TODAY IN HISTORY: DECEMBER 18

 

December 18

1118 – The city of Zaragoza is conquered by king Alfonso I of Aragon from the Almoravid. 

1271 – Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan" (元 yuán), officially marking the start of the Yuan dynasty of Mongolia and China.

1499 – A rebellion breaks out in Alpujarras in response to the forced conversions of Muslims in Spain.

1622 – Portuguese forces score a military victory over the Kingdom of Kongo at the Battle of Mbumbi in present-day Angola.

1655 – The Whitehall Conference ends with the determination that there was no law preventing Jews from re-entering England after the Edict of Expulsion of 1290.

1777 – The United States celebrates its first Thanksgiving, marking the recent victory by the American rebels over British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga in October.

1787 – New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1793 – Surrender of the frigate La Lutine by French Royalists to Lord Samuel Hood; renamed HMS Lutine, she later becomes a famous treasure wreck.

1833 – The national anthem of the Russian Empire, "God Save the Tsar!", is first performed.

1854 – The Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada abolishes the seigneurial system.

1865 – US Secretary of State William Seward proclaims the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting slavery throughout the United States.

1867 – A magnitude 7.0 earthquakes strikes off the coast of Taiwan, triggering a tsunami and killing at least 580 people.

1878 – The Al-Thani family become the rulers of the state of Qatar.

1892 – Premiere performance of The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

1898 – Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat sets the first officially recognized land speed record of 63.159 km/h (39.245 mph) in a Jeantaud electric car.

1916 – World War I: The Battle of Verdun ends when the second French offensive pushes the Germans back two or three kilometres, causing them to cease their attacks.

1917 – The resolution containing the language of the Eighteenth Amendment to enact Prohibition is passed by the United States Congress.

1932 – The Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth Spartans in the first NFL playoff game to win the NFL Championship.

1935 – The Lanka Sama Samaja Party is founded in Ceylon.

1939 – World War II: The Battle of the Heligoland Bight, the first major air battle of the war, takes place.

1944 – World War II: XX Bomber Command responds to the Japanese Operation Ichi-Go offensive by dropping five hundred tons of incendiary bombs on a supply base in Hankow, China.

1944 – The Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Korematsu v. United States supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 which cleared the way for the incarceration of nearly all 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens, born and raised in the United States.

1958 – Project SCORE, the world's first communications satellite, is launched.

1966 – Saturn's moon Epimetheus is discovered by astronomer Richard Walker.

1972 – Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will engage North Vietnam in Operation Linebacker II, a series of Christmas bombings, after peace talks collapsed with North Vietnam on the 13th.

1973 – Soviet Soyuz Programme: Soyuz 13, crewed by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk, is launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.

1977 – United Airlines Flight 2860 crashes near Kaysville, Utah, killing all three crew members on board.

1977 – SA de Transport Aérien Flight 730 crashes near Madeira Airport in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, killing 36.

1981 – First flight of the Russian heavy strategic bomber Tu-160, the world's largest combat aircraft, largest supersonic aircraft and largest variable-sweep wing aircraft built.

1995 – A Lockheed L-188 Electra crashes in Jamba, Cuando Cubango, Angola, killing 141 people.

1999 – NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.

2002 – California gubernatorial recall: Then Governor of California Gray Davis announces that the state would face a record budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier.

2005 – The Chadian Civil War begins when rebel groups, allegedly backed by neighbouring Sudan, launch an attack in Adré.

2006 – The first of a series of floods strikes Malaysia. The death toll of all flooding is at least 118, with over 400,000 people displaced.

2006 – United Arab Emirates holds its first-ever elections.

2015 – Kellingley Colliery, the last deep coal mine in Great Britain, closes.

2017 – Amtrak Cascades passenger train 501, derailed near DuPont, Washington, a city in United States near Olympia, Washington killing six people, and injuring 70 others.

2018 – List of bolides: A meteor exploded over the Bering Sea with a force over 10 times greater than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.

2019 – The United States House of Representatives impeaches Donald Trump for the first time.

2022 – Argentina win the 2022 FIFA World Cup final, defeating title holders France 4–2 on penalties following a 3–3 draw after extra time.

 

TODAY IN HISTORY: DECEMBER 17

 

December 17

497 BC – The first Saturnalia festival was celebrated in ancient Rome.

546 – Siege of Rome: The Ostrogoths under king Totila plunder the city, by bribing the Byzantine garrison.

920 – Romanos I Lekapenos is crowned co-emperor of the underage Constantine VII.

942 – Assassination of William I of Normandy.

1297 – King Kyawswa of Pagan is overthrown by the three Myinsaing brothers, marking the de facto end of the Pagan Kingdom.

1398 – Sultan Nasir-u Din Mehmud's armies in Delhi are defeated by Timur.

1538 – Pope Paul III excommunicates Henry VIII of England.

1583 – Cologne War: Forces under Ernest of Bavaria defeat troops under Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg at the Siege of Godesberg.

1586 – Go-Yōzei becomes Emperor of Japan.

1718 – War of the Quadruple Alliance: Great Britain declares war on Spain.

1777 – American Revolution: France formally recognizes the United States.

1790 – The Aztec calendar stone is discovered at El Zócalo, Mexico City.

