800 – Charlemagne judges the accusations against Pope Leo III in the Vatican.
1626 – Pasha Muhammad ibn Farukh tyrannical gov of Jerusalem, driven out
1640 – Portugal regains independence after 60 years of Spanish rule
1641 – Massachusetts becomes the first colony to give statutory recognition to slavery
1742 – Empress Elisabeth orders expulsion of all Jews from Russia
1824 – United States presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1824 – US House of Representatives begins to decide outcome of election deadlock between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson (Adams wins)
1834 – Slavery is abolished in the Cape Colony in accordance with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
1862 – In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.
1865 – Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.
1866 – George Everest, Welsh surveyor and namesake of Mt. Everest (d. 1790) Dies
1868 – John D Rockefeller begins anti oil war
1885 – First serving of the soft drink Dr Pepper at a drug store in Waco, Texas.
1891 – James Naismith creates the game of basketball
1899 – Robert Welch, found John Birch Society, Born
1901 – Both England and Russia have laid claim to parts of Afghanistan and have been in constant conflict over it. However, a new ruler in Afghanistan may bring stability to the region. Unlike his unpopular father who created hardships for his people, his son, the new leader, planned to pay the military more and to reduce taxes.
1903 – “The Great Train Robbery”, the 1st Western film, released
1912 – Minoru Yamasaki, American architect, designed the World Trade Center (d. 1986) was born.
1913 – Continuous moving assembly line introduced by Ford (car every 2:38)
1918 – Transylvania unites with the Kingdom of Romania, following the incorporation of Bessarabia (March 27) and Bukovina (November 28), thus concluding the Great Union.
1918 – The Kingdom of Iceland becomes a sovereign state, yet remains a part of the Danish kingdom.
1918 – The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is proclaimed.
1919 – Lady Astor becomes the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. (She had been elected to that position on November 28.)
1922 – 1st skywriting over US-“Hello USA”-by Capt Turner, RAF
1923 – Stansfield Turner, American admiral, 12th Director of Central Intelligence was born.
1924 – A nationwide farm census was underway from December 1, 1924 until January 31st, 1935. More than 6 million farms were to be covered by an army of 10,000 -20,000 enumerators. Farmers filled out surveys to prepare them for the census.
1933 – Lou Rawls, Chicago Illinois, vocalist (Dean Martin’s Golddigers, Natural Man), (d. 2006) Born
1934 – Leningrad mayor Sergey Kirov assassinated, used by Stalin as the excuse to begin the Great Purge of 1934-38. / Josef Stalin begins a purge of real and perceived enemies and the head of the Communist Party in Leningrad, Sergei M. Kirov, is one of those assassinated
1935 – Woody Allen, American actor, director, and screenwriter was born.
1936 – Bell Labs tests coaxial cable for TV use
1940 – Richard Pryor, American comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2005) was born.
1941 – World War II: Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives the final approval to initiate war against the United States.
1941 – World War II: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.
1942 – The British Coalition Government accepts The Beveridge report which propose a series of changes designed to provide plans for a welfare state offering care to all from the cradle to the grave.
1943 – The Allied leaders of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union having met together for the first time in Tehran, the capital of Iran. have agreed to work together to win the war in Europe and in Asia and establish an “enduring peace”. The leaders Winston Churchill, President Franklin D Roosevelt and Marshal Joseph Stalin had never met together in one place
1944 – Eric Bloom, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Blue Öyster Cult) was born
1944 – John Densmore, American drummer and songwriter (The Doors and the Butts Band) was born.
1945 – Bette Midler, American singer-songwriter, actress and producer was born.
1948 – Arabic Congress names Abdullah of Trans Jordan as King of Palestine
1949 – Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug lord (d. 1993) was born.
1951 – Jaco Pastorius, American bass player, songwriter, and producer (Weather Report, Trio of Doom, and Blood, Sweat & Tears) (d. 1987) was born.
