1885 – Ito Hirobumi, a samurai, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.
1895 - German physicist Wilhelm Rontgen made the first X-ray.
1938 - The first coelacanth to be identified was caught in the Bay of Chalumna off South Africa. The fish, thought extinct for millions of years, was later named Latimeria-Chalumnae -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth
1943 - The children's writer, Beatrix Potter, died. Her house at Hill Top, Sawrey is open to the public.
1965 - The government introduced an 'experimental' speed limit of 70mph on motorways in England. The limit is still in force.
1982 - Heavy snow fell across much of Britain, causing chaos with up to 8 inches of snow. I think we can top that now.
1989 – After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceauşescu's Communist dictatorship.
1989 – Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.
2001 – Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.
1823 – A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, is published anonymously.
1888 - Following a quarrel with Paul Gauguin, Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh cut off part of his own earlobe.
1922 - The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began daily news broadcasts.
1947 - John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William Shockley invented the transistor at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. They won the Nobel Prize for their discovery.
1970 – The North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City, is topped out at 1,368 feet (417 m), making it the tallest building in the world.
1974 - The B-1 bomber made its first successful test flight.
1986 - The experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, round-the-world flight without refueling as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
2004 – An 8.1 magnitude earthquake hits Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean.
1650 - Edinburgh Castle surrendered to troops commanded by Oliver Cromwell.
1828 - William Burke (along with his partner William Hare, dug up the dead and committed murder in order to sell the corpses for dissection), went on trial in Edinburgh. The other bodysnatcher, William Hare, had turned King's evidence and was not therefore brought to trial.
1914 - A German monoplane dropped a single bomb on Dover, the first ever to be dropped on British soil. It landed on a rectory garden lawn and blew out the house windows.
1919 - John D. Rockefeller, thought to be the world's richest man, gave away $100 million dollars.
1942 - German rocket engineer Wernher von Braun launched the first surface-to-surface guided missile.
1955 – NORAD Tracks Santa for the first time in what will become an annual Christmas Eve tradition. WTF?
1965 - A meteorite weighing about 100 lb (45kg) was the largest to fall on Britain and landed in the village of Barwell, Leicestershire.
1809 Wearing masks at balls forbidden in Boston
1853 - The USA bought about 45,000 square miles of land from Mexico for $10million in a deal known as the Gadsden Purchase. Area is now known as southern Arizona & New Mexico
1865 Rudyard Kipling was born.
1887 - A petition to Queen Victoria with over one million names of women appealing for public houses to be closed on Sundays was handed to the home secretary.
1911 Sun Yat-sen elected 1st President of Republic of China
1919 - Lincoln's Inn, in London, admitted the first female bar student.
1922 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formed.
1924 - Edwin Hubble announced the existence of other galactic systems.
1973 1st picture of a comet from space (Comet Kohoutek-Skylab)
1993 Vatican recognizes Israel
And prehaps most important of all 
1980 Eliza Dushku was born
(also Kristin Kreuk 1982 )
1879 - Thomas Edison gave his first public demonstration of incandescent lighting to an audience in Menlo Park,New Jersey USA
1908 - Simon Wiesenthal was born
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wiesenthal
1923 - In London, the BBC first broadcast the chimes of Big Ben
1937 - Anthony Hopkins was born
1946 - U.S. President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
1960 - The British coin, the farthing, in use in Britain since the 13th Century, ceased to be legal tender at midnight
1973 - The three-day week began in Britain as a result of power strikes. It led to the downfall of Prime Minister Edward Heath and his government.
1997 - More Swedes died than were born in 1997, 1st time since 1809
0404 - The last gladiator competition was held in Rome.
1660 - 1st entry in Samuel Pepys' diary
1782 - Johann Christian Bach German composer/Mozart's tutor, dies at 46
1880 - Building of Panamá Canal, begins
1895 - J Edgar Hoover born. (Director of US Fedreal Bureau of Investigation)
1912 - Kim Philby born (British spy/Soviet mole)
1946 - About 20 Japanese soldiers surrendered to an American soldier after they read in the newspaper that the war was over
1966 - All US cigarette packs have to carry "Caution Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health"
1973 - Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Norway joined the EEC
1975 - Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell & Mardian convicted of Watergate crime
1839 - French photographer Louis Daguerre took the first photograph of the Moon.
1860 – The discovery of the planet Vulcan is announced at a meeting of the Académie des Sciences in Paris - Live long and prosper
1893 - The Financial Times first appeared on pink paper.
1929 - The United States and Canada reached an agreement to preserve Niagara Falls.
1942 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) convicts 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in United States history—the Duquesne Spy Ring.
1959 – Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, is launched by the U.S.S.R.
1965 - Indonesia withdrew from the United Nations, the first member to do so.
1974 - Museums and Galleries began charging admission for the first time.
1496 – Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.
1795 - Death of Josiah Wedgwood, the English potter. The pottery he founded remains one of the most famous in the world.
1833 - Britain seized control of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
1888 – The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 91cm in diameter, is used for the first time. It was the largest telescope in the world at the time.
1888 - The drinking straw was patented by Marvin Stone of Washington, D.C.
1924 - Two years after British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen near Luxor, Egypt, he uncovers the greatest treasure of the tomb, a stone sarcophagus containing a solid gold coffin with the mummy of Tutankhamen.
1946 - William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) was hanged for treason in London. The Irishman had broadcast propaganda from Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
1961 - The production of the millionth Morris Minor, designed by Sir Alec Issigonis.
1977 – Apple Computer is incorporated.
1988 - Margaret Thatcher became the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century.
1993 - President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a historic nuclear missile-reduction treaty in Moscow.
1999 – The Mars Polar Lander is launched.
2004 - Spirit, the first of the two Mars Exploration Rover missions, landed.
1847 – Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government.
1885 - The first appendectomy was performed, by Dr. William W. Grant of Davenport, Iowa.
1932 - Gandhi was arrested and his National Congress of India declared illegal by the British administration.
1958 - Sir Edmund Hillary arrived at the South Pole, the first explorer to do so since Scott in 1912.
1958 – Sputnik 1 falls to Earth from its orbit.
1959 – Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon.
1967 - Donald Campbell, 46 year old son of Sir Malcolm Campbell, died in his attempt to break his own world water speed record on Coniston Water in the Lake District. His boat, Bluebird K7, somersaulted at high speed, and Campbell died instantly. His body was not recovered until 2001.
1974 - President Richard Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
1982 - Erika Rowe became the first sports 'streaker' when she ran across the Twickenham ground at the England v Australia rugby match waving her bra in the air. She was arrested, with policeman covering her breasts with their helmets!
2000 - Catherine Hartley and Fiona Thornewill, the first British women to walk across Antarctica to the South Pole arrived safely, more than two months after starting their record-breaking journey.
