Dec/
1:
ROSA PARKS IGNITES BUS BOYCOTT:
December 1, 1955
In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city's racial segregation laws.
More Information
|
Dec/
2:
MCCARTHY CONDEMNED BY SENATE:
December 2, 1954
The U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Senator Joseph R. McCarthy for conduct unbecoming of a senator.
More Information
|
Dec/
3:
FIRST HUMAN HEART TRANSPLANT:
December 3, 1967
On December 3, 1967, 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky receives the first human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.
More Information
|
Dec/
4:
BUSH ORDERS U.S. TROOPS TO SOMALIA:
December 4, 1992
President George H. Bush orders 28,000 U.S. troops to Somalia, a war-torn East African nation where rival warlords were preventing the distribution of humanitarian aid to thousands of starving Somalis.
More Information
|
Dec/
4:
Last Quarter Moon
Moon rises at midnight and sets at noon.
Planetary Conjunction Venus and Mars
More Information
|
Dec/
5:
PROHIBITION ENDS:
December 5, 1933
The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment and bringing an end to the era of national prohibition of alcohol in America. At 5:32 p.m. EST, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, achieving the requisite three-fourths majority of states' approval.
More Information
|
Dec/
5:
Conjunction
Mercury Inferior Conjunction Mercury passes between the Eartn and the Sun and is lost in the Sun's glare.
|
Dec/
6:
IRISH FREE STATE DECLARED:
December 6, 1921
The Irish Free State, comprising four-fifths of Ireland, is declared, ending a five-year Irish struggle for independence from Britain.
More Information
|
Dec/
7:
PEARL HARBOR BOMBED:
December 7, 1941
At 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time, a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings appears out of the clouds above the island of Oahu.
More Information
|
Dec/
7:
Moon Occults Jupiter
What is a lunar occultation? It occurs when the moon passes in front of an object.
More Information
|
Dec/
8:
Hanukkah
Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days and nights, starting on the 25th of Kislev on the Hebrew calendar (which is November-December on the Gregorian calendar). In Hebrew, the word "Hanukkah" means "dedication."
More Infomration
For information on the History of Hanukka
For information on the Traditions of Hanukkah
|
Dec/
8:
JOHN LENNON SHOT:
December 8, 1980
John Lennon, a former member of the Beatles, the rock group that transformed popular music in the 1960s, is shot and killed by an obsessed fan in New York City.
More Information
|
Dec/
9:
INTIFADA BEGINS ON GAZA STRIP:
December 9, 1987
In the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, the first riots of the Palestinian intifada, or "shaking off" in Arabic, begin one day after an Israeli truck crashed into a station wagon carrying Palestinian workers in the Jabalya refugee district of Gaza, killing four and wounding 10.
More Information
|
Dec/
10:
FIRST NOBEL PRIZES:
December 10, 1901
The first Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace.
More Information
|
Dec/
11:
YELTSIN ORDERS RUSSIAN FORCES INTO CHECHNYA:
December 11, 1994
In the largest Russian military offensive since the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks pour into the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya.
More Information
|
Dec/
11:
New Moon
The New Moon Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun and is invisible. Moon rises at sunrise and sets at sunset.
|
Dec/
11:
Dark Sky Weekend
This is the best time this month to observe faint objects in the sky.
|
Dec/
12:
Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexico)
Mexico's most celebrated festival is the one held annually every December in honour of Our Lady of Guadalupe (also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe), Mexico's patron saint.
More information on Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe
|
Dec/
12:
MARCONI SENDS FIRST ATLANTIC WIRELESS TRANSMISSION:
December 12, 1901
Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less.
More Information
|
Dec/
12:
Dark Sky Weekend
This is the best time this month to observe faint objects in the sky.
|
Dec/
13:
DRAKE SETS OUT:
December 13, 1577
English seaman Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, England, with five ships and 164 men on a mission to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific coast of the New World and explore the Pacific Ocean. Three years later, Drake's return to Plymouth marked the first circumnavigation of the earth by a British explorer.