1807 – Napoleonic Wars: France issues the Milan Decree, which confirms the Continental System.

1812 – War of 1812: U.S. forces attack a Lenape village in the Battle of the Mississinewa.

1819 – Simón Bolívar declares the independence of Gran Colombia in Angostura (now Ciudad Bolívar in Venezuela).

1835 – The second Great Fire of New York destroys 53,000 square metres (13 acres) of New York City's Financial District.

1837 – A fire in the Winter Palace of Saint Petersburg kills 30 guards.

1862 – American Civil War: General Ulysses S. Grant issues General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.

1865 – First performance of the Unfinished Symphony by Franz Schubert.

1892 – First issue of Vogue is published.

1896 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's Schenley Park Casino, which was the first multi-purpose arena with the technology to create an artificial ice surface in North America, is destroyed in a fire.

1903 – The Wright brothers make the first controlled powered, heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1907 – Ugyen Wangchuck is crowned first King of Bhutan.

1918 – Darwin Rebellion: Up to 1,000 demonstrators march on Government House in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

1926 – Antanas Smetona assumes power in Lithuania as the 1926 coup d'état is successful.

1927 – Indian revolutionary Rajendra Lahiri is hanged in Gonda jail, Uttar Pradesh, India, two days before the scheduled date.

1928 – Indian revolutionaries Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru assassinate British police officer James Saunders in Lahore, Punjab, to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai at the hands of the police. The three were executed in 1931.

1933 – The first NFL Championship Game is played at Wrigley Field in Chicago between the New York Giants and Chicago Bears. The Bears won 23–21.

1935 – First flight of the Douglas DC-3.

1938 – Otto Hahn discovers the nuclear fission of the heavy element uranium, the scientific and technological basis of nuclear energy.

1939 – World War II: Battle of the River Plate: The Admiral Graf Spee is scuttled by Captain Hans Langsdorff outside Montevideo.

1943 – All Chinese are again permitted to become citizens of the United States upon the repeal of the Act of 1882 and the introduction of the Magnuson Act.

1944 – World War II: Battle of the Bulge: Malmedy massacre: American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion POWs are shot by Waffen-SS Kampfgruppe Joachim Peiper.

1945 – Kurdistan flag day, the flag of Kurdistan was raised for the first time in Mahabad in eastern Kurdistan (Iran).

1947 – First flight of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber.

1948 – The Finnish Security Police is established to remove communist leadership from its predecessor, the State Police.

1950 – The F-86 Sabre's first mission over Korea.

1951 – The American Civil Rights Congress delivers "We Charge Genocide" to the United Nations.

1957 – The United States successfully launches the first Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1960 – Troops loyal to Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia crush the coup that began December 13, returning power to their leader upon his return from Brazil. Haile Selassie absolves his son of any guilt.

1960 – Munich C-131 crash: Twenty passengers and crew on board as well as 32 people on the ground are killed.

1961 – Niterói circus fire: Fire breaks out during a performance by the Gran Circus Norte-Americano in the city of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killing more than 500.

1967 – Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia, disappears while swimming near Portsea, Victoria, and is presumed drowned.

1969 – Project Blue Book: The United States Air Force closes its study of UFOs.

1970 – Polish protests: In Gdynia, soldiers fire at workers emerging from trains, killing dozens.

1973 – Thirty passengers are killed in an attack by Palestinian terrorists on Rome's Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport.

1981 – American Brigadier General James L. Dozier is abducted by the Red Brigades in Verona, Italy.

1983 – Provisional IRA members detonate a car bomb at Harrods Department Store in London. Three police officers and three civilians are killed.

1989 – Romanian Revolution: Protests continue in Timișoara, Romania, with rioters breaking into the Romanian Communist Party's District Committee building and attempting to set it on fire.

1989 – Fernando Collor de Mello defeats Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round of the Brazilian presidential election, becoming the first democratically elected President in almost 30 years.

1989 – The Simpsons premieres on television with the episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire".

1997 – Aerosvit Flight 241: A Yakovlev Yak-42 crashes into the Pierian Mountains near Thessaloniki Airport in Thessaloniki, Greece, killing all 70 people on board.

2002 – Second Congo War: The Congolese parties of the Inter Congolese Dialogue sign a peace accord which makes provision for transitional governance and legislative and presidential elections within two years.

2003 – The Soham murder trial ends at the Old Bailey in London, with Ian Huntley found guilty of two counts of murder. His girlfriend, Maxine Carr, is found guilty of perverting the course of justice.

2003 – SpaceShipOne, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes its first powered and first supersonic flight.

2003 – Sex work rights activists establish December 17 (or "D17") as International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers to memorialize victims of a serial killer who targeted prostitutes, and highlight State violence against sex workers by police and others.

2005 – Anti-World Trade Organization protesters riot in Wan Chai, Hong Kong.

2005 – Jigme Singye Wangchuck abdicates the throne as King of Bhutan.

2009 – MV Danny F II sinks off the coast of Lebanon, resulting in the deaths of 44 people and over 28,000 animals.

2010 – Mohamed Bouazizi sets himself on fire. This act became the catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution and the wider Arab Spring.

2014 – The United States and Cuba re-establish diplomatic relations after severing them in 1961.