On this day in History - Dec. 31

0192 - Lucius Aurelius Commodus dies murdered (b. 0161). Roman Emperor.
0335 - Pope Silvester I, o 33rd pope.
0406 - Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gallia .
1194 - Leopold V of Austria, killed at a tournament in Graz.
1378 - Pope Callixtus III was born (d. 1458) .
1384 - John Wycliffe dies. English philosopher, theologian and religious reformator
1491 - Jacques Cartier was born. Explorer .
1492 - Jews are expelled from Sicily.
1514 - Andreas Vesalius was born [d. 1564]; Flemish anatomist who, as a university teacher insisted on conducting detailed dissections on human cadavers personally ( "De humani corporis fabrica") .
1553 - Pedro de Valdivia funda en Chile los fuertes de Arauco, Puren, Tucapel y la ciudad de Los Confines o Angol.
1568 - Shimazu Tadayoshi dies (b. 1493). Japanese daimyo.
1588 - Fray Luis de Granad dies in Lisbon. Spanish ascetic writer.
1600 - British East India Company is chartered.
1668 - Hermann Boerhaave was born [d. 1738]; Dutch physician and professor of medicine who was the first great clinical, teacher.
1679 - Giovanni Alfonso Borelli dies [b. 1608]; Italian physiologist who was the first to explain muscular movement and other body functions according to the laws of statics and dynamics. ["De motu animalium (Rome, 1680)].
1687 - The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope.
1695 - A window tax is imposed in England, causing many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid the tax.
1719 - John Flamsteed dies[b. 1646]; English astronomer who established the Greenwich Observatory, as one of a group of scientists who convinced King Charles II to build a national observatory.
1738 - Charles Cornwallis was born (d. 1805). 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British general.
1744 - James Bradley announced the discovery of Earth's motion of nutation, or wobbling.

1753 - Alexandre de Gusmão dies in Lisbon (b. in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil in 1695). Diplomat and politician.

1775 - American Revolutionary War: British forces repulse an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at the Battle of Quebec.
1784 - Para reforzar la lucha contra los piratas, Carlos III establece la pena de galeras en España. 1805 - Marie de Flavigny best known for Daniel Stern was born. French writer.
1816 - Sir William Withey Gull was born (d. 1890); A leading English physician of his time, lecturer and physician at Guy's Hospital, London, and an outstanding clinical teacher.

1830 - José Elias Garcia was born (d. 1891). Portuguese politician. President of the Municipal Chamber of Lisbon.
1838 - D. Luís I was born in Lisbon (d. 19 Oct 1889). King of Portugal
1846 - Os miguelistas são completamente derrotados em Braga, tendo o seu comandante, Macdonell sido preso e morto em 30 de Janeiro de 1847 (O liberalismo em Portugal).
1857 - Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, Ontario, as the capital of Canada .
1862 - American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union (thus dividing Virginia in two); meanwhile, the Battle of Stones River is fought near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
1864 - Robert Grant Aitken was born (d.1951). American astronomer who specialized in the study of double stars, of which he discovered more than 3,000 .
1868 - É ocupada Assunção, a capital do Paraguai, por uma coluna brasileira sob o comando do Coronel Hermes Ernesto da Fonseca.
1869 - Henri Matisse, was born (d. 1954). French painter and graphic artist. Along with Picasso, Matisse is considered one of the two foremost artists of the modern period. His contribution to 20th-century art is inestimable.
1872 - Aleksis Kivi dies (b. 1834). Finnish author
1877 - Gustave Courbet dies (b. 1819). French painter.
1878 - Elizabeth Arden was born in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada (d. 1966). Beautician, business executive.
1878 - Horacio Silvestre Quiroga was born in Salto. Uruguayan writer
1879 - Thomas Edison gave the first public demonstration of an electric incandescent lamp.
1880 - George C. Marshall was born , general and cabinet member, recipient of Nobel Prize in Peace 1953 for the Marshall Plan (d. 1959)
1881 - Max Pechstein, was born (d. 1955). Painter and graphic artist .
1890 - Francisca Carrasco Jiménez (Pancha) dies (b. 1816). "Defensora de lasLibertades Patrias" de Costa Rica.
1894 - Pola Negri was born (d. 1987). Polish actress.
1898 - Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson was born [d. 1975];He was a leading English ethnographer of the Mayan people.
1902 - Candido López dies in Baradero, Buenos Aires. Argentine painter.
violinist (d. 1992)
1905 - Aleksandr Popov dies (b. 1859). Physicist and electrical engineer acclaimed in Russia as the inventor of radio.
1905 - Jule Styne was born (d. 1994). Composer.

