December 31
406 – 80,000 Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine at Mainz, beginning an invasion of Gallia.
765 – Coffin of Ho-tse Shen-hui interred in a stupa built in China
1695 – A window tax is imposed in England, causing many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid the tax.
1857 – Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa as new capital of Canada
1890 – Ellis Island (NYC) opens as a US immigration depot
1907 – For 1st time a ball drops at Times Square to signal new year
1911 – Marie Curie receives her 2nd Nobel Prize
1921 – Last San Francisco firehorses retired
1935 – Charles Darrow patents Monopoly
1946 – Pres Harry Truman officially proclaims end of WW II
1955 – The General Motors Corporation becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over $1 billion USD in a year.
1970 – Paul McCartney files a lawsuit to dissolve the Beatles
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December 30
1460 – Wars of the Roses: Battle of Wakefield (Northern England), Duke of York killed and his forces soundly defeated by forces for King Henry VI
1817 – 1st coffee planted in Hawaii (Kona)
1835 – HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin sails from NZ to Sydney
1853 – A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an Iguanodon (ornithopod dinosaur) created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London.
1879 – Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance” premieres
1906 – Iran becomes a constitutional monarchy
1924 – Astronomer Edwin Hubble formally announces existence of other galactic systems at meeting of the American Astronomical Society
1938 – Electronic television system patented (V K Zworykin)
1965 – Ferdinand Marcos inaugurated as President of the Phillipines
1966 – The cult classic “One Million Years B.C.”, starring Raquel Welch, is released
1968 – Frank Sinatra 1st records “My Way” with lyrics were written by Paul Anka, based on French song “Comme d’habitude”.
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December 29
1539 – St Jacob’s Church burns after being hit by lightning
1848 – Gas lights 1st installed at White House (Polk’s administration)
1851 – 1st American Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) chapter opened in Boston Massachusetts.
1860 – The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, HMS Warrior is launched.
1862 – Bowling ball invented
1938 – Construction on Lake Washington Floating Bridge, Seattle, begins
1955 – Barbra Streisand’s 1st recording “You’ll Never Know” at age 13
1972 – Life magazine ceases publication
1982 – Bob Marley postage stamp issued in Jamaica
1989 – Wayne Gretzky & Martina Navratilova, named athletes of decade by Associated Press
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December 28
1065 – Westminster Abbey consecrated
1612 – First observation of Neptune – Galileo observes and records a “fixed star” without realising it is a planet
1849 – M Jolly-Bellin discovers dry-cleaning, he accidentally upset lamp containing turpentine & oil on his clothing & sees cleaning effect
1869 – William Finley Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio, patents chewing gum
1895 – Film makers the Lumiere brothers, hold the first commercial film screening at Salon Indien du Grand Café, Paris
1902 – Trans-Pacific cable links Hawaii to US
1904 – 1st daily wireless weather forecasts published (London)
1942 – Robert Sullivan becomes 1st pilot to fly Atlantic 100 times
1967 – Muriel Siebert is 1st woman to own a seat on NY Stock Exchange
1976 – Winnie Mandela banished in South Africa
2013 – Early signs of Ebola epidemic
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December 27
1825 – 1st public railway using steam locomotive completed in England between Stockton and Darlington
1831 – HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin departs England for South America
1871 – World’s first cat show (Crystal Palace, London)
1892 – Foundation Stone of Cathedral of St John laid (NYC)
1932 – Radio City Music Hall opens (NYC)
1937 – Mae West performs Adam & Eve skit that gets her banned from NBC radio
1945 – International Monetary Fund formally established by 29 member countries
1968 – Apollo 8 returns to Earth
1978 – King Juan Carlos ratifies Spain’s 1st democratic constitution
1982 – Imran Khan 8-60 to bring innings victory v India at Karachi
1983 – Pope John Paul II pardons man who shot him (Mehmet Ali Agca)
2004 – Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar SGR 1806-20 reaches Earth. It is the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on the planet.
