Unix Timestamp: 1070755200
Sunday, December 7. 2003, 12:00:00 AM UTC

December 18 ndash The UNFCCC's United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 conference is held in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference opens in Copenhagen. //edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/06/copenhagen.climate.talks/index.html (CNN) //www.indianexpress.com/news/climate-conference-opens-in-copenhagen/551031/0 ("Indian Express") //www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=460656 (Bernama) //www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/article223424.ece ("Times LIVE")

Rioters rage through central Athens after a Greek law enforcement officer shoots dead a teenager. //www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/world/europe/08greece.html (New York Times)

Jamie Whincup wins the 2008 V8 Supercar Chionship series for Ford and Triple 8 Racing.

Uranus's orbit is positioned such that the sun shines directly above its equator (i.e. an equinox).

The European UnionTLD ".eu" is launched, and replaces ".eu.int". Initially this will be only for business purposes. From 7 April2006 onwards, EU citizens can also register .eu domains.

As required by the recently passed U.N. resolution, Iraq files a 12,000 page weapons declaration with the U.N. Security Council.

Miss Turkey, Azra Akın from Almelo, won the Miss World competition which had been moved from Nigeria to London because of religious violence.

NASA's "Galileo" probe enters Jupiter's atmosphere.

6-year-old Gyaincain Norbu is enthroned as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama at Tashilhunpo Monastery.

Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of "Elle" magazine, suffers a massive stroke and lapses into a coma.

The United States wins the 1992 Davis Cup.

Queen Street massacre: In Melbourne, Australia, 22-year-old Frank Vitkovic kills 8 and injures another 5 in a Post Office building before committing suicide by jumping from the eleventh floor.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict: First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-supervisor on the flight, then shoots both pilots and himself.

Microsoft releases Windows 2.0.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C. by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Alianza Lima air disaster: A Peruvian NavyFokker F27 crashes near Ventanilla, Peru, killing 43.

General Rahimuddin Khan retires from the Pakistan Army, along with the cabinet of the country's military dictatorship.

A 5.7 Richter scale earthquake destroys most of the Bulgarian town of Strajica, killing 2 people.

Two Spanish passenger planes collide on the foggy runway at a Madrid airport, killing 90.

The first U.S. execution by lethal injection is carried out in Texas.

Indonesia invades East Timor.

A lightning strike causes the crashing of Pan Am Flight 214 near Elkton, Maryland, killing 81 people.

Frank Sinatra Jr. is kidnapped at Harrah's Lake Tahoe.

Tony Verna, a CBS-TV director, invented Instant Replay and aired it during his direction of a live, televised sporting event, the 1963 Army-Navy Game played in Philadelphia.

The 1962 New York City newspaper strike begins, affecting all of the city's major newspapers It would last for 114 days.

The first period of the Second Vatican Council closes.

The North Kalimantan National Army revolts in Brunei, in the first stirrings of the Indonesian Confrontation.

Rainier III, Prince of Monaco revises the principality's constitution, devolving some of his formerly autocratic power to several advisory and legislative councils.

Former Dutch queen Wilhelmina buried at the New Church in Delft.

The United Nations Security Council is called into session by the Soviet Union in order to consider Soviet demands for the Security Council to seek the immediate release of the former Congolese Premier Patrice Lumumba.

A visit to Iran by American Vice President Richard Nixon sparks several days of riots. Three students are shot dead by police in Tehran. This event would become an annual commemoration. See August 19.

The government of the Republic of China finishes its evacuation to Taiwan, and declares Taipei its temporary capital city.

A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, United States kills 119.

Chicago Convention signed to create the ICAO.

Chiara Lubich starts the Focolare Movement in Trent, northern Italy, during WWII.

WWII: British commandos conduct Operation Frankton, a raid on shipping in Bordeaux harbour.

The Empire of Japan launches invasions in Hong Kong, Malaya, Manila, Singapore and the Philippines.

Canada declares war on Japan.

December 8, Japan standard time) ndash WWII:

WWII: The United States, United Kingdom, China and The Netherlands officially declare war on the Empire of Japan.

President of the United StatesFranklin D. Roosevelt's Infamy Address to a Joint Session of Congress at 12:30 p.m. EST (17.30 GMT) and transmitted live over all four major national networks attracts the largest audience ever for an American radio broadcast, over 81% of homes.

Holocaust: the Nazi Germanextermination cChelmno opens in occupied Poland near a small village called Chełmno nad Nerem. Between December 1941-April 1943 and June 1944-January 1945 at least 153,000 people are killed in the c.

