1572 – Spanish army beats Geuzen fleet (confederacy of Calvinist Dutch nobles) under admiral Lumey
1920 – Francis G. Pease’s interferometer at Mount Wilson Observatory is the first to measure the diameter of a star – the Betelgeuse
1924 – KOA-AM in Denver CO begins radio transmissions
1928 – George Gershwin’s “An American In Paris” premieres at Carnegie Hall, NYC, performed by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Walter Damrosch
1936 – National Football League Championship, Polo Grounds, NYC: Green Bay Packers beat Boston Redskins, 21-6; Packers 4th title; Redskins move to Washington, D.C. for 1937 season
1961 – “The Young Ones” directed by Sidney J. Furie, starring Cliff Richard, Robert Morley and Carole Gray premieres in London
1964 – In El Paso, Texas, LBJ and Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz set off an explosion diverting Rio Grande, to reshape US-Mexico border
1966 – 1st battle for Bijlmer flats, Amsterdam
2014 – Two US soldiers killed in a Taliban bombing of a NATO convoy in Kabul
2017 – Scientists begin checking interstellar asteroid Oumuamua for signs of alien technology through radio signals (later studies conclude it a piece of sliced off planet)
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 12th December 2022
1903 – Roger Casement completes report about abuses in Belgian Congo
1930 – Start of the 1st Australia v West Indies Test (at Adelaide)
1939 – Russ Indigirka capsizes in blizzard off Japanese coast; 750 die
1942 – A fire in a hostel in St. John’s, Newfoundland, kills 100 people
1965 – Vivian Beaumont Theater opens at 65th St and Amsterdam Ave NYC
1970 – Small Astronomy Satellite Explorer 42 launched to study X-rays
1986 – James “Bone Crusher” Smith TKO’s WBA champ Tim Witherspoon in Madison Square Garden
1992 – Julia Kurotchkina, 18, of Russia, crowned 42nd Miss World
2008 – Andrei Klepach, Deputy Economic Minister of Russia, states that Russia has entered a recession, with two quarters of contraction expected, meaning Russia will fall short of reaching the 6.8% growth forecast for 2008
2018 – China built 88 out of world’s 143 skyscrapers in 2018 more than any country ever (buildings over 200 meters/656 ft)
Historical Events for 11th December 2022
1719 – 1st recorded display of Aurora Borealis in north American colonies (New England)
1816 – Citizens of Geneva thwart Savoyard invaders
1882 – Victorien Sardous play “Fedora” with Sarah Bernhardt premieres in Paris
1932 – San Francisco’s coldest day (27°F) – it snows
1945 – Het Parool publishes 1st Captain Rob-strip
1948 – WMC TV channel 5 in Memphis, Tennessee (NBC) begins broadcasting
1984 – Mauretania military coup under Col Maawiya Ould Sid’ahmed Taya
1985 – General Electric acquires RCA Corp and its subsidiary, NBC
2017 – Attempted suicide terrorist bomb attack in New York wounds 3, bomb fails to fully detonate
2019 – Discovery of the earliest figurative artwork in the world, (43,900 years old), figures part human part animal, from cave in Sulawesi, Indonesia, reported in journal “Nature”
Historical Events for 10th December 2022
1690 – Massachusetts Bay becomes first American colonial government to issue paper money
1899 – Delta Sigma Phi fraternity founded at City College of New York, to spread “the principles of friendship and brotherhood among college men, without respect to race or creed.”
1913 – Belgium head of the International Peace Bureau Henri La Fontaine becomes the first Socialist to win the Nobel Peace Prize
1935 – White Sox sell Al Simmons to the Tigers for $75,000
1941 – Japanese troops overrun Guam
1961 – USSR and Albania break diplomatic relations
1988 – Washington Capitals 1st NHL scoreless tie, vs Montreal Canadiens
2001 – “The Fellowship of the Ring” Lord of the Rings film directed by Peter Jackson and starring Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen premieres in London
2001 – 67th Heisman Trophy Award: Eric Crouch, Nebraska (QB)
2009 – US President Barack Obama accepts the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo
Historical Events for 9th December 2022
536 – Byzantine General Belisarius enters Rome while the Ostrogothic garrison peacefully leaves the city, returning the old capital to its empire
1738 – Jews are expelled from Breslau Silesia
1854 – Alfred Tennyson’s poem “Charge of the Light Brigade” is published in “The Examiner”
1941 – Adolf Hitler orders US ships to be torpedoed
1975 – Yelena Bonner accepts Soviet dissident Andrei Sacharov’s Nobel Prize in Oslo
1978 – 1st game of Women’s Pro Basketball League (WBL), Chicago Hustle vs Milwaukee Does
1990 – NFL NY Giant Otis Anderson becomes 8th to rush for 10,000th yard
1993 – Ivory Coast Premier Ouattara resigns
2012 – 6 people are killed and 41 are injured after a bus plunges 30 metres down a gorge in Guatemala
2021 – Chicago Black Hawks Marc-Andre Fleury becomes 3rd NHL goaltender to reach 500 career wins in 2-0 shut-out over the Canadiens at Montreal
Historical Events for 8th December 2022
1326 – Daitokuji temple, Rinzai line, established in Kyoto by Daito Kokushi
1864 – Pope Pius IX publishes encyclical Quanta cura (“Syllabus errorum”)
1915 – Jean Sibelius’ 5th Symphony in E premieres
1953 – Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his “Atoms for Peace” speech at the United Nations in New York
1973 – 39th Heisman Trophy Award: John Cappelletti, Penn State (RB)
1977 – 43rd Heisman Trophy Award: Earl Campbell, Texas (RB)
1984 – Ringo Starr hosts “Saturday Night Live”; Herbie Hancock is the musical guest
1993 – 4th Billboard Music Awards: Whitney Houston, The Bodyguard Soundtrack win
1997 – 8th Billboard Music Awards: LeAnn Rimes and Spice Girls win
1998 – Tadjena massacre: 81 people are killed by armed groups in Algeria.