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December 26
1492 – 1st Spanish settlement La Navidad (modern Môle-Saint-Nicolas) in New World founded, by Columbus
1773 – Expulsion of tea ships from Philadelphia
1799 – George Washington is eulogised by Col Henry Lee as “1st in war, 1st in peace & 1st in hearts of his countrymen”
1848 – 1st gold seekers arrive in Panama en route to San Francisco
1860 – The first ever inter-club football match takes place between Hallam F.C. and Sheffield F.C. at the Sandygate Road ground in Sheffield, England.
1865 – James H Mason (Mass) patents 1st US coffee percolator
1924 – Judy Garland, 2½, billed as Baby Frances, makes her show business debut
1933 – FM radio is patented.
1982 – TIME’s Man of the Year is a computer
2012 – China opens the world’s longest high speed rail route from Beijing to Guangzhou
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December 25
274 – Roman Emperor Aurelian dedicates a temple to Sol Invictus on the supposed day of the winter solstice and day of rebirth of the Sun.
337 – Earliest possible date that Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th
352 – 1st definite date Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th
597 – England adopts Julian calendar
1048 – Parliament of Worms: Emperor Henry III names his cousin count Bruno van Egisheim/Dagsburg as Pope Leo IX
1223 – St Francis of Assisi assembles 1st Nativity scene (Greccio, Italy)
1492 – Christopher Columbus’ flagship the Santa María runs aground and sinks on Hispaniola
1643 – Christmas Island founded and named by Captain William Mynors of the East India Ship Company vessel, the Royal Mary.
1741 – Astronomer Anders Celsius introduces Centigrade temperature scale
1758 – Return of Halley’s comet 1st sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch
1914 – Legendary “Christmas Truce” takes place on the battlefields of WWI between British and German troops. Instead of fighting, soldiers exchange gifts and play football.
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December 24
563 – The Byzantine church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is dedicated for the second time after being destroyed by earthquakes.
1777 – Kiritibati, also called Christmas Island, is discovered by James Cook
1818 – Christmas carol “Silent Night” composed by Franz Xaver Gruber is first sung at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, Austria
1851 – Fire devastates US Library of Congress in Washington, destroys 35,000 volumes
1893 – Henry Ford completes his first useful petroleum fuelled engine
1953 – Wellington-Auckland (NZ) express train swept away in flood kills 166
1967 – Pirate Radio Pegasus starts broadcasting off New Zealand
1968 – Apollo 8 astronauts read passages from Book of Genesis
1997 – 1st time a Channukah candle is officially lit in Vatican City
1999 – Opening of St Peter’s Holy Door by Pope John Paul II in approach of 3rd millennium
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December 23
1690 – English astronomer John Flamsteed observes Uranus without realising it’s undiscovered
1776 – Thomas Paine writes “These are the times that try men’s souls”
1815 – “Emma” By Jane Austen by published by John Murray in London
1888 – Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cuts off his left ear with a razor, and sends it to a prostitute for safe keeping
1912 – Aswan Dam in Nile begins operation
1914 – World War I: Australian and New Zealand troops arrive in Cairo, Egypt.
1922 – BBC Radio began daily newscasts
1938 – Discovery of the first modern coelacanth (dinosaur fish) in South Africa.
1952 – Alain Bombard arrives in Barbados after 65 days at sea proving his theory that a shipwrecked person could survive with almost no provisions, despite having lost 25 kg (65 lbs) in weight
1954 – The first human kidney transplant is performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
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December 22
1790 – The supposedly impenetrable Turkish fortress of Izmail is stormed and captured by Suvorov and his Russian armies during the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792)
1814 – Samuel Marsden of the Church Missionary Society arrives in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand to establish the country’s first mission station; Sheep, cattle, horses and poultry are introduced
1882 – 1st string of Christmas tree lights created by Thomas Edison
1937 – Lincoln Tunnel (NYC) opens to traffic
1941 – Winston Churchill arrives in Washington, D.C. for a wartime conference
1963 – Official 30-day mourning period for President John F Kennedy ends
1964 – First flight of the SR-71 (Blackbird).
1981 – Argentine general Leopoldo Galtieri sworn in as president
2001 – Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.
