Unix Timestamp: 1103846400
Friday, December 24. 2004, 12:00:00 AM UTC

The National Diet of Japan approves a record budget of ¥88.55 trillion (US$980 billion) in response to the global economic downturn. //www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hMgoNaoNW5_Q3OX2tpBRLqJnIo-g (AFP via Google News)

Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated, and at least 20 others are killed, by a bomb blast at an election rally in Rawalpindi.

The Nepalese government announces that the country's 240-year-old monarchy will be abolished in 2008 and a new republic will be declared.

Riots erupt in Mombasa, Kenya, after Mwai Kibaki is declared the winner of the presidential election, triggering a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.

Ethiopia admits its troops have intervened in Somalia.

Ethiopia has confirmed that its troops have invaded and are fighting Islamic militiamen that control much of Somalia. //news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6207427.stm (BBC)

Iran's state radio reported ed a statement by airport officials, saying that pilot carelessness caused a plane carrying Ukrainian and Russian aerospace scientists to crash in central Iran, killing all 46 people on board.

Christmas Eve 2000 Indonesia bombings: 18 people are killed in multiple Islamist bomb attacks on churches across Indonesia.

50–100 villagers are killed in the Sid El-Antri massacre in Algeria.

Russian SFSR officially changes its name to the "Russian Federation" which ends the Russian Colonialism after 709 years.

Russian SFSR President Boris Yeltsin sends a letter to UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, stating that Russia should be a successor to collapsing Soviet Union within the United Nations Organization.

Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union, from which most republics have already seceded, anticipating the dissolution of the 74-year-old state.

Ramsewak Shankar is ousted as President of Suriname by a military coup .

The Solntsevskaya Bratva is formed in communist Ukraine in response to the uprising in Afghanistan presumably predicting the fall of the Soviet Union which would become the largest faction of the Russian Mafia.

ATI Technologies is founded.

The Tommy Hilfiger brand is established.

The Asian tiger mosquito, an invasive species, is first found in Houston, Texas.

Right wing extremist David Lewis Rice murders civil rights attorney Charles Goldmark as well as Goldmark's wife and 2 children in Seattle. Rice suspected the family of being Jewish and Communist and claimed his dedication to the Christian Identity movement drove him to the crime.

The Famine in Ethiopia continues USA for Africa (We Are the World) and Live Aid raise funds for famine relief.

DNA is first used in a criminal case.

Africa has a population growth of 3.2 percent per year.

Norma Phillips Thornworth is elected president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Solarquest, the space age real estate game, is first published by Golden.

Rome and Vienna airport attacks: Abu Nidal terrorists open fire in the airports of Rome and Vienna, leaving 18 dead and 120 injured.

Greenland leaves the European Union.

The Australian state of Victoria celebrates its 150th anniversary.

Harold Kroto, Robert Curl and Richard Smalley discover Csub60/sub, soon followed by their discovery of fullerenes.

The GNU Manifesto is first written by Richard Stallman.

Western Sahara is admitted to the Organization of African UnityMorocco, which claims Western Sahara, leaves in protest.

The Fall of Communism begins with resistance gaining victory in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

Multiple cases of espionage in the United States prompt the media to label this The Year of the Spy.

The computer game Tetris is released.

NeXT is founded by Steve Jobs after he resigns from Apple Computer.

American naturalist Dian Fossey is found murdered in Rwanda.

The Christmas Eve Blizzard of '82 hits Denver.

December 25 ndash Darwin, Australia is almost completely destroyed by Cyclone Tracy.

Swedish Prime minister Olof Palme compares the American bombings of North Vietnam to Nazi massacres. The U.S. breaks diplomatic contact with Sweden.

The Khmer Rouge is officially formed in Cambodia as a offshot movement of the Vietnam People's Army from North Vietnam to bring communism to the nation.

Apollo Program: U.S. spacecraft "Apollo 8" enters orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William A. Anders become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and planet Earth as a whole. The crew also reads from Genesis.

An unexpected storm buries Maine under five feet of snow, forcing the Bangor Daily News to miss a publication date for the only time in history. The same day, also the Netherlands are covered with several feet of snow.

Cuba releases the last 1,113 participants in the Bay of Pigs Invasion to the U.S., in exchange for food worth $53 million.

United Nations troops occupy the last rebel positions in Katanga Moise Tshombe moves to South Rhodesia.

Publication of Helen Gurley Brown's "Sex and the Single Girl" in the US.

American advertising man Martin K. Speckter invents the interrobang, a new English-language punctuation mark.

The band The Dubliners is formed at O'Donoghue's Pub in Dublin.

A BOACBristol Britannia (312 G-AOVD) crashes near Winkton, England during a test flight.

New Zealand inventor Sir William Hamilton invents the world's first water pump-jet engine, later named the Hamilton Jet.

Gerbils ("Meriones unguiculatus") are brought to the United States by Dr. Victor Schwentker.

The Boy Scouts of America desegregates on the basis of race.

New York City Ballet founding balletmaster George Balanchine's production of "The Nutcracker" is staged for the first time in New York City, and it became a tradition there, still being performed annually .

Vietnam splits into two nations with the North being communist and the South being capitalist.

The TV dinner is introduced by the American entrepreneur Gerry Thomas.

Laos gains full independence from France.

The case of Lothar Malskat, who had admitted that he had painted the supposedly antique frescoes in Marienkirche himself, goes to trial.

South Korea opens the Gimpo International Airport.

Tangiwai disaster: A railway bridge collapses at Tangiwai, New Zealand, sending a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River 151 are killed.

December 25 ndash Scottish nationalists take the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey.

France's Fourth Republic is founded.

World War II: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

French Admiral Darlan, the former Vichy leader who had switched over to the Allies following the Torch landings, is assassinated in Algiers.

British forces capture Benghazi.

Dutch submarine HNLMS K XVI is the first Allied ship to sink a Japanese warship, sinking the destroyer "Sagiri" near Sarawak K XVI is herself torpedoed the following day by Japanese submarine I 66.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a fireside chat to the nation, declares that the United States must become the great arsenal of democracy.

WWII: Second Great Fire of London ndash Luftwaffe carries out a massive incendiary bombing raid, starting 1,500 fires. Many famous buildings, including the Guildhall and Trinity House, are either damaged or destroyed.

Mahatma Gandhi, Indian spiritual non-violence leader writes his second letter to Adolf Hitler addressing him My friend, requesting him to stop the war Germany had begun.

Release of the film Natalka Poltavka in Ukraine, the first filmed Russian opera.

Actor Lionel Barrymore begins what will become an annual tradition of the Golden Age of Radio ndash playing the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in dramatizations of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol". Barrymore continues playing Scrooge on radio until shortly before his death in 1954. He will also make a 78-RPM record album of the classic story, which will later be released on LP.

The Nissan Motor Company is organized in Tokyo, Japan.

A train crash in Lagny, France kills over 200.

FM radio is patented.

In London, Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrates his device to project pictures on the clouds.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returns to India from South Africa to spearhead the Indian independence movement.

Blaise Diagne of Senegal becomes the first black African representative in the French parliament.

British and German soldiers interrupt World War I to celebrate Christmas, beginning the Christmas truce.

German air raid on Dover, England.

The first everyday items made of stainless steel come into public circulation.

The Port of Orange, Texas, is dredged for the fabrication of vessels for the United States Navy.

Fashion and perfumes company Puig was founded

Henry Ford sells 248,000 cars.

Oxymorphone, a powerful narcotic analgesic closely related to morphine is first developed in Germany.

Phi Sigma, a local undergraduate classical club, is founded by a group of students in the Greek Department at the University of Chicago.

China declares its neutrality in World War I.

The United States Power Squadrons is formed.

World War I:

The capital of the Guangxi Province of China is moved from Guilin to Nanning.

In the Italian Hall Disaster, seventy-three men, women, and children are trled to death when someone falsely yells fire at a crowded Christmas party.

Merck files patent applications in Germany for synthesis of the entactogenic drug MDMA ("Ecstasy"), developed by Anton Köllisch.

Reginald Fessenden makes the first radio broadcast: a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech.

Kingstown Lifeboat Disaster- 15 lifeboat crew are lost when their lifeboat capsizes while trying to rescue the crew of the SS Palme off Kingstown, now Dún Laoighaire, near Dublin, Ireland.

George Washington Vanderbilt II officially opens his Biltmore House estate on Christmas Eve, inviting his family to celebrate his new home in Asheville, NC.

Aida opens in Cairo

Jonathan Shank and Barry Ownby form the Ku Klux Klan in the American South, to resist Reconstruction and intimidate carpetbaggers and scalawags, as well as to repress the freed slaves.

The National Temperance Society and Publishing House is founded by James Black in the U.S.

A forest fire near Silverton, Oregon destroys about one million acres (4,000 km²) of timber.

Francis Galton, polymath inventor of the weather map and the silent dog whistle, introduces eugenics.

Gregor Mendel formulates his theories of Mendelian inheritance in Moravia they are mainly ignored for years.

The Library of Congress burns.

The Egyptians capture Crete.

The Fort Vancouver trading post is established on the lower Columbia River by the Hudson's Bay Company.

The "Cimetière du Montparnasse" is established in Paris, France.

The Panoramagram is developed, creating the first volumetric display.

The name "Australia", recommended by Matthew Flinders in 1804, is finally adopted as the official name of the country once known as "New Holland".

The Dutch sign the Masang Agreement, temporarily ending hostilities in the Padri War.

The First American Fraternity, Chi Phi (ΧΦ), is founded at Princeton University.

First Serbian dictionary, made by Vuk Karadžić.

Besses o\' th\' Barn brass band is formed in Whitefield, near Manchester.

Old Vic theatre founded (as the "Royal Coburg Hall") in London.

Shaka starts to rule the Zulu Kingdom.

"Silent Night" composed by Franz Xaver Gruber and Josef Mohr.

Lord Hastings, the governor-general of India, gives approval to SirStamford Raffles to establish a trading station at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula (modern-day Singapore).

John Ross sets sail in search of the Northwest Passage.

Besses o' th' Barn brass band is formed in Whitefield, near Manchester.

The first edition of the "Farmers' Almanac" is published in the United States.

War of 1812: The Treaty of Ghent is signed, officially ending the war.

The code duello is adopted at the Clonmell Summer Assizes as the form for pistol duels in Ireland. It is quickly denounced but nevertheless widely adopted throughout the English-speaking world.

The 2nd edition of "Encyclopædia Britannica" is published.

Kiritimati is discovered by James Cook.

Kunsthochschule Kassel is founded

The Supreme Privy Council is established in Imperial Russia.

The Gujin tushu jicheng, an immense Chinese encyclopedia, is printed using copper-based movable type printing.

The city of Montevideo is founded by the Spaniards.

The remaining ruins of Liverpool Castle are finally demolished.

Muhammad bin Saud becomes head of the House of Saud.

Voltaire is sentenced to the Bastille for a year because of his satirical writings.

Montevideo, Uruguay, is founded by the Portuguese.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to Istanbul, has her son inoculated.

Maharaja Pamheiba of Manipur is converted to Hinduism by Shantidas Goswami, and decrees Hinduism the official religion of Manipur.

Spain unites its South American colonies as New Granada.

December 25 ndash A disastrous flood hits the North Sea coast between the Netherlands and Denmark thousands die or lose their houses.

A rift between George I of Great Britain and his son the Prince of Wales leads to the latter being thrown out of the royal household.

Marc Weyl's family settled in America

Casa de Contratacion or Board of Trade is set up in Cádiz.

Karlsruhe Palace is built, resulting in the town of Karlsruhe growing up around it.

The ancient right to evaluate royal decrees publicly before they are given the force of law by the high court of Paris (the Parlement) is restored.

Swedish troops occupy Norway.

The Province of Carolina goes to war with the Yamasee Native Americans.

Hacienda Juriquilla is built in Queretaro, Mexico.

The Lao empire of Lan Xang officially ends and splits into the kingdoms of Vientiane, Luang Prabang, and Chasak.

A fortress is founded on the future site of Ust-Abakanskoye (modern Abakan).

The first British Governor of Gibraltar, directly appointed by Queen Anne, Roger Elliott, takes up his residence in the Convent of the Franciscan Friars.

December ndash Charles XII of Sweden launches his caign to conquer Russia, marching to the east from Leipzig with 60,000 coalition troops. Another 16,000 soldiers are waiting on the outskirts of Riga, guarding the Swedish supply lines.

William Penn offers an elaborate plan for intercolonial cooperation largely in trade, defense, and criminal matters.

Freedom of the press is granted by the British government which had already relaxed censorship following the Bill of Rights in 1689. Technically, freedom of the press came about because Parliament decided not to renew its Licensing Act in 1695. It is from this time that sport is increasingly reported.

Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville captures and destroys St. John's, Newfoundland.

The Second Pueblo Revolt occurs.

The Inquisition burns a number of Marrano Jews in Evora, Portugal.

Abington, Pennsylvania is settled.

"Lloyd's News", forerunner of "Lloyd's List" is founded.

Polish replaces Ruthenian as an official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

A famine wipes out almost a third of the population of Finland and a fifth of the population of Estonia.

By 1601 - Martin Möller is accused of Crypto-Calvinism.

A bad harvest occurs in the Tsardom of Russia, due to a rainy summer, causing the Russian famine of 1601–1603.

The Jesuit Matteo Ricci becomes the first European to enter the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, during the Ming Dynasty.

Julian Calendar January 3, 1602 according to the Gregorian Calendar used by the Irish and Spanish forces in the battle) ndash The Battle of Kinsale ends the siege of Kinsale, Ireland (begun in autumn 1601).

A famine (ending in 1603) kills about half the Estonian population.

Dutch troops drive the Portuguese from Málaga.

Bartolomé de las Casas urges Charles V to end Amerindian slavery and recommends the importation of blacks from Africa.

Conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founds Havana, Cuba.

The Yadigarid Uzbeks found the Khanate of Khiva.

Henry Cornelius Agrippa returns to Northern Italy.

The Manchester Grammar School is founded.

"Dürer's Rhinoceros" cut.

Francis I of France starts to rule.

Thomas Wolsey is named the English Lord Chancellor.

First Congress of Vienna.

Edward I of England and Philip the Fair of France declare war on each other. To finance this war, both kings lay taxes on the clergy. Pope Boniface VIII insists that kings gain papal consent of taxation of the clergy and forbids churchmen to pay taxes.

Pope Boniface VIII succeeds Pope Celestine V as the 193rd pope after Celestine V abdicates the papacy on December 13, only five months after reluctantly accepting his surprise election on July 5, wishing to return to his life as an ascetic hermit.

John Balliol, King of Scotland, decides to refuse King Edward I of England's demands for support in a planned invasion of France, and instead informs the French of Edward's plans and negotiates the Auld Alliance with France and Norway. These actions play a part in precipitating the Scottish Wars of Independence, which begin in 1296.

The Strata Florida Abbey is rebui it had been destroyed some years earlier in King Edward I of England's conquest of Wales.

England and Portugal enter into the first iteration of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, the oldest alliance in the world still in force.

Architect Arnolfo di Cambio designs the Florentine cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, better known simply as "Il Duomo". He also begins work on the Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze, also in Florence.

The death of Kublai Khan. By this time the separation of the four khanates of the Mongol Empire (the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, the Golden Horde in Russia, the Ilkhanate in Persia, and the Yuan Dynasty in China) had deepened.

Normandy comes under Angevin control under Geoffrey of Anjou.

The city of Ljubljana, Slovenia, is first mentioned in historical records.ref name=ArtisDaniel Mallinus, "La Yougoslavie", Éd. Artis-Historia, Brussels, 1988, D/1988/0832/27, p. 37–39.

The city of Montauban, France, is founded.

The County of Edessa falls to Zengi of Mosul (see Siege of Edessa).

Giordano Pierleoni founds the revolutionary Commune of Rome.

Manuel I Comnenus brings Raymond, Prince of Antioch, under Byzantine influence.

Louis VII capitulates to Pope Celestine II and so earns the pope's absolution.

Failed Byzantine attempt to reconquer Malta.

An earthquake shakes many places in northern Syria, and destroys the Old Church of Edessa.

Nechtan mac Der-Ilei, King of the Picts, expels the monks from the Scottish island of Iona.

Hoshi Ryokan, the world's second-longest surviving hotel, is established in Japan.

Pope John IV succeeds Pope Severinus as the 72nd pope.

George of Cappadocia is murdered in Alexandria and Athanasius returns to his native city in triumph.