274 – A temple for Sol Invictus is dedicated in Rome by Emperor Aurelian.
333 – Roman Emperor Constantine the Great elevates his youngest son Constans to the rank of Caesar.
336 – First documentary sign of Christmas celebration in Rome.
350 – Vetranio meets Constantius II at Naissus (Serbia) and is forced to abdicate his title (Caesar). Constantius allows him to live as a private citizen on a state pension.
508 – Clovis I, king of the Franks, is baptized into the Catholic faith at Reims, by Saint Remigius.
597 – Augustine of Canterbury and his fellow-labourers baptise in Kent more than 10,000 Anglo-Saxons.
800 – The Coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome.
1000 – The foundation of the Kingdom of Hungary: Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I of Hungary.
1025 – Coronation of Mieszko II Lambert as king of Poland.
1066 – William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy is crowned king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London.
1076 – Coronation of Bolesław II the Generous as king of Poland.
1100 – Baldwin of Boulogne is crowned the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
1130 – Count Roger II of Sicily is crowned the first king of Sicily.
1261 – John IV Laskaris of the restored Eastern Roman Empire is deposed and blinded by orders of his co-ruler Michael VIII Palaiologos.
1492 – The carrack Santa María, commanded by Christopher Columbus, runs onto a reef off Haiti due to an improper watch.
1553 – Battle of Tucapel: Mapuche rebels under Lautaro defeat the Spanish conquistadors and executes the governor of Chile, Pedro de Valdivia.
1559 – Pope Pius IV is elected.
1758 – Halley's Comet is sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley's prediction of its passage. This was the first passage of a comet predicted ahead of time.
1776 – George Washington and the Continental Army cross the Delaware River at night to attack Hessian forces serving Great Britain at Trenton, New Jersey, the next day.
1809 – Dr. Ephraim McDowell performs the first ovariotomy, removing a 22-pound tumor.
1814 – Rev. Samuel Marsden holds the first Christian service on land in New Zealand at Rangihoua Bay.
1815 – The Handel and Haydn Society, oldest continually performing arts organization in the United States, gives its first performance.
1826 – The Eggnog Riot at the United States Military Academy concludes after beginning the previous evening.
1831 – The Great Jamaican Slave Revolt begins; up to 20% of the island's slaves mobilize in an ultimately unsuccessful fight for freedom.
1837 – Second Seminole War: American general Zachary Taylor leads 1100 troops against the Seminoles at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee.
1868 – United States President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans.
1914 – A series of unofficial truces occur across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas.
1932 – A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Gansu, China kills 275 people.
1941 – Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
1941 – World War II: Battle of Hong Kong ends, beginning the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong.
1941 – Admiral Émile Muselier seizes the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which become the first part of France to be liberated by the Free French Forces.
1946 – The first European self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is initiated within the Soviet Union's F-1 nuclear reactor.
1950 – The Stone of Scone, traditional coronation stone of British monarchs, is taken from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students. It later turns up in Scotland on April 11, 1951.
1962 – The Soviet Union conducts its final above-ground nuclear weapon test, in anticipation of the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
1963 – Turkish Cypriot Bayrak Radio begins transmitting in Cyprus after Turkish Cypriots are forcibly excluded from Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.
1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 performs the very first successful Trans-Earth injection (TEI) maneuver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit.
1968 – Kilvenmani massacre: Forty-four Dalits (untouchables) are burnt to death in Kizhavenmani village, Tamil Nadu, a retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by Dalit laborers.
1977 – Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin meets in Egypt with its president Anwar Sadat.
1989 – Deposed President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena, are condemned to death and executed after a summary trial.
1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day). Ukraine's referendum is finalized and Ukraine officially leaves the Soviet Union.
2003 – UTAGE Flight 141, a Boeing 727-223, crashes at the Cotonou Airport in Benin, killing 151 people.
2003 – The ill-fated Beagle 2 probe, released from the Mars Express spacecraft on December 19, stops transmitting shortly before its scheduled landing.
2004 – The Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which successfully landed on Saturn's moon Titan on January 14, 2005.
2012 – An Antonov An-72 plane crashes close to the city of Shymkent, killing 27 people.
2016 – A Russian Defence Ministry Tupolev Tu-154 carrying members of the Alexandrov Ensemble crashes into the Black Sea shortly after takeoff, killing all 92 people onboard.