1905 - Waldemar Seyssel was born in Jaguariaiva, Paraná (d. 23 May 2005). Brazilian comedian and actor.
1908 - Simon Wiesenthal was born. Concentration camp survivor, activist
1909 - Manhattan Bridge Opens
1910 - Carl Dudley was born (d. 1973). American movie director.
1911 - Marie Curie receives her 2nd Nobel Prize .
1913 - Seth Carlo Chandler dies (b. 1846). American astronomer best known for his discovery (1884-85) of the Chandler Wobble, a complex movement in the Earth's axis of rotation (now refered to as polar motion) that causes latitude to vary with a period of 14 months.
1916 - The Hampton Terrace Hotel in North Augusta, South Carolina, one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in the USA at the time, burns to the ground.

1917 - António José Saraiva was born (d. 17 Mar 1993). Portuguese essayst and Professor

1923 - The Sahara is traversed by an automobile for the first time.
1923 - Se inauguran los servicios aéreos entre Buenos Aires y Montevideo.
1924 - Inicio de la Corrida de San Silvestre, celebrada anualmente Sao Paulo, Brasil.
1929 - Jeremy Bernstein was born; American physicist, educator, and writer widely known for the clarity of his writing for the lay reader on the major issues of modern physics.
1929 - Guy Lombardo plays Auld Lang Syne for the first time .
1934 - Cornelia Maria Clapp dies [b. 1849]; American zoologist and educator whose influence as a teacher was great and enduring in a period when the world of science was just opening to women.
1935 - Monopoly was patented, game assigned to Parker Brothers, Inc., by Charles Darrow of Pennsylvania.
1935 - Manuel Portela Valladares preside un nuevo Gobierno en España.
1936 - Miguel de Unamuno dies (b. 1864). Spanish writer and philosopher.
1937 - Anthony Hopkins was born. Welsh actor.
1938 - The first breath test for drivers, "drunkometer," was introduced in Indianapolis.
1940 - Arsène d'Arsonval dies [b. 1851]; French physician and physicist who was a pioneer in therapeutic use of electricity, heat, and light.
1941 - Alex Ferguson was born. Football (soccer) player and well known manager (Manchester United).
1943 - John Denver was born (d. 1997). Country/pop musician.
1943 - Ben Kingsley was born in Scarborough England; actor (Gandhi, Betrayal, Maurice...).
1944 - World War II: Hungary declares war on Germany .
1946 - President Harry Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.

1947 - Rita Lee Jones was born in São Paulo. Brazilian singer and composer.
1948 - Donna Summer was born in Boston. American singer.
1949 - 18 countries recognize Republic Indonesia.
1952 -Vaughan Frederick Randal Jones was born; New Zealand mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990 for his study of functional analysis and knot theory.
1955 - General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make over USD $1 billion in a year.

1956 - Francisco José Tenreiro dies (b. 1921). Poet and government official, São Tomé & Príncipe

1958 - Ernesto "Che" Guevara encabeza la ocupación de Santa Clara. Horas más tarde Fulgencio Batista huye de Cuba.
1959 - Val Kilmer was born. American actor ( The Saint, Top Gun, The Doors) .
1960 - The farthing coin, used in Britain since the 13th century, ceases to be legal tender.
1961 -The Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe .
1963 - African Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was formally dissolved.
1968 - Marien Ngouabi assumed the presidency of the Republic of the Congo.
1969 - George Lewis dies (b. 1900). American jazz musician.
1971 - US President Richard Nixon signs the National Air Quality Control Act, which calls for a 90% reduction in automobile emissions by 1975. The act also tightened air-pollution controls and fines in other industries.
1971 - Vikram Sarabhai dies (b. 1919). Indian physicist.
1972 - Roberto Clemente dies (b. 1934). Baseball player. From Puerto Rico Roberto Clement was elected to the Hall of Fame posthumously in 1973, being the first Hispanic American to be selected.
1975 - Pela primeira vez em 51 anos, a corrida de São Silvestre, maratona internacional realizada todos os anos em São Paulo, aceitou a participação de mulheres.
1978 - United States ends official relations with Nationalist China.
1978 - En Colombia el Movimiento 19 de Abril sustrae más de cinco mil armas de una guarnición militar conocida como Cantón Norte.
1979 - La Reina Isabel II de Inglaterra nombra caballero de la Orden del Imperio Británico al director de cine Alfred Hitchcock.
1980 - Muere Herbert Marshall McLuhan.
1980 - Léopold Sédar Senghor resigns after 20 years as Senegalese president .
1980 - Raoul Walsh dies (b. 1887). American film director .
1981 - Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings becomes Africa's first post-independent head of state after overthrowing Frederick Akuffo's government in Ghana.
1982 - Kurt Otto Friedrichs dies [ b. 1901] German mathematician.His main work was on partial differential equations in mathematical physics.
1983 - The last day that the AT&T Bell System exists before being broken up by the United States Government.
1983 - Nigeria's National Assembly dissolves after military coup .
1984 - Luciano Jaramillo Trujillo dies. Colombian painter.
1985 - Rick Nelson dies (b. 1940). American singer.