Tobruk's garrison is relieved.

Attack on Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy launches a surprise attack on the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor, thus drawing the United States into World War II. The attack is announced on radio stations in the US at about 2:26 p.m. EST (19.26 GMT).

The television stationW1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts, broadcasts video and audio from the radio orchestra program "The Fox Trappers". This broadcast also includes the first television commercial in the United States. This was an advertisement for the I.J. Fox Furriers company which sponsored the telecast.

Max Planck announces his discovery of the law of black body emission, marking the birth of quantum physics.

Latin-America: 74,000,000

The Imperial Civil Service in India consists of fewer than 3,500 top officials for a population of 300 million.

World population: 1,650,000,000

In New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., Louis Lassen of Louis' Lunch makes the first modern-day hamburger sandwich.

Milton S. Hershey introduces the milk chocolate Hershey bar in the United States.

Four out of every 1,000 residents of British India die of cholera each year.

Japan: c. 45,000,000

Europe: 408,000,000

Northern America: 82,000,000

Oceania: 6,000,000

Africa: 133,000,000

Asia: 947,000,000

First "Michelin Guide" published in France.

A corps of 2,350 Italian troops, mostly Ascari, are crushed by 30,000 Abyssian troops at Amba Alagi.

American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.

after a fiercely contested caign, Monier Williamsis elected as the new Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University.

David Livingstone leaves Britain for Africa.

United States presidential election, 1836: Martin Van Buren defeats William Henry Harrison.

Jane Austen writes her first draft of "Pride and Prejudice", under the title "First Impressions". The book will not be published until 1813.

Robert Burns' version of the Scots poem "Auld Lang Syne" is first published, in this year's volume of "The Scots Musical Museum".

Spanish government lifts the restrictions against neutrals trading with the colonies, thus acknowledging Spain's inability to supply the colonies with needed goods and markets.

The U.S. Electoral College meets to elect John Adamspresident.

Annual British iron production reaches 125,000 tons.

Delaware ratifies the Constitution and becomes the first U.S. state.

American Revolution: Marquis de Lafayette attempts to enter the American military as a major general.

Charles Marie de La Condamine, with François Fresneau Gataudière, makes the first scientific observations of rubber, in Ecuador.

Leonhard Euler produces the first "published" proof of Fermat's little theorem."Theorematum Quorundam ad Numeros Primos Spectantium Demonstratio".

Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab writes the "Kitab at-tawhidt", marking the beginning of Wahhabism.

"Real Arissona", namesake of the U.S. state Arizona, is founded in what is now that state.

Bushehr is founded in Persia.

Sir Isaac Newton's "Method of Fluxions" (1671), describing his method of differential calculus, is first published (posthumously) and Thomas Bayes publishes a defense of its logical foundations (anonymously)."An Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions, and a Defence of the Mathematicians Against the Objections of the Author of the Analyst".

George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney, becomes the first Field Marshal of Great Britain.

A fire in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg burns 2000 houses.

The Haidamakas raid the shtetl of Pavoloch, killing 35.

Ben Franklin builds the first volunteer fire company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Fifty-three houses in the English town of Stony Stratford are consumed by fire.

Neustrelitz becomes the capital of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

One of the earliest records of use of a Bathing machine is made at Scarborough in England.

The Belgrade fortress is completed.

The original Covent Garden Theatre Royal (now the Royal Opera House) is opened.

The United Secession Church is formed in Scotland.

Genoa regains Corsica.

A total of 139 members of the Paris Parliament are exiled by order of the King, but eventually triumph over the Crown, and secure their recall in December.

Connecticut Route 108, one of Connecticut's oldest highways is laid-out to Trumbull.

Princess Louise Henriette (19) marries Frederick William of Brandenburg.

Orthodox Patriarch Meletius I of Alexandria succeeds Silvester.

Agnes Sson is questioned by King James VI of Scotland and confesses to practising witchcraft.

The Spanish are pushed out of southern Gelderland by the Dutch forces.

Japan is united by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

A group of English merchants gains the right to trade in Ottoman territory in return for supplying the sultan with iron, steel, brass and tin for his war with Persia.

The people of Milan astonish Ambrosius, governor of Aemilia-Liguria, by acclaiming him bishop. He is the second son of the former praetorian prefect of Gaul, and becomes a creative thinker whose ideas will provide the paradigm for medieval church-state relations.