Events Pre-1600 36 – Forces of Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han, under the command of Wu Han, conquer the separatist Chengjia empire, reuniting China. 274 – A temple to Sol Invictus is dedicated in Rome by Emperor Aurelian. 333 – Roman Emperor Constantine the Great elevates his youngest son Constans to the rank of Caesar. 336 – First documented sign of Christmas celebration in Rome. 350 – Vetranio meets Constantius II at Naissus (Serbia) and is forced to abdicate his imperial title. Constantius allows him to live as a private citizen on a state pension. 508 – Clovis I, king of the Franks, is baptized into the Catholic faith at Reims, by Saint Remigius. 597 – Augustine of Canterbury and his fellow-labourers baptise in Kent more than 10,000 Anglo-Saxons. 800 – The coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome. 820 – Eastern Emperor Leo V is murdered in a church of the Great Palace of Constantinople by followers of Michael II. 1000 – The foundation of the Kingdom of Hungary: Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I of Hungary. 1013 – Sweyn Forkbeard takes control of the Danelaw and is proclaimed king of England. 1025 – Coronation of Mieszko II Lambert as king of Poland. 1046 – Henry III is crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement II. 1066 – William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy is crowned king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London. 1076 – Coronation of Bolesław II the Generous as king of Poland. 1100 – Baldwin of Boulogne is crowned the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. 1130 – Count Roger II of Sicily is crowned the first king of Sicily. 1261 – Eleven-year-old John IV Laskaris of the restored Eastern Roman Empire is deposed and blinded by orders of his co-ruler Michael VIII Palaiologos. 1356 – Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, promulgates the Golden Bull, a constitution for his empire.Luxembourg, Charles IV (2019). The Golden Bull of 1356 AD. . 1492 – The carrack Santa María, commanded by Christopher Columbus, runs onto a reef off Haiti due to an improper watch. 1553 – Battle of Tucapel: Mapuche rebels under Lautaro defeat the Spanish conquistadors and executes the governor of Chile, Pedro de Valdivia. 1559 – Pope Pius IV is elected, four months after his predecessor's death.
1601–1900 1724 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, BWV 91, in Leipzig, based on Luther's 1524 Christmas hymn. 1725 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of the Christmas cantata Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110, making laughter audible in singing. 1758 – Halley's Comet is sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley's prediction of its passage. This was the first passage of a comet predicted ahead of time. 1766 – Mapuches in Chile launch a series of surprise attacks against the Spanish starting the Mapuche uprising of 1766. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: General George Washington and the Continental Army cross the Delaware River at night to attack Hessian forces serving Great Britain at Trenton, New Jersey, the next day. 1793 – Northwest Indian War: General "Mad Anthony" Wayne and a 300 man detachment identify the site of St. Clair's 1791 defeat by the large number of unburied human remains at modern Fort Recovery, Ohio. 1809 – Dr. Ephraim McDowell performs the first ovariotomy, removing a 22-pound tumor. 1814 – Rev. Samuel Marsden holds the first Christian service on land in New Zealand at Rangihoua Bay. 1815 – The Handel and Haydn Society, oldest continually performing arts organization in the United States, gives its first performance. 1826 – The Eggnog Riot at the United States Military Academy concludes after beginning the previous evening. 1831 – The Great Jamaican Slave Revolt begins; up to 20% of Jamaica's slaves mobilize in an ultimately unsuccessful fight for freedom. 1837 – Second Seminole War: American general Zachary Taylor leads 1,100 troops against the Seminoles at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee. 1868 – Pardons for ex-Confederates: United States President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans. 1870 – Wagner's Siegfried Idyll is first performed.
1901–present 1913 – Disfellowshipped Adventist lay preacher Felix Manalo begins the new religious movement known as the Iglesia ni Cristo with the baptism of its first members. 1914 – World War I: A series of unofficial truces occur across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas. 1915 – The National Protection War breaks out against the Empire of China, as military leaders Cai E and Tang Jiyao proclaim the independence of Yunnan and begin a campaign to restore the Republic. 1927 – B. R. Ambedkar and his followers burn copies of the Manusmriti in Mahad, Maharashtra, to protest its treatment of Dalit people. 1932 – A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Gansu, China kills 275 people. 1941 – Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, appointed commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet on December 17, arrives at Pearl Harbor. 1941 – World War II: Battle of Hong Kong ends, beginning the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. 1941 – Admiral Émile Muselier seizes the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which become the first part of France to be liberated by the Free French Forces. 1946 – The first European self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is initiated within the Soviet Union's F-1 nuclear reactor. 1950 – The Stone of Scone, traditional coronation stone of British monarchs, is taken from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students. It later turns up in Scotland on April 11, 1951. 1951 – A bomb explodes at the home of Harry T. Moore and Harriette V. S. Moore, early leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, killing Harry instantly and fatally wounding Harriette. 1962 – The Soviet Union conducts its final above-ground nuclear weapon test, in anticipation of the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. 