What Happened on December 21st in History
30 historical events on this date
EgyptianâOttoman War: Egyptian forces decisively defeat Ottoman troops at the Battle of Konya.
The First EgyptianâOttoman War or First Syrian War (1831â1833) was a military conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Egypt brought about by Muhammad Ali Pasha's demand to the Sublime Porte for...
The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers commences business at its cooperative in Rochdale, England, starting the Cooperative movement.
The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844, was an early consumers' co-operative, and one of the first to pay a patronage dividend, forming the basis for the modern co-operative...
Medal of Honor: Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.
The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the highest military decoration of the United States Armed Forces and is awarded to recognize American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians, and coast guardsmen...
Challenger expedition: HMSÂ Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sails from Portsmouth, England.
The Challenger expedition of 1872â1876 was a scientific programme that made many discoveries to lay the foundation of oceanography. The expedition was named after the naval vessel that undertook the...
the fictional character of Nora Helmer is first portrayed by Betty Hennings at a showing of A Doll's House at the Royal Danish Theatre.
Nora Helmer is a fictional character in Henrik Ibsen's 1879 play A Doll's House. She is introduced as a seemingly devoted wife and mother, living in a comfortable middle-class home with her husband...
The Royal Canadian Dragoons and The Royal Canadian Regiment, the first Permanent Force cavalry and infantry regiments of the Canadian Army, are formed.
The Royal Canadian Dragoons (RCD) is the senior armoured regiment of the Canadian Army by precedence. It is one of three armoured regiments in the Regular Force and forms part of the Royal Canadian...
The Chilean Army commits a massacre of at least 2,000 striking saltpeter miners in Iquique, Chile.
The Chilean Army is the land arm of the Chilean Armed Forces. This 80,000-person army is organized into six divisions, an army aviation brigade and a special operations brigade.
An underground explosion at the Hulton Bank Colliery No. 3 Pit in Over Hulton, Westhoughton, England, kills 344 miners.
The Pretoria Pit disaster was a mining accident on 21 December 1910, when an underground explosion occurred at the Hulton Colliery Bank Pit No. 3, known as the Pretoria Pit, in Over Hulton,...
American anarchist Emma Goldman is deported to Russia.
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism. Anarchism...
United Kingdom and Nepal formally sign an agreement of friendship, called the NepalâBritain Treaty of 1923, which superseded the Treaty of Sugauli signed in 1816.
Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It...
Lieutenant Kijé, one of Sergei Prokofiev's best-known works, premiered.
Sergei Prokofiev's Lieutenant KijĂ© music was originally written to accompany the film of the same name, produced by the Belgoskino film studios in Leningrad in 1933â34 and released in March 1934. It...
World War II: A Thai-Japanese Pact of Alliance is signed.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
An 8.1 Mw earthquake and subsequent tsunami in NankaidĆ, Japan, kills over 1,300 people and destroys over 38,000 homes.
The moment magnitude scale is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude based on its seismic moment. MwâŻwas defined in a 1979 paper by Thomas C. Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori. Similar to the local...
"Bloody Christmas" begins in Cyprus, ultimately resulting in the displacement of 25,000â30,000 Turkish Cypriots and destruction of more than 100 villages.
Bloody Christmas refers to intercommunal violence between Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot populations during the Cyprus crisis of 1963â64, on the night of 20â21 December 1963 and the subsequent...
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is adopted.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third-generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its...
Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a human-to-human heart transplant, dies in Cape Town, South Africa, having lived for 18 days after the transplant.
Louis Joshua Washkansky was a South African man who was the recipient of the world's first human-to-human heart transplant, and the first patient to regain consciousness following the operation....
Apollo program: Apollo 8 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo was conceived in 1960 in the...
The Geneva Conference on the ArabâIsraeli conflict opens.
The Geneva Conference of 1973 was an attempt to negotiate a solution to the ArabâIsraeli conflict as envisioned in United Nations Security Council Resolution 338 following the called-for cease-fire...
Lancaster House Agreement: An independence agreement for Rhodesia is signed in London by Lord Carrington, Sir Ian Gilmour, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and S.C. Mundawarara.
The Lancaster House Agreement is an agreement signed on 21 December 1979 in Lancaster House, following the conclusion of a constitutional conference where different parties discussed the future of...
A bomb explodes on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270. This is to date the deadliest air disaster to occur on British soil.
Pan Am Flight 103 was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. Shortly after 19:00 on 21 December 1988, the...
Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The leaders of 11 now effectively autonomous Soviet republics sign the Alma-Ata Protocol establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States in place of the collapsing Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union was formally dissolved and ceased to exist as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the...
A Dutch DC-10, flight Martinair MP 495, crashes at Faro Airport, Portugal, killing 56.
The Netherlands, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the...
The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.
Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about ten kilometres south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of 28,591 people, as of 2017. The...
The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a van loaded with 950Â kg of explosives that ETA intended to use to blow up Torre Picasso in Madrid, Spain.
The Civil Guard is one of the two national law enforcement agencies of Spain. As a national gendarmerie, it is military in nature and is responsible for civil policing under the authority of both...
Cubana de AviaciĂłn Flight 1216 overshoots the runway at La Aurora International Airport, killing 18.
Cubana de AviaciĂłn Flight 1216 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 that overran the runway at La Aurora International Airport, Guatemala City, on 21 December 1999. 8 passengers and 8 crew members on board...
Iraq War: A suicide bomber kills 22 at the forward operating base next to the main U.S. military airfield at Mosul, Iraq, the single deadliest suicide attack on American soldiers in Iraq.
The Iraq War, also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion by a United Statesâled coalition, which resulted in the...
2012 phenomenon: Festivities are held in parts of Mesoamerica to commemorate the conclusion of b'ak'tun 13, a roughly 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar whose passing many New Age spiritualists had earlier held to portend a variety of cataclysmic or transformative events.
The 2012 phenomenon was a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events would occur on or around 21 December 2012. This date was regarded as the end-date of a...
A great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn occurs, with the two planets separated in the sky by 0.1 degrees. This is the closest conjunction between the two planets since 1623.
A great conjunction is a conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, when the two planets appear closest together in the sky. Great conjunctions occur approximately every 20 years when Jupiter...
A Vega C rocket carrying two Pléiades Neo satellites fails after liftoff.
Vega C, or Vega Consolidation, is a European expendable, medium-lift launch vehicle developed and produced by Avio. It is an evolution of the original Vega launcher, designed to offer greater launch...
Fourteen people are killed and 25 others injured during a mass shooting at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.
On 21 December 2023, a mass shooting occurred at Charles University's Faculty of Arts main building in central Prague, Czech Republic. A lone gunman, 24-year-old postgraduate student David KozĂĄk,...