Events
- 457 – Majorian is crowned emperor of the Western Roman Empire and recognized by pope Leo I.
- 484 – Alaric II succeeds his father Euric and becomes king of the Visigoths. He establishes his capital at Aire-sur-l'Adour (Southern Gaul).
- 893 – An earthquake destroys the city of Dvin, Armenia.
- 1065 – Westminster Abbey is consecrated.
- 1308 – The reign of Emperor Hanazono, emperor of Japan, begins.
- 1612 – Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.
- 1768 – King Taksin's coronation achieved through conquest as a king of Thailand and established Thonburi as a capital.
- 1795 – Construction of Yonge Street, formerly recognized as the longest street in the world, begins in York, Upper Canada (present-day Toronto, Ontario).
- 1832 – John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign.
- 1835 – Osceola leads his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the United States Army.
- 1836 – South Australia and Adelaide are founded.
- 1836 – Spain recognizes the independence of Mexico.
- 1846 – Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state.
- 1867 – United States claims Midway Atoll, the first territory annexed outside Continental limits.
- 1879 – The Tay Bridge Disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses as a train passes over it, killing 75.
- 1885 – Indian National Congress a political party of India is founded in Bombay, British India.
- 1895 – The Lumière brothers perform for their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines, marking the debut of the cinema.
- 1895 – Wilhelm Röntgen publishes a paper detailing his discovery of a new type of radiation, which later will be known as x-rays.
- 1908 – A magnitude 7.2 earthquake rocks Messina, Sicily killing over 75,000.
- 1912 – The first municipally owned streetcars take to the streets in San Francisco, California.
- 1918 – Constance Markievicz while detained in Holloway prison, became the first woman to be elected MP to the British House of Commons.
- 1935 – Pravda publishes a letter by Pavel Postyshev, who revives New Year tree tradition in the Soviet Union.
- 1943 – World War II – After eight days of brutal house-to-house fighting, the battle of Ortona concludes with the victory of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division over the German 1st Parachute Division and the capture of the Italian town of Ortona.
- 1944 – Maurice Richard becomes the first player to score 8 points in one game of NHL ice hockey.
- 1948 – The DC-3 airliner NC16002 disappears 50 miles south of Miami, Florida.
- 1956 – Chin Peng, David Marshall and Tunku Abdul Rahman meet in Baling to try and resolve the Malayan Emergency situation.
- 1958 – "Greatest Game Ever Played" – Baltimore Colts defeat the New York Giants in the first ever National Football League sudden death overtime game at New York's Yankee Stadium.
- 1972 – Kim Il-sung, already Prime Minister of North Korea and General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, became the first President of North Korea.
- 1973 – The Endangered Species Act is passed in the United States.
- 1974 – Senegalese marxist group Reenu-Rew founds the political movement And-Jëf at a clandestine congress.
- 1978 – With the crew investigating a problem with the landing gear, United Airlines Flight 173 runs out of fuel and crashes in Portland, Oregon, killing 10. As a result, United Airlines instituted the industry's first crew resource management program.
- 1980 – Second Rendlesham Forest incident.
- 1989 – A magnitude 5.6 earthquake hits Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, killing 13 people.
- 2000 – U.S. retail giant Montgomery Ward announces it is going out of business after 128 years.
- 2008 – War in Somalia: The militaries of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government and Ethiopian troops capture Mogadishu unopposed.
- 2009 – 43 people die in a suicide bombing in Karachi, Pakistan, where Shia Muslims are observing the Day of Ashura.
- 2010 – Arab Spring: Popular protests begin in Algeria against the government.
Read more about this topic: December 28
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“The geometry of landscape and situation seems to create its own systems of time, the sense of a dynamic element which is cinematising the events of the canvas, translating a posture or ceremony into dynamic terms. The greatest movie of the 20th century is the Mona Lisa, just as the greatest novel is Grays Anatomy.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“This is certainly not the place for a discourse about what festivals are for. Discussions on this theme were plentiful during that phase of preparation and on the whole were fruitless. My experience is that discussion is fruitless. What sets forth and demonstrates is the sight of events in action, is living through these events and understanding them.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along the primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes ones way to where the country is.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)