On This Day in December

345 entries

• 1997 — In the Indian state of Bihar, Ranvir Sena attacked the CPI(ML) Party Unity stronghold...
• 1991 — Cold War: Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from...
• 1990 — Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres...

341 entries

• 2016 — 36 people die in a fire at a converted Oakland, California, warehouse serving as an...
• 2015 — San Bernardino attack: Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik kill 14 people and wound...
• 2001 — Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

318 entries

• 2014 — The Japanese space agency, JAXA, launches the space explorer Hayabusa 2 from the...
• 2012 — At least 475 people are killed after Typhoon Bopha makes landfall in the Philippines.
• 2009 — A suicide bombing at a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, kills 25 people, including three...

146 entries

• 2015 — A firebomb is thrown into a restaurant in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, killing 17 people.
• 2014 — Islamic insurgents kill three state police at a traffic circle before taking an empty...
• 2006 — Six black youths assault a white teenager in Jena, Louisiana.

335 entries

• 2013 — Militants attack a Defense Ministry compound in Sana'a, Yemen, killing at least 56...
• 2006 — Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows the government in Fiji.
• 2005 — The 6.8 Mw Lake Tanganyika earthquake shakes the eastern provinces of the Democratic...

353 entries

• 2015 — Venezuelan elections are held. For the first time in 17 years the United Socialist...
• 2006 — NASA reveals photographs taken by Mars Global Surveyor suggesting the presence of...
• 2005 — An Iranian Air Force C-130 military transport aircraft crashes into a ten-floor...

289 entries

• 2016 — Syrian army continues large-scale attack and controls the revival (Sheikh Lutfi,...
• 2015 — The JAXA probe Akatsuki successfully enters orbit around Venus five years after the...
• 2005 — Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed...

369 entries

• 2016 — Syrian army starts final phase of the attack and progress has been made in the...
• 2013 — Riots break out in Singapore after a fatal accident in Little India.
• 2010 — With the second launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and the first launch of the SpaceX...

389 entries

• 2016 — President Park Geun-hye of South Korea is impeached by the country's National Assembly...
• 2016 — At least 57 people are killed and a further 177 injured when two schoolgirl suicide...
• 2015 — The start of the thirty-sixth GCC summit in Riyadh business.

348 entries

• 2016 — Two explosions outside a football stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, kill 38 people and...
• 2014 — Palestinian minister Ziad Abu Ein was killed after the suppression of a demonstration...
• 2009 — The Lebanese government headed by Saad Hariri get the confidence of Lebanese...

322 entries

• 2012 — At least 125 people are killed and up to 200 injured in bombings in the Alawite...
• 2008 — Bernard Madoff is arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
• 2007 — Insurgency in the Maghreb: Two car bombs explode in Algiers, Algeria, one near the...

354 entries

• 2012 — North Korea successfully launches its first satellite, Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2, using...
• 2001 — Prime Minister of Vietnam Phan Văn Khải announces the decision on upgrading the Phong...
• 2000 — The United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore.

336 entries

• 2013 — Arapahoe High School shooting: Murder-suicide: A female student seeking the librarian...
• 2011 — A murder-suicide in Liège, Belgium, kills six and wounds 125 people at a Christmas market.
• 2003 — Iraq War: Operation Red Dawn: Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near...

358 entries

• 2013 — A reported coup attempt in South Sudan leads to continued fighting and hundreds of casualties.
• 2012 — Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: Twenty-eight people, including the gunman, are...
• 2008 — Muntadhar al-Zaidi throws his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush during a...

273 entries

• 2014 — Man Haron Monis takes 18 hostages inside a café in Martin Place for 16 hours in...
• 2013 — The South Sudanese Civil War begins when opposition leaders Dr. Riek Machar, Pagan...
• 2010 — A boat carrying 90 asylum seekers crashes into rocks off the coast of Christmas...

357 entries

• 2014 — Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants attacked an Army Public School in Peshawar,...
• 2013 — A bus falls from an elevated highway in the Philippines capital Manila killing at...
• 1991 — Kazakhstan declares independence from the Soviet Union.

