December 31 Historical Events
The following events took place on December 31. The list is arranged in chronological order.
Found 54 events. Showing 1 - 30.
- 406Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul.
- 535Byzantine general Belisarius completes the conquest of Sicily, defeating the Gothic garrison of Palermo (Panormos), and ending his consulship for the year.
- 1225The 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.
- 1229James I of Aragon the Conqueror enters Medina Mayurqa (now known as Palma, Spain) thus consummating the Christian reconquest of the island of Majorca.
- 1501The First Battle of Cannanore commences.
- 1600The British East India Company is chartered.
- 1660James II of England is named Duke of Normandy by Louis XIV of France.
- 1687The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope.
- 1695A window tax is imposed in England, causing many householders to brick up windows to avoid the tax.
- 1757Empress Elizabeth I of Russia issues her ukase incorporating Königsberg into Russia.
- 1759Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
- 1775American Revolutionary War: Battle of Quebec: British forces repulse an attack by Continental Army General Richard Montgomery.
- 1790Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today, is published for the first time.
- 1796The incorporation of Baltimore as a city.
- 1831Gramercy Park is deeded to New York City.
- 1853A 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.
- 1857Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.
- 1862American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.
- 1862American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River begins near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
- 1878Karl 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.
- 1879Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
- 1906Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar signs the Persian Constitution of 1906.
- 1907The first New Year’s Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in New York, New York.
- 1909Manhattan Bridge opens.
- 1923The chimes of Big Ben are broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.
- 1944World War II: Hungary declares war on Nazi Germany.
- 1944World War II: Operation Nordwind, the last major German offensive on the Western Front begins.
- 1946President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.
- 1951The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
- 1955General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.
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