1963 – Turkish Cypriot Bayrak Radio begins transmitting in Cyprus after Turkish Cypriots are forcibly excluded from Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation. 1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 performs the first successful Trans-Earth injection (TEI) maneuver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit. 1968 – Kilvenmani massacre: Forty-four Dalits (untouchables) are burnt to death in Kizhavenmani village, Tamil Nadu, a retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by Dalit laborers. 1971 – A fire at the Daeyeonggak Hotel in Seoul, South Korea kills 164 people. 1976 – EgyptAir Flight 864, a Boeing 707-366C, crashes on approach to Don Mueang International Airport, killing 71 people. 1977 – Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin meets in Egypt with its president Anwar Sadat. 1986 – Iraqi Airways Flight 163, a Boeing 737-270C, is hijacked and crashes in Arar, Saudi Arabia, killing 63 people. 1989 – Romanian Revolution: Deposed President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena, are condemned to death and executed after a summary trial. 1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day). Ukraine's referendum is finalized and Ukraine officially leaves the Soviet Union. 1996 – The body of American child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey was found in her family's Boulder, Colorado, home. Her murder remains unsolved. 1999 – Cubana de Aviación Flight 310, a Yakovlev Yak-42, crashes near Bejuma, Carabobo State, Venezuela, killing 22 people. 2003 – UTA Flight 141, a Boeing 727-223, crashes at the Cotonou Airport in Benin, killing 141 people. 2003 – The ill-fated Beagle 2 probe, released from the Mars Express spacecraft on December 19, stops transmitting shortly before its scheduled landing. 2004 – The Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which successfully landed on Saturn's moon Titan on January 14, 2005. 2007 – A Siberian tiger named Tatania escapes her exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo and attacks three people, killing one and injuring two more. 2012 – An Antonov An-72 plane crashes close to the city of Shymkent, killing 27 people. 2012 – Air Bagan Flight 011, a Fokker 100, crashes on approach to Heho Airport in Heho, Myanmar, killing two people. 2016 – A Russian Defence Ministry Tupolev Tu-154 carrying members of the Alexandrov Ensemble crashes into the Black Sea shortly after takeoff, killing all 92 people on board. 2019 – Twenty people are killed and thousands are left homeless by Typhoon Phanfone in the Philippines. 2020 – An explosion in Nashville, Tennessee, occurs, leaving three civilians in the hospital. 2021 – The James Webb Space Telescope is launched. 2024 – Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 crashes in Aktau, Kazakhstan, killing 38 of its occupants.
Births
Pre-1600 1250 – John IV Laskaris, Byzantine emperor (died 1305) 1281 – Alice de Lacy, 4th Countess of Lincoln (died 1348) 1400 – John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (died 1487) 1424 – Margaret Stewart, Dauphine of France (died 1445) 1461 – Christina of Saxony, Queen consort of Denmark (died 1521) 1490 – Francesco Marinoni, Italian Roman Catholic priest (died 1562) 1493 – Antoinette de Bourbon, French noblewoman (died 1583) 1505 – Christine of Saxony, German noblewoman (died 1549) 1564 – Johannes Buxtorf, German Calvinist theologian (died 1629) 1583 – Orlando Gibbons, English organist and composer (died 1625) 1584 – Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain (died 1611)
1601–1900 1601 – Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha (died 1675) 1628 – Noël Coypel, French painter and educator (died 1707) 1642 – Isaac Newton, English physicist and mathematician (died 1727) 1652 – Archibald Pitcairne, Scottish physician, anatomist, and scholar (died 1713) 1665 – Lady Grizel Baillie, Scottish-English poet and songwriter (died 1746) 1674 – Thomas Halyburton, Scottish minister and theologian (died 1712) 1686 – Giovanni Battista Somis, Italian violinist and composer (died 1763) 1700 – Leopold II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau (died 1758) 1711 – Jean-Joseph de Mondonville, French violinist and composer (died 1772) 1716 – Johann Jakob Reiske, German physician and scholar (died 1774) 1717 – Pope Pius VI (died 1799) 1728 – Johann Adam Hiller, German composer and conductor (died 1804) 1730 – Filippo Mazzei, Italian-American physician and philosopher (died 1816) 1745 – Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Caribbean-French violinist, composer, and conductor (died 1799) 1757 – Benjamin Pierce, American general and politician, 17th Governor of New Hampshire (died 1839) 1766 – Christmas Evans, Welsh Nonconformist preacher (died 1838) 1771 – Dorothy Wordsworth, English diarist and poet (died 1855) 1776 – Sydney, Lady Morgan, Irish author and poet (died 1859) 1810 – L. L. Langstroth, American apiarist, clergyman and teacher (died 1895) 1821 – Clara Barton, American nurse and humanitarian, founder of the American Red Cross (died 1912) 1825 – Stephen F. Chadwick, American lawyer and politician, 5th Governor of Oregon (died 1895) 1829 – Patrick Gilmore, Irish-American composer and bandleader (died 1892) 1856 – Pud Galvin, American baseball player and manager (died 1902) 1861 – Francis Henry Buzzacott, American hunter, explorer and army scout famous for writing Buzzacott's Masterpiece (died 1947)Buzzacott's Masterpiece 1861 – Madan Mohan Malaviya, Indian educator, lawyer, and politician, President of the Indian National Congress (died 1946) 1865 – Evangeline Booth, English 4th General of The Salvation Army (died 1950) 1869 – Charles Finger, English-American journalist and author (died 1941) 1872 – Helena Rubinstein, Polish-American businesswoman and philanthropist (died 1965) 1873 – Otto Frederick Hunziker, Swiss-American agriculturalist and educator (died 1959) 1874 – Lina Cavalieri, Italian soprano and actress (died 1944) 1875 – Francis Aveling, Canadian psychologist and priest (died 1941) 1875 – Theodor Innitzer, Austrian cardinal (died 1955) 1876 – Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Indian-Pakistani lawyer and politician, 1st Governor-General of Pakistan (died 1948)