Monday, December 31, 2012
                        On the 
Sun, the 
solar maximum of Solar Cycle 24 in the 11-year 
sunspot cycle is forecast to occur. Solar Cycle 24 is regarded to have commenced January 2008, and on average will reach its peak of maximal 
sunspot activity around 2012.
                    
Friday, December 31, 2010
                        Tornadoes touch down in midwestern and southern United States, including Washington County, Arkansas Greater St. Louis, Sunset Hills, Missouri, Illinois and Oklahoma, with a few tornadoes in the early hours of January 1, 2011. A total 36 tornadoes touched down, resulting in the deaths of 9 people.
                    
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
                        An extra 
leap second (23:59:60) is added to end the year. The last time this occurred was in 
2005.
                    
Monday, December 31, 2007
Saturday, December 31, 2005
                         Another second is added, 23:59:60, called a 
leap second, to end the year 2005. The last time this occurred was on 
June 30, 
1998.
                    
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
                        The first trial of a member of the Russian military for human rights violations in Chechnya concludes controversially, with Col. Yuri Budanov found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a psychiatric hospital for further evaluation and treatment. Budanov was charged with murder and abduction after being accused of raping and strangling Heda Kungayeva, an 18 year old Chechen girl whom Budanov contends was a rebel sniper. 
//europe.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/12/31/russia.colonel/Sunday, December 31, 2000
                        The Millennium Dome, in London, closes one year to the day after its opening.
                    
Thursday, December 31, 1998
                         The first 
leap second since June 30, 1997, occurs. In the 
eurozone, the currency rates of this day are fixed permanently.
                    
Sunday, December 31, 1995
Saturday, December 31, 1994
                        Tropical Storm Alberto and Hurricane Gordon cause very damaging floods, intense winds and extensive problems directly over the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean Islands. The death tolls are unusually severe and damages are extreme in both tropical storms.
                    
Thursday, December 31, 1992
                        First confirmed detection of extrasolar planets with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12 by Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail.
                    
                        Queensland introduces Freedom Of Information Laws.
                    
Monday, December 31, 1990
                        Homosexual acts between consenting adults are decriminalized in 
Queensland.
                    
Wednesday, December 31, 1986
                        Average per capita income in Japan exceeds that in the USA.
                    
                         A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 and injures 140.
                    
Thursday, December 31, 1981
Polybius, an urban legend game, is said to have been released in 1981.
                    
 
                        Heavy snow causes many houses and buildings to collapse in northwestern 
Japan 152 are killed (from January to March).
                    
Monday, December 31, 1973
ODECA functions suspended.
                    
 
                        5 teams tie for rugby chionship: wales, England, France, ireland, and Italy
                    
                        In the 
United Kingdom, due to coal shortages caused by industrial action, the 
Three-Day Week electricity consumption reduction measure comes into force.
                    
Thursday, December 31, 1970
                        The 
Sweet Track, the world's oldest engineered 
roadway, is discovered in England.
                    
                        The first Regional Technical Colleges open in Ireland.
                    
Paul McCartney sues in Great Britain to dissolve the Beatles' legal partnership.
                    
 Wednesday, December 31, 1969
                        Summer sees the invention of Unix under the potential name Unics (after Multics).
                    
                        Common African, Malagasy and Mauritian Organization (OCAMM) (Organisation Commune Africaine Malgache et Mauricienne).
                    
                         The date you are commonly given when a computer's time is set to 0 in seconds. Start of the Unix Epoch.
                    
                        The first 
Gap store opens, in San Francisco.
                    
Friday, December 31, 1965
                        Aborigines are given the vote in Queensland.
                    
TAT-4 cable goes into operation.
                    
 
                        The Council for National Academic Awards is established in the UK.
                    
Sunday, December 31, 1961
                        Barbie gets a boyfriend when the Ken doll is introduced.
                    
                         Ireland's first national television station, "Telefís Éireann" (later 
RTÉ), begins broadcasting.
                    
Saturday, December 31, 1960
                        World population: 3,021,475,001
                    
                        Last day on which the farthing, a coin first minted in England in the 13th century, is legal tender in the United Kingdom.
                    
Wednesday, December 31, 1958
                        Based on birth rates (per 1,000 population), the post-war 
baby boom ends in the 
United States as an 11-year decline in the birth rate begins (the longest on record in that country).
                    
                        Tallies reveal that, for the first time, the total of passengers carried by air this year exceeds the total carried by sea in transatlantic service.
                    
                        The 
Japanese 
10 yen coin ceases having serrated edges after a 5-year period beginning in 1953. All 
10 yen coins since have smooth edges.
                    
Monday, December 31, 1956
                        The Alpine Club of Canada, Toronto section, is founded.
                    
                        Bob Barker makes his TV debut as host of the game show "Truth or Consequences".
                    
Saturday, December 31, 1955
                        World population: 2,755,823,000
                    
Monday, December 31, 1951
Friday, December 31, 1948
                        Kinsey Report, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male", is published.
                    
                        Charles Warrell creates the first 
I-Spy books.
                    
