• 800 - Charlemagne judges the accusations against Pope Leo III in the Vatican.
• 1167 - The Lombard League is formed in northern Italy.
• 1420 - Henry V of England enters Paris.
• 1640 - End of the Iberian Union: Portugal acclaims as King João IV of Portugal, thus ending a 60 year period of personal union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain and the end of the rule of the House of Habsburg (also called the Philippine Dynasty). The Spanish Habsburgs don't recognize Portugal's new dinasty, the House of Braganza, until 1668.
• 1768 - The slave ship Fredensborg sinks off Tromøy in Norway.
• 1821 - The first constitution of Costa Rica is issued.
• 1822 - Peter I is crowned as Emperor of Brazil.
• 1824 - U.S. presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task to decide the winner (as stipulated by the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution).
• 1826 - French philhellene Fabvier forces his way through the Turkish cordon and ascends the Acropolis of Athens, which had been under siege.
• 1864 - In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.
• 1884 - American Old West: Near Frisco, New Mexico, deputy sheriff Elfego Baca holds off a gang of 80 Texan cowboys who want to kill him for arresting Charles McCarthy.
• 1913 - The Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.
• 1913 - Crete, having obtained self rule from Turkey after the first Balkan war, is annexed by Greece.
• 1918 - Transylvania unites with Romania, following the incorporation of Bessarabia (March 27) and Bukovina (November 28). National Council of Romanians in Banat had voted for union with the Kingdom of Romania. National Council of Romanians in Transylvania had voted for union with the Kingdom of Romania.
• 1918 - Iceland becomes a sovereign state, yet remains a part of the Danish kingdom.
• 1918 - The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is proclaimed.
• 1919 - Lady Astor becomes first female member of the British Parliament to take her seat (she had been elected to that position on November 28).
• 1925 - World War I aftermath: The final Locarno Treaty is signed in London, establishing post-war territorial settlements.
• 1934 - In the Soviet Union, Politburo member Sergei Kirov is shot dead at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad by Leonid Nikolayev.
• 1941 - World War II: Fiorello LaGuardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs the Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.
• 1952 - The New York Daily News reports the first successful sexual reassignment operation.
• 1955 - American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• 1958 - Central African Republic becomes independent from France.
• 1958 - The Our Lady of the Angels School Fire in Chicago, Illinois kills 92 children and three nuns.
• 1959 - Cold War: Antarctic Treaty signed, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on that continent.
• 1960 - Paul McCartney and Pete Best arrested then deported from Hamburg, Germany for accusation of attempted arson.
• 1961 - The independent Republic of West Papua is proclaimed in modern-day Western New Guinea.
• 1961 - Paul McCartney and Pete Best arrested then deported from Hamburg, Germany for accusation of attempted arson.
• 1963 - Nagaland becomes the 16th state of India.
• 1964 - Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.
• 1965 - The Border Security Force is formed in India as a special force to guard the borders.
• 1969 - Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.
• 1971 - Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray.
• 1971 - Indian Army occupies part of Kashmir.
• 1973 - Papua New Guinea gains self government from Australia.
• 1974 - TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport killing all 92 people on-board.
• 1974 - Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
• 1981 - A Yugoslavian Inex Adria Aviopromet DC-9 crashes in Corsica killing all 180 people on-board.
• 1982 - At the University of Utah, Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart.
• 1987 - NASA announces the names of four companies that have been awarded contracts to help build Space Station Freedom.
• 1988 - Benazir Bhutto is appointed Prime Minister of Pakistan.
• 1989 - Right-wing military rebel Reform the Armed forces Movement (RAM) attempts to oust Philippine President Corazon Aquino in a failed bloody coup d' etat.
• 1989 - Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the communist party the leading role in the state.
• 1990 - Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 meters beneath the seabed.
• 1991 - Cold War: Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.
• 1998 - Exxon announces a $73.7 billion USD deal to buy Mobil, thus creating Exxon-Mobil, the world's largest company.
• 2001 - Captain Bill Compton brings Trans World Airlines Flight 220, an MD-83, into St. Louis International Airport bringing to an end 76 years of TWA operations following TWA’s purchase by American Airlines.
• 2003 - The MMORPG Runescape was released by jagex inc.

Births