• 627 - Battle of Nineveh: A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeats Emperor Khosrau II's Persian forces, commanded by General Rhahzadh.
• 1098 - First Crusade: Massacre of Ma'arrat al-Numan - Crusaders breach the town's walls and massacre about 20,000 inhabitants. After finding themselves with insufficient food, they resort to cannibalism.
• 1408 - Order of the Dragon: The Order of the Dragon was first created on December 12, 1408 by Emperor Sigismund, then King of Hungary, and his wife Queen Barbara of Celje following the battle for possession of Bosnia.
• 1781 - American Revolutionary War: Second Battle of Ushant - A Royal Navy squadron, commanded by Rear Admiral Richard Kempenfelt in HMS Victory, defeats a French fleet.
• 1812 - French invasion of Russia comes to an end.
• 1862 - USS Cairo sinks on the Yazoo River, becoming the first armored ship to be sunk by an electrically detonated mine.
• 1870 - Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina becomes the first black U.S. congressman.
• 1897 - Belo Horizonte, the first planned city of Brazil, is founded.
• 1901 - Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland.
• 1911 - Delhi replaces Calcutta as the capital of India.
• 1914 - The largest one-day percentage drop in the history of Dow Jones Industrial Average, down 24.39%.
• 1915 - President of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai announces his intention to reinstate the monarchy and proclaim himself Emperor of China.
• 1917 - In Nebraska, Father Edward J. Flanagan founds Boys Town as a farm village for wayward boys.
• 1925 - The Majlis of Iran votes to crown Reza Khan as the new Shah of Persia.
• 1936 - Xi'an Incident: The Generalissimo of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek is kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang.
• 1937 - Panay incident: Japanese aircraft shell and sink US gunboat Panay on the Yangtze River in China.
• 1939 - Winter War: Battle of Tolvajärvi - Finnish forces defeat those of the Soviet Union in their first major victory of the conflict.
• 1940 - World War II: Approximately 70 people are killed in the Marples Hotel, Fitzalan Square, Sheffield as a result of a German air raid.
• 1941 - World War II: Fifty four Japanese A6M Zero fighters raid Batangas Field, Philippines. Jesus Villamor and four Filipino fighter pilots fend them off; Cesar Basa is killed.
• 1941 - World War II: USMC F4F "Wildcats" sink the first 4 major Japanese ships off Wake Island.
• 1941 - World War II: Great Britain declares war on Bulgaria. Hungary and Romania declare war on the United States. India declares war on Japan.
• 1942 - A fire in a hostel in St. John's, Newfoundland kills 100 people.
• 1946 - A fire at a New York City ice plant spreads to a nearby tenement killing 37 people.
• 1948 - Malayan Emergency: Batang Kali Massacre - 14 members of the Scots Guards stationed in Malaysia allegedly massacre 24 unarmed civilians and set fire to the village.
• 1950 - Paula Ackerman, the first woman appointed to perform rabbinical functions in the United States, leads the congregation in her first services.
• 1956 - Commencement of the Irish Republican Army's Border Campaign.
• 1963 - Kenya gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1964 - Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta becomes the first President of the Republic of Kenya.
• 1969 - Strategia della tensione: Piazza Fontana bombing - The offices of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana, Milan, are bombed.
• 1979 - Coup d'état of December Twelfth: South Korean Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan orders the arrest of Army Chief of Staff General Jeong Seung-hwa without authorization from President Choi Kyu-ha, alleging involvement in the assassination of ex-President Park Chung Hee.
• 1979 - President of Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq, confers Nishan-e-Imtiaz on Nobel laureate Dr Abdus Salam.
• 1979 - Rhodesia changes its name to Zimbabwe.
• 1982 - Women's peace protest at Greenham Common - 30,000 women hold hands and form a human chain around the 14.5 km (9 mi) perimeter fence.
• 1984 - Maaouiya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya becomes the third president of Mauritania after a coup d'etat against Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla while the latter was attending a summit. Taya was ousted in March 2005 by Ely Ould Mohamed Vall in another coup.
• 1985 - Arrow Air Flight 1285 crashes after takeoff in Gander, Newfoundland killing 256, including 248 members of the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division.
• 1988 - The Clapham Junction rail crash kills thirty-five and injures hundreds after two collisions of three commuter trains - one of the worst train crashes in Britain.
• 1991 - Russian Federation gains independence from the USSR.
• 2000 - The United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore
• 2006 - Peugeot produces its last car at the Ryton Plant signalling the end of mass car production in Coventry, formerly a major centre of the British motor industry.

Births