2006 – Australian archaeologist Sue O’Connor finds first evidence of modern humans in Jerimalai cave, near Lene Hara cave in East Timor
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December 21
1620 – 103 Mayflower pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock
1835 – HMS Beagle sails into Bay of Islands
1898 – Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium
1914 – 1st feature-length silent film comedy “Tillie’s Punctured Romance” released starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin
1933 – Fox Films signs Shirley Temple, 5, to a studio contract
1948 – State of Eire (formerly Irish Free State) declares its independence
1958 – Charles de Gaulle wins 7 year term as 1st president of 5th Rep of France
1968 – Apollo 8 (Borman, Lovell & Anders) 1st manned Moon voyage
1988 – Lockerbie disaster: Pan Am Flight 103 destroyed mid air by a terrorist bomb killing all 258 on board over Scotland
1989 – New Zealand is the first country to set a formal inflation target (0-2%) for how much prices should rise each year. Similar targets are subsequently adopted by most developed countries.
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December 20
1192 – Richard the Lionhearted captured in Vienna
1699 – Russian Tsar Peter the Great ordered Russian New Year changed from Sept 1 to Jan 1
1812 – “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is published
1879 – Tom Edison privately demonstrated incandescent light at Menlo Park
1917 – A second nationwide referendum on military conscription is rejected by the Australian public
1928 – 1st international dogsled mail leaves Minot, Maine for Montreal, Quebec
1955 – Cardiff is proclaimed the capital city of Wales
1957 – Elvis Presley given draft notice to join US Army for National Service
1963 – Berlin Wall opens for 1st time to West Berliners
1985 – Position of American Poet Laureate established (Robert Warren is 1st)
2007 – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest ever monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days.
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December 19
1686 – Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Daniel Defoe)
1732 – Benjamin Franklin under the name Richard Saunders begins publication of “Poor Richard’s Almanack”
1843 – “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens is published, 6,000 copies sold
1918 – Robert Ripley began his “Believe It or Not” column (NY Globe)
1932 – British Broadcasting Corp begins transmitting overseas
1942 – Robert Stroud “Birdman of Alcatraz” is transferred to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary
1972 – Apollo 17 (last of Apollo Moon landing series) returns to Earth
1985 – “Wind in the Willows” opens at Nederlander Theater NYC for 4 perfs
1986 – “Platoon” directed by Oliver Stone and starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe is released (Best Picture 1987)
1998 – Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives forwards articles I and III of impeachment against President Bill Clinton to the Senate.
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December 18
1271 – Kublai Khan renames his empire “Yuan” (元 yuán), officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of China.
1642 – Abel Tasman’s expedition sails around Farewell Spit and into Golden Bay, first sighting local Māori
1719 – Thomas Fleet publishes “Mother Goose’s Melodies For Children”
1799 – George Washington’s body interred at Mount Vernon
1839 – 1st celestial photograph (of Moon) made in US, John Draper, NYC
1892 – Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet “Nutcracker Suite” premieres
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.
1917 – The 18th Amendment, authorizing prohibition of alcohol, is approved by the US congress and sent to the states for ratification
1966 – Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” airs for 1st time
1969 – House of Lords votes to abolish the death penalty in England, Wales and Scotland (Northern Ireland 25 July 1973)
1999 – NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.
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December 17
942 – Assassination of William I Longsword, 2nd Duke of Normandy.
1790 – Aztec calendar stone discovered in Mexico City
1791 – NYC traffic regulation creates 1st 1-way street
1852 – 1st Hawaiian cavalry organised
1900 – 1st prize of 100,00 francs offered for communications with extraterrestrials. Martians excluded-considered too easy
1903 – At 10:35 AM, 1st sustained motorized aircraft flight (Orville Wright)
1965 – Astrodome opens, 1st event is Judy Garland & Supremes concert
1967 – Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia, vanishes in mysterious circumstances while swimming near Melbourne.
1986 – Mrs Davina Thompson makes medical history by having the 1st heart, lung & liver transplant (Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, England)
2013 – Angela Merkel is elected Chancellor of Germany for a third term
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December 16
1431 – King Henry VI of England crowned king of France
1497 – Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama is 1st European to sail along Africa’s East Coast, names it Natal
1598 – Seven Year War: Battle of Noryang Point – The final battle of the Seven Year War is fought between the Korean and Japanese navies, resulting in a decisive Korean victory.
