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Events

1603 - Mehmed III Sultan of the Ottoman Empire dies and is succeeded by his son Ahmed I.

1790 - Storm and capture Russian armies And. Century of Suvorov of a Turkish fortress Izmail.

1807 - The Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries, is passed by the U.S. Congress, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson.

1809 - The Non-Intercourse Act, lifting the Embargo Act except for the United Kingdom and France, passes the U.S. Congress.

1849 - The execution of Fyodor Dostoevsky is canceled at the last second.

1851 - The first freight train is operated in Roorkee in India.

1864 - Savannah, Georgia falls to General William Tecumseh Sherman, concluding his "March to the Sea".

1885 - Ito Hirobumi, a samurai, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.

1894 - The Dreyfus affair begins, in France, when Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted of treason, on antisemitic grounds.

1920 - Opening of 8-th All-Russia congress of Advice in Moscow (on December, 29th). The statement of the GOELRO plan.

1937 - The Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic in New York City.

1944 - German troops demand the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium. See Battle of the Bulge.

1944 - Vietnam People's Army is formed to resist Japanese occupation of Vietnam.

 
 

1947 - The Constituent Assembly of Italy approves its constitution.

1963 - Cruise ship Lakonia burns 180 miles north of Madeira with the loss of 128 lives.

1964 - Comedian Lenny Bruce is convicted of obscenity.

1964 - First SR-71 (Blackbird) flight

1965 - In the United Kingdom, a 70mph speed limit is applied to all rural roads including motorways for the first time. Previously, there had been no speed limit.

1974 - Grande Comore, Anjouan and Mohéli vote to become the independent nation of Comoros. Mayotte remains under French administration.

1984 - Subway vigilante Bernhard Hugo Goetz shoots four African-American men on an express train in The Bronx borough of New York City.

1988 - Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber tapper, unionist and environmental activist, is assassinated.

1989 - After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceau?escu's Communist dictatorship.

1989 - Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.

1989 - Two tourist coaches collide on the Pacific Highway north of Kempsey NSW (Kempsey Bus Crash).

1990 - Lech Wa??sa is sworn in as President of Poland.

1997 - Acteal massacre: Attendees at a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic activists for indigenous causes in the small village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas are massacred by paramilitary forces.

 
 

1999 - The Spanish Civil Guard finds near Calatayud (Zaragoza) another van loaded by ETA with 750 kg of explosives (see related event on December 21, 1999).

1999 - Tandja Mamadou becomes President of Niger.

2001 - Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, hands over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by President Hamid Karzai.

2001 - Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.

2001 - Cc the cat, the first cloned pet, is born.

 

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