                        The Slovak city Gúta is renamed 
Kolárovo.
                    
                         1948 Arab-Israeli War: Israeli troops drive the Egyptians from Negev
                    
Tuesday, December 31, 1946
                        Female suffrage is enacted in Belgium, Romania, Yugoslavia, Argentina and the Canadian province of Quebec.
                    
                        The Chinese Civil War intensifies between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China.
                    
                        The British government takes emergency powers to deal with the balance-of-payments crisis.
                    
Eva Perón tours Spain, Italy and France on behalf of 
Argentina, a circuit called the Rainbow Tour.
                    
 
                        The first female police officers are hired in Korea and Japan.
                    
                        The first "
Tupperware" is sold in department and hardware stores.
                    
Thursday, December 31, 1931
                         Statute of Westminster creates the British Commonwealth of Nations.
                    
                        The National Committee for Modification of the Volstead Act is formed to work for the repeal of prohibition in the United States.
                    
                        The 
Huang He floods kill between 850,000 and 4,000,000 people (the deadliest historic natural disaster).
                    
Wednesday, December 31, 1930
                        The experimental television station, W9XAP, in Chicago, Illinois, broadcasts the election for the U.S. Senate, which is the first time that a senatorial race, with continual tallies of the votes, is ever televised.
                    
                        The British White Paper demands restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine.
                    
                        Sudbury, Ontario, is incorporated as a city in the northern part of the province.
                    
                        The Federal Bureau of Narcotics replaces the Narcotics Division of the Prohibition Unit.
                    
Tuesday, December 31, 1918
                        The British occupy Palestine.
                    
Sunday, December 31, 1916
                        Oxycodone, a narcotic painkiller closely related to codeine is first synthesized in Germany.
                    
                        Rodeo's first side-delivery bucking chute is designed and made by the Bascom boys (Raymond, Mel, Earl) and their father John W. Bascom at Welling, Alberta Canada.
                    
                        Louis Enricht claims he has a substitute for gasoline.
                    
                        The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers is founded in the United States.
                    
                         The Hton Terrace Hotel in 
North Augusta, South Carolina, one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in the nation at the time, burns to the ground.
                    
                        Food is rationed in Germany.
                    
Saturday, December 31, 1904
                        Halford Mackinder presents a paper on "The Geographical Pivot of History" to the Royal Geographical Society of London in which he formulates the Heartland Theory, originating the study of geopolitics.
                    
                         In New York City, the first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square.
                    
Sunday, December 31, 1899
                        Riro, the last king of 
Easter Island, on a visit to 
Valparaíso, 
Chile, died either from alcohol poisoning or an assassination plot by the 
Chilean government.Island at the End of the World By Steven R. Fischer p. 153
                    
                        The significance of Chinese 
oracle bones is discovered.
                    
David Hilbert creates the modern concept of 
geometry with the publication of his book "Grundlagen der Geometrie".
                    
 
                         A large standing stone at 
Stonehenge falls over, the most recent time this has happened.
                    
Wednesday, December 31, 1879
                        Colonel 
Ahmed Arabi forms the Egyptian Nationalist Party.
                    
Saturday, December 31, 1870
                         The 12.8-km Fréjus Rail Tunnel through the Alps is completed.
                    
                        Infanticide is banned in India.
                    
                        Just one of the 916 members of the Indian Civil Service is Indian.
                    
Friday, December 31, 1869
                        The Co-operative Central Board (later Co-operatives UK) is founded in Manchester.
                    
                        Arabella A. Mansfield became the first woman in the United States awarded a license to practice law, at Mount Pleasant, Iowa.
                    
                        The capital of the Isle of Man moves from Castletown to Douglas.
                    
                        French missionary and naturalist Père Armand David receives the skin of a giant panda from a hunter, the first time this species has become known to a Westerner.
                    
                        Basutoland becomes a British protectorate.
                    
Wednesday, December 31, 1862
                        A smallpox epidemic breaks out in California.
                    
                        Donald McIntyre builds a settlement in northwest Queensland. This later becomes the town of Julia Creek, Queensland.
                    
Anna Leonowens accepts an offer made by the Siamese consul in Singapore, Tan Kim Ching, to teach the wives and children of Mongkut, the Kking of Siam.
                    
 Thursday, December 31, 1857
                        1857–
1924 ndash 7 out of 10 people who land in 
Argentina are single males between 13 and 40 years old.
                    
Sunday, December 31, 1775
                        Austria forces the Ottoman Empire to cede Bukovina.
                    
                        First Anglo-Maratha war fought between the British and the Marathas in India.It ended with the Treaty of Salbai(1782).
                    
Tseax Cone in northwestern British Columbia erupts.
                    
 Saturday, December 31, 1695
                        After 23 years of construction, Spain completes Castillo de San Marcos to protect St. Augustine, Florida from foreign threats.
                    
                         A 
window tax is imposed in 
England, causing many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid it.
                    
                        After many years of construction, the 
Potala Palace is completed.
                    