1631 – Mount Vesuvious, Italy erupts, destroys 6 villages & kills 4,000
1653 – Parliamentarian General Oliver Cromwell appointed as Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland
1707 – Last recorded eruption of Mount Fuji in Japan.
1773 – Boston tea party incident – Sons of Liberty protesters throw tea shipments into Boston harbour in protest against British imposed Tea Act
1970 – 1st successful landing on Venus (USSR)
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December 15
1593 – State of Holland grants patent on windmill with crankshaft
1612 – German Astronomer Simon Marius is 1st to observe Andromeda galaxy through a telescope
1791 – 1st US law school established at University of Pennsylvania
1877 – Thomas Edison patents phonograph
1939 – “Gone With the Wind” premieres in Atlanta
1964 – Canada adopts maple leaf flag
1976 – Samoa becomes a member of the UN.
1993 – Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List”, an epic historical drama based on the life of Oskar Schindler, is released
1995 – Playboy goes back on sale after 36 year ban in Ireland
2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 to fortify it, without fixing its famous lean.
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December 14
1542 – Princess Mary Stuart succeeds her father James V and becomes Queen Mary I of Scotland at 6 days old
1656 – Artificial pearls 1st manufactured by M Jacquin in Paris made of gypsum pellets covered with fish scales
1900 – Birth of Quantum Physics: Max Planck presents a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law.
1901 – 1st table tennis tournament is held (London Royal Aquarium)
1911 – South Pole 1st reached, by Norwegian Roald Amundsen
1960 – Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) forms
1967 – DNA created in a test tube
1986 – Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan & Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards AFB, California on 1st non-stop, non-refueled flight around world
1994 – Construction begins on the Three Gorges Dam, China
2003 – President George W. Bush announces the capture of Saddam Hussein.
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December 13
1577 – Sir Francis Drake sets sail from England to go around world
1642 – Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sights the South Island of present day New Zealand; initially he calls it Staten Landt and changes it a year later to Nieuw Zeeland
1903 – Wright Brothers make first flight at Kittyhawk
1920 – Francis G. Pease’s interferometer at Mount Wilson Observatory is the first to measure the diameter of a star (Betelgeuse)
1928 – Clip-on tie designed
1950 – James Dean begins his career with an appearance in a Pepsi commercial
1961 – Beatles sign a formal agreement to be managed by Brian Epstein
1975 – Australian Federal Election – Liberals with coalition under Malcolm Fraser win largest ever parliamentary majority
1990 – South African President De Klerk meets with Nelson Mandela to talk of end of apartheid
2003 – Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit (see Operation Red Dawn).
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December 12
1474 – Isabella crowns herself queen of Castile & Aragon
1791 – Bank of US opens
1792 – In Vienna, Ludwig Von Beethoven (22) receives 1st lesson in music composition from Franz Joseph Haydn
1899 – George F Bryant of Boston patents the wooden golf tee
1957 – US announces manufacture of Borazon (harder than diamond)
1963 – Argentina asks for extradition of ex-president Juan Peron
1964 – Shooting starts for “Star Trek” pilot “The Cage”
1968 – Arthur Ashe becomes 1st black to be ranked #1 in tennis
1988 – “Rainman” directed by Barry Levinson and starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise premieres in New York (Best Picture 1989)
1992 – Japanese crown prince Naruhito announces engagement to Masaka Owada
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December 11
1620 – 103 Mayflower pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock
1844 – 1st dental use of nitrous oxide, Hartford, Ct
1907 – New Zealand Parliament Buildings almost completely destroyed by fire.
1913 – “Mona Lisa”, stolen from the Louvre Museum in 1911, recovered
1931 – Statute of Westminster gives complete legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland (Free State), and Newfoundland (which was not at that time part of Canada)
1936 – Edward VIII announces in a radio broadcast that he is abdicating the British throne to marry Wallis Simpson
1951 – Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement from baseball
1980 – “Magnum P.I.” starring Tom Selleck premieres on CBS
2012 – British physicist, Stephen Hawking, wins the $3 million Fundamental Physics Prize, the most lucrative academic prize in the world
2013 – Pope Francis is named Time magazine’s person of the year
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December 10
1582 – France begins use of Gregorian calendar
1684 – Isaac Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmund Halley.