Historical Events for 7th December 2022
1727 – Physician Sir Hans Soane becomes President of the Royal Society, succeeding Sir Isaac Newton
1916 – David Lloyd George replaces resigning H. H. Asquith as British Prime Minister
1917 – The USA’s 42nd ‘Rainbow’ Division arrives in France (with Colonel Douglass MacArthur among its ranks)
1980 – PGA Seniors’ Championship Men’s Golf, Turnberry Isle CC: Arnold Palmer wins with a birdie on the 1st playoff hole against Paul Harney
1988 – Mikhail Gorbachev cheered by Wall St crowds upon arrival in NYC
1989 – C Coleman and D Zippel’s musical “City of Angels” premieres in NYC
1994 – 5th Billboard Music Awards: Ace of Base and Mariah Carey win
2016 – 6.5 earthquake in Aceh province, Indonesia kills at least 97 people
2017 – Australia’s parliament votes to legalize gay marriage
2020 – Breaking, the competitive form of breakdancing, confirmed as an Olympic sport for the Paris 2024 games
Historical Events for 6th December 2022
1240 – Mongols led by Batu Khan occupy and destroy Kyiv after an 8 day siege; out of 50,000 people in the city only 2,000 survive
1862 – US President Abraham Lincoln orders hanging of 39 Santee Sioux Indians
1876 – 1st crematorium in US begins operation, Washington, Pennsylvania
1896 – D T Suzuki found the awakening at Engakuji temple, in Kamakura
1941 – NYC Council agrees to build Idlewild (Kennedy) Airport in Queens
1986 – 52nd Heisman Trophy Award: Vinny Testaverde, Miami Fla (QB)
1987 – Christa Rothenburger skates female world record 500m (39.39 sec)
2008 – 13th Big 12 Championship Game: #4 Oklahoma beats #19 Missouri, 62-21
2008 – 4th ACC Championship Game: Virginia Tech beats #18 Boston College, 30-12
2012 – Typhoon Bopha’s death toll rise to 418 with 318 missing and 179,000 displaced
Historical Events for 5th December 2022
1360 – The French Franc is created
1456 – Earthquake strikes Naples; about 35,000 die
1920 – Dimitrios Rallis forms a government in Greece.
1935 – First commercial hydroponics operation established (Montebello, California)
1945 – Flight 19 the “Lost Squadron” of 5 torpedo bombers and 14 airmen is lost east of Florida in the supposed Bermuda Triangle
1967 – Pediatrician Benjamin Spock and poet Allen Ginsberg arrested in New York while protesting against the Vietnam War
1988 – Boris Becker beats defending champion Ivan Lendl 5–7, 7–6, 3–6, 6–2, 7–6 in a classic final to win his first of 3 ATP Masters Grand Prix tennis titles at Madison Square Garden, NYC
1993 – The mayor of Wien (Vienna), Helmut Zilk, is wounded by a letter bomb.
2017 – Netflix fires actor Danny Masterson from “The Ranch” after allegations of rape
2019 – Saudi state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco raises a record $25.6 billion in its first public share offering, makes it the world’s most valuable company at $1.7 trillion
Historical Events for 4th December 2022
1644 – First European peace congress opens in Munster
1682 – First General Assembly in Pennsylvania (Chester)
1947 – In the first cricket Test match between the 2 nations, India is dismissed for 98 by Australia in Brisbane to lose by an innings and 226 runs; fast bowler Ernie Toshack takes 6 for 29 for match figures of 11 for 31
1949 – Duncan Stewart, 2nd British Governor of Sarawak is fatally stabbed in the streets of Sibu by Malay student Rosli Dhoby with help from Morshidi Sidek with the goal of helping neighbouring Indonesia to take over British Sarawak
1951 – Superheated gasses roll down Mount Catarman, Philippines, killing 500 people
1961 – Smallest NY Knick, 49th St Madison Square Garden crowd-1,300 (snowstorm)
1964 – Test Cricket debut of Ian Chappell, v Pakistan MCG, 11, 0-49, 0-31
1984 – Hezbollah militants hijack a Kuwait Airlines plane, killing four passengers.
1992 – Somali Civil War: President George H. W. Bush orders 28,000 US troops to Somalia
2009 – Montreal Canadiens retire Hall of Fame center Elmer Lach’s jersey (No. 16), as part of team’s centennial celebration