December
- Portugal separates from Spain, 1640.
Lady Astor is first woman member of the House of Commons, 1919. - Napoleon Bonaparte crowned Emperor by the Pope, 1804.
- Joseph Conrad born, 1857.
Dr. Christiaan Barnard performs first heart transplant operation, 1967. - Council of Trent ended, 1563.
Armand Jean du Plessis Richelieu died, 1642. - Marshal Pilsudski born, 1867.
Wolfgang Mozart died, 1791. - Irish Free State established, 1921.
- Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941.
- Quintus Haratius Flaccus Horace born, 65 B.C.
First Vatican Council opened, 1869. - Publication of Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade, 1854.
Separation of church and state in France, 1905. - Aswan Dam opened, 1902.
King Edward VIII of England abdicates to marry Mrs. Simpson, 1936. - Louis Napoleon elected President of Second Republic of France, 1848.
- Father Flanagan establishes Boys Town in Omaha, NE, 1917.
Gustav Flaubert born, 1821. - Council of Trent began, 1545.
- Roald Amundsen reaches South Pole, 1911.
Women first voted in British general election, 1918. - Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin murdered, 1916.
- Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, 1653.
Ludwig van Beethoven born, 1770. - Wright brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, 1903.
- The Great Protestation of the House of Commons, 1621.
Antonio Stradivarius died, 1737. - King Philip V of Spain born, 1683.
- Peter the Great reforms the Russian calendar, 1699.
- Richard the Lion-Hearted captured by Leopold of Austria, 1192.
Charles De Gaulle elected President of Fifth French Republic, 1958. - St. Francis Xavier died, 1552.
Mayflower landed, 1620. - Murder of Henry, Duke of Guise, 1588.
- St. Ignatius Loyola born, 1491.
Treaty of Ghent, 1814. - (Charles the Great) Charlemagne crowned first Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III, 800.
- Decembrist uprising in Russia, 1825.
Mao Tse-Tung born, 1893. - Johannes Kepler born, 1571.
Louis Pasteur born, 1822. - Woodrow Wilson born, 1856.
- Murder of St. Thomas a Becket, 1170.
- Rudyard Kipling born, 1865.
Sun Yat-sen elected president of China, 1911. - Jacques Cartier, explorer, born, 1491.
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