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Events

December 31 in History

Historical Events on December 31

406
Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul.
535
Byzantine general Belisarius completes the conquest of Sicily, defeating the Gothic garrison of Palermo (Panormos), and ending his consulship for the year.
870
Battle of Englefield: The Vikings clash with ealdorman Æthelwulf of Berkshire. The invaders are driven back to Reading (East Anglia), many Danes are killed.
1225
The Lý dynasty of Vietnam ends after 216 years by the enthronement of the boy emperor Trần Thái Tông, husband of the last Lý monarch, Lý Chiêu Hoàng, starting the Trần dynasty.
1229
James I of Aragon the Conqueror enters Medina Mayurqa (now known as Palma, Spain) thus consummating the Christian reconquest of the island of Majorca.
1501
The First Battle of Cannanore commences.
1600
The British East India Company is chartered.
1660
James II of England is named Duke of Normandy by Louis XIV of France.
1687
The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope.
1757
Empress Elizabeth I of Russia issues her ukase incorporating Königsberg into Russia.
1759
Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
1775
American Revolutionary War: Battle of Quebec: British forces repulse an attack by Continental Army General Richard Montgomery.
1790
Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today, is published for the first time.
1796
The incorporation of Baltimore as a city.
1831
Gramercy Park is deeded to New York City.
1853
A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London, England.
1857
Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.
1862
American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.
1862
American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River begins near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
1878
Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879.
1879
Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
1906
Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar signs the Persian Constitution of 1906.
1907
The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in Manhattan.
1944
World War II: Hungary declares war on Nazi Germany.
1944
World War II: Operation Nordwind, the last major German offensive on the Western Front begins.
1946
President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.
1951
The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
1955
General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.
1961
RTÉ, Ireland's state broadcaster, launches its first national television service.
1963
The Central African Federation officially collapses, subsequently becoming Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.
1965
Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central African Republic army, and his military officers begins a coup d'état against the government of President David Dacko.
1968
The first flight of the Tupolev Tu-144, the first civilian supersonic transport.
1981
A coup d'état in Ghana removes President Hilla Limann's PNP government and replaces it with the Provisional National Defence Council led by Flight lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.
1983
The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government.
1983
In Nigeria a coup d'état led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari ends the Second Nigerian Republic.
1985
United Kingdom founds a member state of UNESCO.
1986
Arson at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico kills 97 people and injures 140.
1991
All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date 5 days after the Soviet Union is officially dissolved.
1992
Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
1994
This date is skipped altogether in Kiribati as the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands change time zones from UTC−11:00 to UTC+13:00 and UTC−10:00 to UTC+14:00, respectively.
1994
The First Chechen War: Russian army began a New Year's storming of Grozny.
1998
The European Exchange Rate Mechanism freezes the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and establishes the value of the euro currency.
1999
First President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor.
1999
The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
1999
Indian Airlines Flight 814 hijacking ended after seven days with the release of 190 survivors at Kandahar Airport, Afghanistan.
2004
The official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper at that time in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft).
2009
Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur.
2010
Tornadoes touch down in midwestern and southern United States, including Washington County, Arkansas; Greater St. Louis, Sunset Hills, Missouri, Illinois, and Oklahoma, with a few tornadoes in the early hours. A total 36 tornadoes touched down, resulting in the deaths of nine people and $113 million in damages.
2011
NASA succeeds in putting the first of two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory satellites in orbit around the Moon.
2014
A New Year's Eve celebration stampede in Shanghai kills at least 36 people and injures 49 others.
2015
A fire broke out at the Downtown Address Hotel in Downtown Dubai, United Arab Emirates located near the Burj Khalifa 2 hours before the fireworks display was due to commence. 16 injuries were reported; one had a heart attack, another suffered a major injury, and fourteen others with minor injuries,

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