1799 – Metric system adopted in France, first country to do so
1817 – Mississippi admitted as 20th state of the Union
1868 – The first traffic lights are installed outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.
1901 – First Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Wilhelm Röntgen for his discovery of X-rays
1903 – Nobel for physics awarded to Pierre and Marie Curie
1907 – Ruyard Kipling receives Nobel prize for literature
1963 – 6-year old Donny Osmond’s singing debut on Andy Williams Show
1985 – “Out of Africa”, based on the book by Isak Dinesen, directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford premieres in Los Angeles (Best Picture 1986)
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December 09
1762 – British parliament accepts Treaty of Paris
1783 – First execution at Newgate Jail in London, relocated from Tyburn (now the site of Marble Arch)
1854 – Alfred Tennyson’s poem “Charge of the Light Brigade” published
1897 – Activist Marguerite Durand founds the feminist daily newspaper, La Fronde in Paris.
1931 – Spain becomes a republic
1963 – Frank Sinatra Jr is kidnapped
1965 – “A Charlie Brown Christmas” premieres
1968 – Terence O’Neill, Northern Ireland Prime Minister, makes a television appeal for moderate opinion in what became known as the ‘Ulster stands at the Crossroads’ speech
1994 – 5m meteor 1994 XM1 passes within 100,000 km of Earth
1997 – “Tomorrow Never Dies”, 18th James Bond film starring Pierce Brosnan and Michelle Yeoh, premieres in London
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December 08
1609 – Biblioteca Ambrosiana opens its reading room, the second public library of Europe.
1813 – Ludwig von Beethoven’s 7th Symphony in A, premieres
1854 – Pope Pius IX proclaims Immaculate Conception, makes Mary, free of Original Sin
1874 – Jesse James gang takes train at Muncie Kansas
1915 – John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields” appears anonymously in “Punch” magazine
1941 – President Roosevelt delivers “Day of Infamy” speech to US Congress a day after the bombing of Pearl Harbour
1946 – French fashion designer Christian Dior and his backer Marcel Boussac found fashion house Christian Dior
1956 – 16th Olympic games close at Melbourne, Australia
1982 – Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez receives the Nobel Prize for Literature
2012 – UN climate conference agrees to extend the Kyoto Protocol to 2020
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December 07
185 – Emperor Lo-Yang, China sees supernova (MSH15-52)
1732 – The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London.
1741 – Elisabeth Petrovna becomes tsarina of Russia
1804 – Naturalist Alexander von Humboldt reports his discovery of the decrease in intensity of Earth’s magnetic field from the poles to the equator in a memoir to the Paris Institute
1889 – Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Gondoliers” premieres in London
1909 – Belgian-born Leo Baekeland, Yonkers, NY, patents 1st thermosetting plastic (Bakelite)
1912 – Bust of Queen Nefertete found in El-Amarna, Egypt
1965 – Pope Paul VI & Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that led to split of two churches in 1054
1972 – Apollo 17 (US), final manned lunar landing mission, launched
1995 – US space probe Galileo begins orbiting Jupiter
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December 06
1768 – 1st edition of “Encyclopedia Brittanica” published (Scotland)
1833 – HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin departs Rio de la Plata
1866 – Chicago water supply tunnel 3,227 m into Lake Michigan completed
1876 – 1st crematorium in US begins operation, Washington, Penn
1877 – First recording made of the human voce – Thomas Edison reciting “Mary had a little lamb”
1877 – Washington Post publishes 1st edition
1897 – London becomes the world’s first city to host licenced taxicabs.
1947 – The Everglades National Park in Florida is dedicated.
1955 – NY psychologist Joyce Brothers won “$64,000 Question” on boxing
1988 – Nelson Mandela is transferred to Victor Vester Prison, Capetown
2006 – NASA reveals photographs taken by Mars Global Surveyor suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars.
2012 – A 243 million year old Nyasasaurus fossil is discovered in Tanzania
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December 05
1360 – The French Franc is created.
