December 21 in History

Historical Events on December 21

1620 Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
1923 United Kingdom and Nepal formally signed an agreement of friendship, called the Nepal-Britain Treaty of 1923, which superseded the Treaty of Sugauli signed in 1816.
1941 World War II: A formal treaty of alliance between Thailand and Japan is signed in the presence of the Emerald Buddha in Wat Phra Kaew, Thailand.
1968 Apollo program: Apollo 8 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.
1970 First flight of F-14 multi-role combat aircraft.
1988 A bomb explodes on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270.
1992 A Dutch DC-10, flight Martinair MP 495, crashes at Faro Airport, killing 56.
2004 Iraq War: A suicide bomber killed 22 at the forward operating base next to the main U.S. military airfield at Mosul, Iraq, the single deadliest suicide attack on American soldiers.
2012 2012 phenomenon: this day was regarded as the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, leading to widespread expectations of cataclysmic events]] (which failed to happen).
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