                        In Amsterdam, the bank Wed. Jean Deutz  Sn. floats the first sovereign bonds on the local market. The scheme is designed to fund a 1.5 million guilders loan to the Emperor. From that date on, European leaders commonly took advantage of the low interest rates available in the Republic and borrow several hundred millions on the Dutch capital market.
                    
                        In England, Parliament decides against a renewal of the Licensing Act, putting an end to royal censorship of printing presses and so clearing the way for a free press on the Act's expiry in 1696.
                    
                        A £2 fine is imposed for 
swearing in England.
                    
Wednesday, December 31, 1687
                         In response to the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes in 
1685, a group of 
Huguenots set sail from 
France and settle in the recently established Dutch colony at the 
Cape of Good Hope where, using their native skills, they establish the first South African vineyards.
                    
Friday, December 31, 1621
                        The 
Dutch East India Company sends 2000 soldiers under the command of 
Jan Pieterszoon Coen to the 
Banda Islands in order to force the local inhabitants to accept the Dutch trade monopoly on the lucrative 
nutmeg, grown almost exclusively on the Banda islands. The soldiers proceed to massacre most of the 15,000 indigenous inhabitants.
                    
                        The Venezuelan city of 
Petare is founded by Spanish conquistadors as San Jose de Guanarito.
                    
Sunday, December 31, 1600
                        Martin Möller is appointed chief pastor of Görlitz.
                    
                         East India Company granted a Royal Charter in Kingdom of England.
                    
                        Ulster chieftains, with the lead of Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, resist the English reconquest of Ireland.
                    
                        The Lutheran orthodox caign intensifies to reinforce the 
Book of Concord (approximate date).
                    
                        William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is first performed and his play "The Merchant of Venice" is published.
                    
Wednesday, December 31, 1597
                        12 million pesos of silver cross the Pacific. Although it is unknown just how much silver flowed from the Spanish base of Manila in the Philippines to the Ming Dynasty of China, it is known that the main port for the Mexican silver trade—Acapulco—shipped out 150,000 to 345,000 kg (4 to 9 million taels) of silver annually from this year to 1602.
                    
                         Tycho writes his preface to the Emperor Rudolf II in his book, "
Mecanica".
                    
                        A Dutch Expedition commanded by Frederick de Houtman returns to Amsterdam after having successfully reached the Spice Islands. This achievement opens the Spice trade, which had until then been monopolised by the Portuguese, to the Dutch, who in the next years launch several more expeditions to the Indies.
                    
Wednesday, December 21, 1502 (Julianian calendar)
                        Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa is proceeded to licentiate.
                    
                        Ivan III of Russia and Meñli I Giray of Crimea attack the Grand Duchy of Lithuania without much success.
                    
                        The first African slaves brought to the New World arrive at the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic).
                    
                        Aztec ruler Auitzotl dies Moctezuma II is elected emperor.
                    
Monday, December 21, 1500 (Julianian calendar)
Saturday, December 22, 1492 (Julianian calendar)
                        In Ming Dynasty China, the commercial transportation of grain to the northern border in exchange for salt certificates is monetized.
                    
                        Martin Behaim constructs the first surviving globe of Earth, the Erdapfel. As Columbus would only return from his voyage in 1493, this globe does not show the New World yet.
                    
Antonio de Nebrija publishes the first grammar text for the language of Castile in Salamanca, which he introduces to Ferdinand and Isabella as a tool of empire.
                    
 
                        Marsilio Ficino publishes his translation and commentary of Plotinus.
                    
                        The first arboretum to be designed and planted is the Arboretum Trsteno, near Dubrovnik in Croatia.
                    
Sunday, December 24, 1105 (Julianian calendar)
                         Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor is deposed by his son, Henry V.
                    
                        The Almoravid emir, Yusuf ibn Tashfin,  sends a maritime expedition to Palestine from Sevilla to ward off the Crusaders and maybe to reconquer Jerusalem.  The fleet of more or less seventy ships rusn into a storm in the Mediterranean and is never seen again.ref name=lameretlesmusulmansPicard C. (1997) "La mer et les musulmans d'Occident au Moyen Age". Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
                    
                        First mention of the consuls of 
Pavia indicating that the city has become an independent 
commune.
                    
Wednesday, December 27, 870 (Julianian calendar)
                         The Danes are defeated by a Saxon army at 
Englefield, 
Berkshire. It is the first of a series of battles between Wessex and the Danes.
                    
Saturday, December 29, 535 (Julianian calendar)
                         Belisarius completes the conquest of Sicily, defeating the Gothic garrison of Palermo (Panormos), and ending his 
consulship for the year.
                    
Sunday, December 30, 406 (Julianian calendar)
                        Hanzei succeeds his brother Richu, and becomes the 18th emperor of Japan.
                    
                        Fa-Hien, Chinese traveler, arrives in India. He visit the major seats of Buddhist learning (Udyana, Peshawar, and Taxila).
                    
Monday, January 1, 193 (Julianian calendar)
                        The kingdom of 
Cha begins to control south and central 
Vietnam (approximate date).