• 962 - Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city of Aleppo, recovering the tattered tunic of John the Baptist.
• 1493 - Georg Alt's German translation of Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle is published.
• 1783 - George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.
• 1793 - The Battle of Savenay, decisive defeat of the royalist counter-revolutionaries in Revolt in the Vendée during the French Revolution.
• 1913 - The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve.
• 1914 - World War I: Australian and New Zealand troops arrive in Cairo, Egypt.
• 1916 - World War I: Battle of Magdhaba - Allied forces defeat Turkish forces in Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
• 1921 - Visva-Bharati University is inaugurated.
• 1936 - Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
• 1937 - First flight of the Vickers Wellington bomber.
• 1938 - Discovery of the first modern coelacanth in South Africa.
• 1940 - World War II: Greek submarine Papanikolis (Υ-2) sinks the Italian motor ship Antonietta.
• 1941 - World War II: Japanese Imperial Army occupies Wake Island.
• 1947 - The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
• 1948 - Seven Japanese convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East are executed at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo.
• 1954 - The first human kidney transplant is performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 1958 - Dedication of Tokyo Tower, world's highest self-supporting iron tower.
• 1968 - The United States won the release of 82 sailors by issuing a writing apology to North Korea for spying on the Communist country.
• 1972 - The Nicaraguan capital of Managua is struck by a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, killing more than 10,000.
• 1972 - The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, having survived by cannibalism.
• 1979 - Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet forces occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital.
• 1982 - The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces it has identified dangerous levels of dioxin in the soil of Times Beach, Missouri.
• 1986 - Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world.
• 1990 - History of Slovenia: In a referendum, 88% of Slovenia's population vote for independence from Yugoslavia.
• 2002 - A MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25, making it the first time in history that an aircraft and an unmanned drone had engaged in combat.
• 2003 - PetroChina Chuandongbei natural gas field explosion, Guoqiao, Kai, Chongqing, China, killing at least 234.
• 2004 - Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean is hit by an 8.1 magnitude earthquake.
• 2005 - Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 217 from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Aktau, Kazakhstan crashes shortly after takeoff killing 23 people.
• 2005 - Chad declares a state of war against Sudan following a December 18th attack on Adré, which left about 100 people dead.

Births