1717 – Blackbeard ransacks the merchant sloop “Margaret” and keeps her captain, Henry Bostock, prisoner for 8 hours before releasing him. Bostock would later provide the first recorded of Blackbeard’s appearance, with specific reference to his “very black beard”, providing the source for his name
1766 – London auctioneers Christie’s hold their first sale
1840 – Napoleon Bonaparte receives a French state funeral in Paris 19 years after his death
1879 – 1st automatic telephone switching system patented
1932 – German physicist Albert Einstein granted a visa to enter America
1933 – 21st Amendment to the US Constitution ratified, 18th Amendment (Prohibition of alcohol) repealed (5:32 PM EST)
1958 – Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the UK by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh.
1993 – Astronauts begin repair of Hubble telescope in space
2006 – Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows the government in Fiji.
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December 04
1791 – Britain’s Observer, oldest Sunday newspaper in the world, first published
1829 – Britain outlaws “suttee” in India (widow burning herself to death on her husband’s funeral pyre)
1843 – Manila paper (made from sails, canvas & rope) patented
1872 – The ship the Mary Celeste discovered mysteriously abandoned by her crew in the Atlantic Ocean
1881 – The first edition of the Los Angeles Times is published.
1918 – US President Woodrow Wilson sails for Versailles Peace Conference in France, 1st President to travel outside US while in office
1961 – The female contraceptive ‘pill’ becomes available on the National Health Service in Britain
1985 – “Les Miserables” opens at Palace Theatre, London
1996 – NASA’s 1st Mars rover launched from Cape Canaveral
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December 03
1586 – Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England from Colombia
1694 – English parliamentary election set for every 3 years
1736 – Astronomer Anders Celsius takes measurements that confirm Newton’s theory that the earth was an ellipsoid rather than the previously accepted sphere
1910 – Neon lights first publicly displayed (Paris Auto Show)
1926 – Detective novelist Agatha Christie mysteriously disappears for 11 days
1944 – Britain’s Home Guard (‘Dad’s Army’) is officially stood down at a special farewell parade in Hyde Park, London.
1964 – Police arrests 800 sit-in students at University of California at Berkeley
1967 – 1st human heart transplant performed (Dr Christian Barnard, South Africa)
1967 – Derek Clayton runs world record marathon (2:09:36.4)
1989 – Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H. W. Bush, declare the Cold War over
2014 – Australian Rugby star David Pocock is arrested after protesting against a coal mine under construction in an Australian national forest
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December 02
1697 – St Paul’s Cathedral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren is consecrated for use (the previous building was destroyed in the Great Fire of London)
1755 – The second Eddystone Lighthouse is destroyed by fire.
1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned emperor of France in Paris
1867 – In a New York City theatre, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States.
1901 – King Camp Gillette begins selling safety razor blades
1969 – Boeing 747 jumbo jet 1st public preview
1971 – Soviet Mars 3 is first to soft land on Mars
1976 – Fidel Castro becomes President of Cuba replacing Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado.
1982 – 1st permanent artificial heart successfully implanted (U of Utah) in retired dentist Barney Clark; lived 112 days with Jarvic-7 heart
2014 – Stephen Hawking claims that Artificial Intelligence could be a “threat to mankind” and spell the end of the human race
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December 01
1783 – Jacques Charles & Nicolas Roberts make first untethered ascension with gas hydrogen balloon in Paris
1835 – Hans Christian Andersen publishes his 1st book of fairy tales
1878 – 1st White House telephone installed
1903 – “The Great Train Robbery”, the 1st Western film, released
1913 – Continuous moving assembly line introduced by Ford (car every 2:38)
1929 – Game of Bingo invented by Edwin S Lowe
1953 – Hugh Hefner publishes 1st edition of Playboy magazine, featuring Marilyn Monroe as the magazine’s 1st centerfold
1959 – The 1st colour photograph of Earth received from outer space
1967 – Queen Elizabeth inaugurates 98-inch (249-cm) Isaac Newton telescope
1988 – Benazir Bhutto named 1st female Prime Minister of a Muslim country (Pakistan)
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Courtesy of Todayinhistory.com and onthisday.com