December 1st to 31st Major and Important news items from each day click link to find more news for that day

1941 US Enters World War II

1980 Former Beatle John Lennon was shot dead in New York

1993 The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Signed into Law

1963 Studebaker Production Ends

1990 Solidarity founder Lech Walesa wins Poland's presidential runoff

1992 Prince Charles and Princess Diana announce a formal separation

1993 Hubble Telescope Repair is a success

1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights By United Nations

1958 First US Commercial Jet Flight

2008 Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich Arrested

2006 Augusto Pinochet Dies

1936 King Edward VIII Abdicates to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson

1946 UNICEF Established

1985 The Unabomber kills his first victim, Hugh Scrutton

1990 Ivana Trump filed for divorce from real estate mogul Donald Trump

1997 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan ( Kyoto Protocol )

2005 Buncefield Oil Depot Explosions Hemel Hempstead in England

2008 Car Companies Bail Out Bill Agreed

1901 Marconi sends first wireless transmission over 2000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada

1917 Father Edward Flanagan founds Boys Town

1925 first Motel opens the Milestone Mo-Tel of San Luis Obispo, California

1975 Balcombe Street Siege London England

1988 Clapham Junction Rail Crash South London

2003 Keiko From Free Willy dies

1937 Rape of Nanking

1950 James Dean who is still unknown at that time appears in a Pepsi commercial

1972 Thalidomide victims ( 50's and 60's Sales ) are offered a compensation deal

1995 Brixton Riots London England

2003 Saddam Hussein is captured by U.S. forces at a farmhouse in Adwar

2007 Rupert Murdoch buys Dow Jones & Co. which includes The Wall Street Journal

1905 1 in 10 are Illiterate in US

1947 NASCAR is formed

1962 Mariner 2 space probe becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus

1972 Last Men To Walk On The Moon

1995 Dayton Accord Signed Ending War

1939 Gone With The Wind Premiers

1944 Glenn Miller Killed In Plane Crash

1967 The Silver Bridge across the Ohio River collapses

1916 Rasputin Murdered In Russia

1920 Earthquake measuring 8.5 hits the heavily populated of Gansu province of midwestern China, causing the deaths of an estimated 200,000 people.

1944 Battle of the Bulge Begins during World War II

1969 Death Penalty Abolished England

1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful man-powered airplane flight

1942 Mass executions of Jews by killing squads and in Poland

1983 Harrods Department Store Bombing

1987 The Simpsons Debuts as a half-hour prime time show

1966 Dr. Seuss' book "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is made into an animated television special and shown for first time on CBS

1997 The movie "Titanic" opened in American theaters.

2008 General Motors and Chrysler bailed out

1963 Berlin Wall Opened For 1 Day Passes

1968 The Zodiac killer's first attributable murders

1989 President George Bush launches Operation Just Cause In Panama

2005 Transit Strike New York City

1913 First Cross Word Puzzle Published IN New York World.

1958 General Charles de Gaulle is elected President of France

1952 The first Corvette, a production-ready prototype, is completed

2001 The shoe bomber, a passenger on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, tried to ignite explosives in his shoes

1947 Bell Labs demonstrates the worlds first Transistor Radio

1956 British French Troops Withdraw From Suez Canal

1995 A fire in Dabwali, India, kills 540 people, including 170 children .

2006 United Nations Security Council has unanimously imposed sanctions against Iran over its failure to halt uranium enrichment with Resolution 1737

1865 A group of Confederate veterans convenes to form the secret society the "Ku Klux Klan."

1903 The first car number plate ( A1 ) is issued in England

1968 Apollo 8 orbits the Moon, becoming the first manned space mission to achieve the feat.

1994 Four Islamic extremists hijack Air France Flight 8969 in Algiers

2009 The Senate passes health care reform bill

1952 The young Queen Elizabeth gives her first Christmas broadcast on BBC radio from the study at Sandringham House

1974 Thousands are left homeless and more than 30 people are feared dead after cyclone Tracy with winds of up to 135mph hits the northern Australian city of Darwin on Christmas Day

1947 A severe snowstorm covers the Northeastern part of the United States , burying New York City under 25.8 inches of snow in 16 hours

2004 A tsunami caused by an earthquake under the Indian Ocean leaves 216,000 dead in 13 countries..

1932 Radio City Music Hall opened in New York City

1949 Indonesia gains it's independence from the Netherlands after 400 years.

1994 Blood Bath Begins In Rwanda between Hutu majority and the Tutsis

2001 U.S. officials announced that Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners would be held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

2007 Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto assassinated in Pakistan

1945 US Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag

1940 Germany begin dropping incendiary bombs on London

1975 A terrorist bomb is exploded in the main terminal of New York's LaGuardia Airport, killing 11 people.

1903 The Iroquois Theater Fire in Chicago, Illinois, claims 602 lives

1986 Canaries made redundant from British Coal Mines and replaced by modern carbon monoxide detectors.

2006 Saddam Hussein hanged in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

1999 The world prepares to have a global party with fireworks and special events around the world to welcome in the third millennium.