1985 - João de Araújo Correia dies (b. 1 Jan 1899). Portuguese writer [Contos Bárbaros (1939), Montes Pintados, Contos Durienses, Folhas de Xisto ]

1986 - A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 and injures 140.
1987 - Robert Mugabe sworn in as Zimbabwe's president.
1988 - No Rio de Janeiro o Bateau Mouche IV afunda na Baía de Guanabara matando 55 pessoas.
1990 - Russian Garry Kasparov holds his title by winning the World Chess Championship match against his countryman Anatoly Karpov.
1990 - Vasili Lazarev dies (b. 1928). Soviet cosmonaut.
1991 - The Soviet Union officially dissolves.
1991 - The civil war in El Salvador ends .
1992 - Thames Television ceases broadcasting. Carlton Television takes over its London weekday franchise.
1993 - Zviad Gamsakhurdia dies (b. 1939). Scientist and writer, first President of the Republic of Georgia.
1993 - the last research samples of the smallpox virus (variola) were scheduled to be destroyed. Smallpox was the world's most dreaded plagues until 1977, when it was declared eradicated. However, some scientists who wanted to continue research on the virus stopped the destruction plan. The remaining frozen samples are in Moscow.
1995 - The publication of the last new Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip.
1995 - Renuncia del primer ministro italiano Lamberto Dini.
1995 - O presidente da Argélia Liamine Zeroual indica Ahmed Ouyahia como seu novo primeiro-ministro.
1997 - Michael Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, killed in a skiing accident on Aspen Mountain in Colorado.
1997 - Microsoft buys Hotmail E-mail service.
1998 - Fin de la peseta en España.
1999 - La administración del Canal de Panamá es entregada por los Estados Unidos a Panamá.
1999 - Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, to be replaced by Vladimir Putin
1999 - Five hijackers, who had been holding 155 hostages on an Indian Airlines plane, leave the plane with two Islamic clerics that they had demanded be freed.
1999 - The Panama Canal comes completely under Panama's jurisdiction.
1999 - Sarah Knauss dies at the age of 119 years - at death, the world's oldest person alive.
1999 - Elliot Richardson dies (b. 1920). American politician.
1999 Control of Panamá Canal reverts to Panamá.
2000 - Alan Cranston dies (b. 1914). American politician.
2000 - Kenneth L. Pike dies (b. 1912). He was a U.S. linguist and anthropologist known for his studies of the aboriginal languages of Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, New Guinea, Java, Ghana, Nigeria, Australia, Nepal, and the Philippines.
2000 - José Greco dies. Spanish Flamenco dance.
2000 - Bill Clinton suscribe el tratado para crear el Tribunal Penal Internacional (TPI) con capacidad para investigar y juzgar a individuos acusados de haber cometido graves delitos contra el Derecho Internacional Comunitario. Su sucesor en la presidencia de los EE.UU., George W. Bush, retirará la participación de los EE.UU. en el tribunal.
2000 - Manuel de Rivacoba y Rivacoba dies. Spanish penalist and politician.
2003 - Arthur R. von Hippel German-born American physicist and professor at MIT
2004 - Gerard Debreu dies (b. 1921). French-born economist, Nobel Prize laureate.
2005 - Lisbon-Dakar all terrain veihucules rallye starts, naturally from Lisbon.
R.C. Saints - Pope Sylvester I (optional memorial)
Bahá'í Faith - Feast of Sharaf (Honor) - First day of the 16th month of the Bahá'í Calendar.