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On This Day December 31st

 December 31st is the three-hundred-sixty-sixth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 1 day remaining until the end of the year. Events 406 – Vandals, Alans, and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul. 870 – Battle of Englefield: The Vikings clash with Ealdorman Æthelwulf of Berkshire. The invaders are driven back to Reading (East Anglia); many Danes are killed. 1600 – The British East India Company is chartered. 1687 – The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope. 1759 – Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness. 1790 – Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today, is published for the first time. 1796 – The incorporation of Baltimore as a city. 1831 – Gramercy Park is deeded to New York City. 1862 – American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signed an act admitting West Virginia to the Union, dividing the state in two. 1907 – The first-ever ball drop in Times...
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On This Day December 30th

 December 30th is the three-hundred-sixty-fifth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 2 days remaining until the end of the year. Events 1066 – Granada massacre: A Muslim mob storms the royal palace in Granada, crucifies Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela, and massacres most of the Jewish population of the city. 1460 – Wars of the Roses: Lancastrians kill the 3rd Duke of York and win the Battle of Wakefield. 1813 – War of 1812: British soldiers burn Buffalo, New York. 1853 – Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest. 1902 – The Discovery Expedition under Robert Falcon Scott attained a Farthest South at 82°17′S in Antarctica. 1916 – Russian mystic and advisor to the Tsar Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin is murdered by a loyalist group led by Prince Felix Yusupov. His frozen, partially trussed body was discovered in a Petrograd river three days later. 1922 – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is for...
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On This Day December 27th

  December 27th is the three-hundred-sixty-second day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 5 days remaining until the end of the year. Events  537 – The second Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is consecrated. 1657 – The Flushing Remonstrance articulates for the first time in North American history that freedom of religion is a fundamental right. 1703 – Portugal and England signed the Methuen Treaty, which allowed Portugal to export wines to England on favorable trade terms. 1831 – Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard HMS Beagle, during which he will begin formulating his theory of evolution. 1845 – Having coined the phrase "manifest destiny" the previous July, journalist John L. O'Sullivan argued in his New York Morning News newspaper that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country. 1911 – "Jana Gana Mana," the national anthem of India, is first sung in the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress. 1927 – Kern an...
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On This Day December 28th

  December 28th is the three-hundred-sixty-third day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 4 days remaining until the end of the year. Events 1065 – Edward the Confessor's Romanesque monastic church at Westminster Abbey is consecrated. 1795—The construction of Yonge Street, formerly recognized as the longest street in the world, begins in York, Upper Canada (present-day Toronto). 1832 – John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign. He resigned after being elected as a senator from South Carolina. 1835 – Osceola leads his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the United States Army. 1895: Wilhelm Röntgen published a paper detailing his discovery of a new type of radiation, which would later be known as X-rays. 1902 – The Syracuse Athletic Club defeated the New York Philadelphians, 5–0, in the first indoor professional football game held at Madison Square Garden. 1912 – The first municipally owned streetcars tak...
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On This Day December 29th

 December 29th is the three-hundred-sixty-fourth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 3 days remaining until the end of the year. Events 1170 – Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church. 1607 – According to John Smith, Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan leader Wahunsenacawh, successfully pleads for his life after tribal leaders attempt to execute him. 1845 – The United States annexed the Republic of Texas and admitted it as the 28th state. 1890 – On Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 300 Lakota are killed by the United States 7th Cavalry Regiment. 1913 – Cecil B. DeMille starts filming Hollywood's first feature film, The Squaw Man. 1937 – The Irish Free State was replaced by a new state called Ireland, which adopted a new constitution. 1940 – In the Second Great Fire of London, the Luftwaffe fire-bombs Londo...
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On This Day December 26th

 December 26th is the three-hundred-sixty-first day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 6 days remaining until the end of the year. Events 887 – Berengar I is elected as king of Italy by the lords of Lombardy. He is crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy at Pavia. 1709 – The opera Agrippina by George Frideric Handel premiered in Venice. 1723 – Bach led the first performance of Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, BWV 40, his first Christmas Cantata composed for Leipzig. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: In the Battle of Trenton, the Continental Army attacked and successfully defeated a garrison of Hessian forces. 1799 – Henry Lee III's eulogy to George Washington in Congress declares him as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." 1860 – The First Rules derby is held between Sheffield F.C. and Hallam F.C., the oldest football fixture in the world. 1871 – Thespis, the first Gilbert and Sullivan collaboration, debuts. 1898 –...
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On This Day December 25th

 December 25th is the three-hundred-sixtieth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 6 days remaining until the end of the year. Events 274 – A temple to Sol Invictus is dedicated in Rome by Emperor Aurelian. 336 – First documentary sign of Christmas celebration in Rome. 800 – The coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in Rome. 1492 – The carrack Santa María, commanded by Christopher Columbus, runs onto a reef off Haiti due to an improper watch. 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. 1914 – A series of unofficial truces occur across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas. 1950—Scottish nationalist students took the Stone of Scone, a traditional coronati...
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