them to explain how they were able to find that the Fla. Constitution trumps the U.S. Constitution, (Art. II, Sec. 1, cl. 2) and federal law (Title 3, U.S.C., §5).

2000, December 8, 9
— Dec. 8: The seven Fla. Supreme Court "Justices," unable to find a suitable answer to the U.S.S.C.'s simple question, changed the subject and once again violated the U.S. Constitution and federal law, by ordering Fla.'s election officials to recount all "under-votes" state-wide! No one had requested such a remedy.
(An "under-vote" is a ballot that, when first processed, does not show a vote for president.)
— Dec. 9: The U.S.S.C., deciding that it was fed up with Fla. Supreme Court "judges" who clearly were afflicted by severe reading disabilities, ordered the under-vote recounts halted.

2000, December 12
After five weeks of litigation, the U.S.S.C. ended the debacle in Fla. with an order that made three points: whatever remedy was to be applied must conform to the U.S. Constitution and federal law by not changing the rules after the votes were cast; a single standard must be followed for recounting; and all recounts must be finished by Dec. 12 (the date mandated by federal law for the 2000 election). — The order noted "that time is upon us."

2001, December 2
In one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history, Enron Corporation, of Houston, Texas, filed for Chapter 11 protection.

2001, December 22
Richard C. Reid, a passenger on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, tried to ignite explosives in his shoes, but was subdued by flight attendants and fellow passengers.

2003, December 13
Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole under a farmhouse in Adwar, Iraq, near his hometown of Tikrit.

2003, December 20
Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi announced that he had reached a general agreement with the U.S. and Great Britain for Libya to abandon its programs for weapons of mass destruction and allow international inspection teams into the country to verify compliance.

2003, December 26
A major earthquake devastates the southeast Iranian city of Bam, with up to 43,300 killed, and 90,000 homeless; the citadel of Arg-é Bam was destroyed.

2004, December 26
An underwater earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter Scale (the largest on earth in 40 years), erupted off the west coast of Sumatra. Devastation from tsunamis (tidal waves) quickly hit all long the coast of Indonesia and spread to Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, and many other locations around the rim of the Indian Ocean, including the east coast of Africa.