More Information
|
Dec/
14:
AMUNDSEN REACHES SOUTH POLE:
December 14, 1911
Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes the first explorer to reach the South Pole, beating his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott.
More Information
|
|
Dec/
15:
Audrey's Birthday
It's Audrey's birthday. And she is loved.
|
Dec/
15:
BILL OF RIGHTS BECOMES LAW:
December 15, 1791
Following ratification by the state of Virginia, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, become the law of the land.
More Information
|
Dec/
16:
BATTLE OF THE BULGE BEGINS:
December 16, 1944
With the Anglo-Americans closing in on Germany from the west and the Soviets approaching from the east, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a massive attack against the western Allies by three German armies.
|
Dec/
17:
FIRST AIRPLANE FLIES:
December 17, 1903
Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft.
More Information
|
Dec/
18:
SLAVERY ABOLISHED IN AMERICA:
December 18, 1865
Following its ratification by the requisite three-quarters of the states earlier in the month, the 13th Amendment is formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution, ensuring that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude. . . .shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
More Information
|
Dec/
19:
BRITAIN TO RETURN HONG KONG:
December 19, 1984
In the Hall of the People in Beijing, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang sign an agreement committing Britain to return Hong Kong to China in 1997 in return for terms guaranteeing a 50-year extension of its capitalist system.
More Information
|
Dec/
20:
HO CHI MINH FIGHTS FRENCH:
December 20, 1946
The morning after Viet Minh forces under Ho Chi Minh launched a night revolt in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, French colonial troops crack down on the communist rebels.
More Information
|
Dec/
21:
DE GAULLE ELECTED:
December 21, 1958
Three months after a new French constitution was approved, Charles de Gaulle is elected the first president of the Fifth Republic by a sweeping majority of French voters.
More Information
|
Dec/
22:
WALDHEIM ELECTED U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL:
December 22, 1971
The United Nations General Assembly votes to ratify the U.N. Security Council's nomination of Austrian diplomat Kurt Waldheim to lead the U.N.
More Information
|
Dec/
23:
VOYAGER COMPLETES GLOBAL FLIGHT:
December 23, 1986
After nine days and four minutes in the sky, the experimental aircraft Voyager lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California, completing the first nonstop flight around the globe on one load of fuel.
More Information
|
Dec/
24:
Christmas Eve
Christmas in the narrowest sense must be reckoned as beginning on the evening of December 24.
More Information
|
Dec/
24:
WAR OF 1812 ENDS:
December 24, 1814
The Treaty of Peace and Amity between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America is signed by British and American representatives at Ghent, Belgium, ending the War of 1812.
More Information
|
Dec/
25:
MERRY CHRISTMAS:
CHRIST IS BORN:
December 25, 6 B.C.
Although most Christians celebrate December 25 as the birthday of Jesus Christ, few in the first two Christian centuries claimed any knowledge of the exact day or year in which he was born. The oldest existing record of a Christmas celebration is found in a Roman almanac that tells of a Christ's Nativity festival led by the church of Rome in 336 A.D. The precise reason why Christmas came to be celebrated on December 25 remains obscure, but most researchers believe that Christmas originated as a Christian substitute for pagan celebrations of the winter solstice.
More Information
|
Dec/
26:
JACK JOHNSON WINS HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE:
December 26, 1908
Jack Johnson becomes the first African American to win the world heavyweight title when he knocks out Canadian Tommy Burns in the 14th round in a championship bout near Sydney, Australia. Johnson, who held the heavyweight title until 1915, was reviled by whites for his defiance of the "Jim Crow" racial conventions of early 20th-century America.
More Information
|
Dec/
27:
RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL OPENS:
December 27, 1932
At the height of the Great Depression, thousands turn out for the opening of Radio City Music Hall, a magnificent Art Deco theater in New York City.
More Information
|
|
|