1952 – The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of sexual reassignment surgery.
1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
1957 – Chris Poland, American guitarist and songwriter (Megadeth, Circle Jerks, Damn the Machine, and OHM) was born.
1957 – Sam Cooke and Buddy Holly and Crickets debut on Ed Sullivan Show
1958 – A fire at Our Lady of Angels School grade school in Chicago grade leaves 90 children dead due to poor fire prevention including no sprinklers and no fire drills .
1959 – The 1st color photograph of Earth received from outer space
1959 – Cold War: Opening date for signature of the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.
1959 – Billy Childish, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and painter (The Medway Poets, Thee Mighty Caesars, and Thee Headcoats) was born.
1959 – 12 nations sign treaty for scientific peaceful use of Antarctica
1960 – Paul McCartney and Pete Best are arrested (and later deported) from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson.
1964 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.
1964 – Houston Colt .45s change name to Astros
1964 – Martin Lurther King speaks to J. Edgar Hoover about his slander campaign
1964 – Malawi, Malta and Zambia join the United Nations.
1965 – Airlift of refugees from Cuba to US began
1965 – South Africa government says children of white fathers are white
1965 – India’s Border Security Force is established.
1969 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.
1971 – John & Yoko release “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” in US
1973 – David Ben-Gurion, Polish-Israeli politician, 1st Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1886) died.
1974 – TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport, killing all 92 people on board.
1974 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, another Boeing 727, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
1975 – Kuwait and Gulf and BP agree on terms of nationalization
1976 – Angola joins the United Nations.
1976 – Sex Pistols using profanity on TV, gets them branded as “rotten punks”
1977 – Brad Delson, American guitarist and producer (Linkin Park) was born.
1978 – Pres Carter more than doubles national park system size
1982 – Dentist Barney B Clark gets 1st artificial heart
1982 – Michael Jackson releases his album “Thriller”
1984 – NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, wherein an airliner is deliberately crashed in order to test technologies and gather data to help improve survivability of crashes.
1988 – Benazir Bhutto named 1st female Prime Minister of a Muslim country (Pakistan)
1989 – Cold War: East Germany’s parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in the state.
1991 – Cold War: Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.
1992 – Amy Fisher sentenced 5-15 yrs for shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco
1993 – Ray Gillen, American singer-songwriter (Badlands, Black Sabbath, Blue Murder, and Sun Red Sun) (b. 1959) died.
1997 – Westinghouse formally changes its name to CBS
1997 – Although Iraq wanted the complete lifting of U.N. sanctions, it finally agreed to participate in an oil- for- food proposal. This would allow Iraq to export $2 billion worth of its oil to purchase food and medicine.
1998 – Exxon buys Mobil for $73.7 billion creating the worlds largest oil company Exxon-Mobil
1999 – An international consortium of sequencing centers and collaborators from the chromosome 22 genetics community released into the public domain the genetic code of the 33.5 million bps that comprise the euchromatic portion of human chromosome 22.
2001 – Captain Bill Compton brings Trans World Airlines Flight 220, an MD-83, into St. Louis International Airport bringing to an end 76 years of TWA operations following TWA’s purchase by American Airlines.
2005 – Gust Avrakotos, American CIA officer (b. 1938) died.
2009 – The Treaty of Lisbon, which amends the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, which together comprise the constitutional basis of European Union, comes into effect.
2011 – A new law that came into force in Hungary effectively outlaws homelessness. The new regulation states that people who are found to be sleeping on the streets will receive a warning and if they are found to be on the streets again they could be imprisoned or forced to pay a $600 fine. The law is condemned by charities who say that it is unfair and unenforceable because there are not enough places for the homeless in shelters.
2013 – Thousands of people gathered in protest after Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovych didn’t sign an EU trade deal. The pro-Europe protesters congregated in Independence Square in Kiev, despite a court order making it illegal to do so. Several people were injured and there were reports of deaths after police were ordered to clear the protesters.