359 entries

• 2014 — The United States and Cuba re-establish diplomatic relations after severing them in 1960.
• 2010 — Mohamed Bouazizi sets himself on fire. This act became the catalyst for the Tunisian...
• 2009 — MV Danny F II sinks off the coast of Lebanon, resulting in the deaths of 44 people and...

317 entries

• 2015 — Kellingley Colliery, the last deep coal mine in Great Britain, closes.
• 2006 — The first of a series of floods strikes Malaysia. The death toll of all flooding is at...
• 2006 — United Arab Emirates holds its first-ever elections.

339 entries

• 2016 — Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov is assassinated while at an art exhibition...
• 2016 — A vehicular attack in Berlin, Germany, kills and injures multiple people at a Christmas market.
• 2013 — Spacecraft Gaia is launched by European Space Agency.

311 entries

• 2013 — China successfully launches the Bolivian Túpac Katari 1 from the Xichang Satellite...
• 2007 — Elizabeth II becomes the oldest monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen...
• 2007 — The Portrait of Suzanne Bloch (1904), by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, and O...

235 entries

• 2012 — 2012 phenomenon: this day was regarded as the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in...
• 2004 — Iraq War: A suicide bomber killed 22 at the forward operating base next to the main...
• 1999 — The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a van loaded with 950 kg of explosives that ETA...

332 entries

• 2016 — Syrian government forces retake control of the besieged areas of Aleppo.
• 2010 — The repeal of the Don't ask, don't tell policy, the 17-year-old policy banning...
• 2008 — An ash dike ruptured at a solid waste containment area in Roane County, Tennessee,...

343 entries

• 2007 — An agreement is made for the Kingdom of Nepal to be abolished and the country to...
• 2003 — PetroChina Chuandongbei natural gas field explosion, Guoqiao, Kai County, Chongqing,...
• 2002 — A U.S. MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25 in the first combat engagement...

378 entries

• 2008 — Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group, begins a series of attacks on...
• 2005 — Chad-Sudan relations: Chad declares a state of war against Sudan following a December...
• 2003 — The Spanish police thwart an attempt by ETA to detonate 50 kg of explosives at...

383 entries

• 2012 — An Antonov An-72 plane crashes close to the city of Shymkent, killing 27 people.
• 2004 — The Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which successfully landed on Saturn's moon...
• 2003 — UTAGE Flight 141, a Boeing 727-223, crashes at the Cotonou Airport in Benin, killing...

315 entries

• 2009 — China opens the world's longest high-speed rail route, which links Beijing and Guangzhou.
• 2006 — An oil pipeline in Lagos, Nigeria explodes, killing at least 260 people.
• 2004 — The 9.1-9.3 Mw Indian Ocean earthquake shakes northern Sumatra with a maximum Mercalli...

332 entries

• 2009 — Iranian election protests: On the Day of Ashura in Tehran, Iran, government security...
• 2008 — Operation Cast Lead: Israel launches 3-week operation on Gaza.
• 2007 — Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in a shooting incident.

301 entries

• 2014 — Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashes into the Karimata Strait en route from Surabaya...
• 2009 — Forty-three people die in a suicide bombing in Karachi, Pakistan, where Shia Muslims...
• 2006 — War in Somalia: The militaries of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government and...

273 entries

• 2013 — A suicide bomb attack at the Volgograd-1 railway station in the southern Russian city...
• 2012 — A Tupolev Tu-204 airliner crashes in a ditch between the airport fence and the M3...
• 2011 — Samoa and Tokelau skip straight to December 31 when moving from one side of the...

339 entries

• 2013 — More than 100 people are killed when anti-government forces attack key buildings in...
• 2009 — A segment of the Lanzhou-Zhengzhou-Changsha pipeline ruptures in Shaanxi, China, and...
• 2009 — A suicide bomber kills nine people at Forward Operating Base Chapman, a key facility...

380 entries

• 2015 — A fire broke out at the Downtown Address Hotel in Downtown Dubai, United Arab Emirates...
• 2014 — A New Year's Eve celebration stampede in Shanghai kills at least 36 people and injures...
• 2011 — NASA succeeds in putting the first of two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory...