Unix Timestamp: 1734048000
Friday, December 13. 2024, 12:00:00 AM UTC

The Pakistan Air Force claims Indian fighter aircraft violated Pakistani airspace before being forced to turn back. //www.nytimes.com/aponline/2008/12/13/world/AP-AS-Pakistan-India-Airspace.html?_r=1hp (AP via "The New York Times")

Lucy Kibaki, the wife of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, slaps a government official during independence day celebrations after he accidentally referred to her as Mama Lucy Wambui, widely rumored to be the President's mistress. //www.guardian.co.uk/kenya/story/0,,2227207,00.html?gusrc=rssfeed=12 (" Guardian")

The Chinese River Dolphin or Baiji becomes extinct.

Malaysia crowns its thirteenth king - the second youngest ever - in a traditional ceremony in Kuala Lumpur. Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, 44, takes over from outgoing King Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin, 63, whose five-year term as monarch ended on December 12. //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6174781.stm (BBC)

Software giants Oracle Corporation and PeopleSoft agree to merge in a $10.3 billion deal, creating the second largest maker of business applications software.

Saddam Hussein, former President of Iraq, is captured in Tikrit by the U.S. 4th Infantry Division.

The European Union invited Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Cyprus and Malta to join. Expansion is scheduled for May 2004.

US Senate majority leader Trent Lott apologizes on television amid growing outcry for his resignation from both ends of the political spectrum for comments made at Senator Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party which seemed to support Thurmond's 1948 segregationist presidential caign platform.

Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin, Raja of Perlis becomes the 12th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia

The third and final reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is shut down and the station is shut down completely.

"Bush v. Gore": The U.S. Supreme Court stops the Florida presidential recount, effectively giving the state, and the Presidency, to George W. Bush.

Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel opens at the Disneyland Resort.

Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel opens at the Disneyland Resort.

Kofi Annan is elected by the United Nations Security Council the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Pope John Paul II visits his would-be assassin Mehmet Ali Ağca in prison to forgive him.

A Provisional IRA car bomb kills 6 Christmas shoppers and injures 90 outside Harrods in London.

A propane explosion in Buffalo, New York kills 5 firefighters and 2 civilians.

Turgut Özal, of ANAP forms the new government of Turkey (45th government) beginning of a new civilian regime

A discotheque fire in Madrid, Spain, kills 83 people.

An earthquake (Richter Scale 6.0 magnitude) in Dhamar, northern Yemen, kills at least 1,507.

Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland, to prevent the dismantling of the communist system by Solidarity.

The first Susan B. Anthony dollar enters circulation.

A DC-3 charter plane carrying the University of Evansville basketball team to Nashville, Tenn., crashes in rain and dense fog about 90 seconds after takeoff from Evansville Dress Regional Airport. Twenty-nine people die in the crash, including 14 members of the team and head coach Bob Watson.

The South Korean ferry "Namyong Ho" capsizes off Korean Strait 308 people are killed.

The government of Poland announces food price increases. Riots and looting lead to a bloody confrontation between the rioters and the government on December 15, and martial law December 17–22.

The USSR's "Venera 7" becomes the first spacecraft to land successfully on Venus and transmit data back to Earth.

Brazilian president Artur da Costa e Silva decrees the AI-5 (or the Fifth Institutional Act), which lasts until 1978 and marks the beginning of the hard times of Brazilian military dictatorship.

King Constantine II of Greece flees the country when his coup attempt fails.

Three years after its first telecast, MGM's "The Wizard of Oz" is shown on television for only the second time, but it gains an even larger viewing audience than its first television outing, spurring CBS to make it an annual tradition.

A water storage tank collapses in Tucumcari, New Mexico, resulting in 4 deaths, and 200 buildings destroyed.

US release of the film "National Velvet" which brings a young Elizabeth Taylor to stardom.

Battle of Mindoro: United States, Australian and Philippine Commonwealth troops land in Mindoro Island, the Philippines.

The Soviet government changes Turkish place names to Russian in the Crimea.

Sweden's low temperature record of -53°C is set in a village within the Vilhelmina Municipality.

WWII ndash Battle of the River Plate: The German pocket battleship, "Admiral Graf Spee" is trapped by cruisers HMS \\\\'\\\\'Ajax\\\\'\\\\', HMNZS \\\'\\\'Achilles\\\'\\\', and HMS \\'\\'Exeter\\'\\' after a running battle off the coast of Uruguay. "Admiral Graf Spee" is scuttled by its crew off Montevideo harbor on December 17.

The Neuengamme concentration c opens near Hamburg.

Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Nanjing ends and the Nanjing Massacre begins. Japanese troops slaughter over 300,000 civilians and prisoners over three months.

Wakatsuki Reijirō resigns as Prime Minister of Japan.

Battle of Fredericksburg: The U.S. Army suffers massive casualties and abandons its attempts to capture the Confederate capital city of Richmond, Virginia.

Basutoland becomes a British protectorate.ref name=CBH

The harvest fails in Munich.

Daniel McGinnis discovers the supposed Money Pit on Oak Island, Nova Scotia.

The British Royal Navy makes the use of lemon juice mandatory to prevent scurvy.

The Hudson\'s Bay Company trading post Fort Edmonton is constructed the city of Edmonton, Alberta, eventually grows from it.

A large slave rebellion occurs in Curaçao.

Sweden becomes the first monarchy to recognize the French Republic.

Wold Newton meteorite: A meteorite falls at Wold Newton, a hamlet in Yorkshire in England. This meteorite fall is subsequently used as a literary premise by science fiction writer Philip José Farmer as the basis for the Wold Newton family.

Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais marries Joséphine Tascher.

The Maharajah of Mysore forces the British to agree a treaty of mutual assistance in view of the famine, but the British East India Company increases its demands on the Bengali people to keep profits up.

The city of Brescia, Italy is devastated when the Church of San Nazaro, near Venice, is struck by lightning. The resulting fire ignites 200,000 lb (90,000 kg) of gunpowder being stored there, causing a massive explosion which destroys 1/6 of the city and kills 3,000 people. The disaster prompts the Roman Catholic Church to abandon their religious objection to using lightning rods to protect their property.

Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrates a steam-powered artillery tractor ("see drawing") in France.

Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hshire is established as John Wentworth, the Royal Governor, conveys a charter from King George III of England.

Richard Arkwright invents the spinning frame.

Authorized King James Version of the Bible in the Oxford standard text edited by Benjamin Blayney.

Surveyor William Churton lays out what will become the county seat of Orange County, North Carolina. The town is named Corbin Town for Francis Corbin, a member of the North Carolina governor's council. Corbin Town is renamed Childsburgh in 1759 and finally Hillsborough in 1766.

Osman III (1754–1757) succeeds Mahmud I as Ottoman Emperor.

Abel Tasman is the first recorded European to sight New Zealand.

The Manchu under their leader Huang Taiji raid the Ming Chinese province of Shandong from their base in Manchuria. Two years later Beijing falls to rebels, the Chongzhen Emperor commits suicide, and the Shunzhi Emperor becomes the first Qing Emperor to rule over China proper.

The Dutch drive Spain from Taiwan.

The village of Bro (Broo) in Sweden is granted the city rights for the second time and takes the name Kristinehamn (literally Christina's port) after the present Swedish monarch, Queen Christina.

Isaac Aboab da Fonseca is appointed rabbi in Pernambuco, Brazil, thus becoming the first rabbi of the Americas.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn finishes his painting The Night Watch.

In the American colonies, Roger Williams (theologian) founds Rhode Island.

Thirty Years' War: French intervention starts.

The first synagogue of the New World, Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue, is founded in Recife by the Dutch.

The first American ancestor of John Adams, Henry Adams, emigrates to Massachusetts.

Pierre Corneille's play, "Le Cid", is first performed.

The Shogun forbids Japanese to travel abroad and those abroad from returning home.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the PeIndians. This organization is recognized today as the founding of the United States National Guard.

Emperor Fasilides of Ethiopia founds the city of Gondar, which becomes the capital of Ethiopia for the next two centuries.

Manchus occupy the Liaoning region in north China, select Shenyang (Mukden) as their capital, and proclaim the new Qing Dynasty (pure).

Sir Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.

The church in San Pedro de Atacama is built in the Atacama Desert in Chile .

Battle of Sokhoista: The Ottoman army defeats the alliance of Georgian dynasts.

Silver is discovered at Potosí, Bolivia.

During the Ming Dynasty, a large failure of the harvest in Henan province, China occurs due to excessive rainfall, which drives up the price of wheat and forces many to flee their rural counties those who stay behind are forced to survive by eating leaves, bark, and human flesh.

Battle of Kawagoe: Two branches of the Uesugi families are defeated by the late Hōjō clan in Japan.

The Council of Trent officially opens (closes 1563).

Gotland passes under Danish rule.

Zheng He delivers 300 virgins from Korea to the Chinese emperor.

The "Yongle Encyclopedia" is completed.

The Moldavian town of Iaşi is first mentioned.

The Order of the Dragon is founded under King Sigismund of Hungary.

Albertus Magnus isolates the element arsenic as the 8th discovered metal. He also first uses the word oriole to describe a type of bird (most likely the golden oriole).

Starting in this year and ending in 1275, the Muslim Shougeng Pu serves as the Commissioner of Merchant Shipping for the Song Dynasty Chinese seaport at Quanzhou due to his effort on defeating pirates, according to a monograph on the Chinese shipping industry and maritime economy in dynasties of Tang and Sung written by Jitsuzo Kuwabara (桑原騭藏, 1870-1931). Shougeng Pu is likely a Persian or Arabic Muslim.

A kurultai is called by Batu Khan in Siberia as part of maneuverings to eventually elect Möngke Khan as khan of the Mongol empire in 1251.

Villard de Honnecourt draws the first known image of a sawmill.

The Parlement law courts of "ancien régime" France are established.

The University of Valladolid is founded in Spain.

Vincent of Beauvais completes his proto-encyclopedic work, "The Greater Mirror".

A plague breaks out in the city Naples (in present-day Italy), called the Naple's Plague.

The Lombard League dissolves upon the death of its member states' nemesis, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor.

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, dies, beginning a 23-year-long interregnum known as the "'Great Interregnum"'. Frederick II is the last Holy Roman Emperor of the Hohenstaufen dynasty after the interregnum, the empire passes to the Habsburgs.

King Afonso III of Portugal captures the Algarve from the Moors, thus completing the expulsion of the Moors from Portugal.

The Rialto Bridge in Venice, Italy is converted from a pontoon bridge to a permanent, raised wooden structure.

the Anglo-Saxon men of Kent defeat the Vikings of East Anglia at the Battle of the Holme.

The Nanzhao dynasty in East Asia is overthrown, followed by three dynasties in quick succession before the establishment of the Kingdom of Dali in 937.

The Wu State is founded in southern China by Yang Xingmi in present-day Yangzhou.