218 – BC Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia – Hannibal’s Carthaginian army heavily defeat Roman forces on Italian soil.
1271 – Kublai Khan renames his empire “Yuan” (元 yuán), marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of China.
1603 – First fleet of the Dutch East India Company under Admiral Steven van der Haghen departs for the East-Indies.
1787 – New Jersey became the third state admitted to the United States when it ratified the U.S. Constitution.
1865 – By proclamation of the U.S. secretary of state, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing slavery, officially entered into force, having been ratified by the requisite states on December 6.
1912 – The discovery of fossil remains of Piltdown man, an extinct human species, was announced at a meeting of the Geological Society of London, but the remains were later proved to be a fraud.
1917 – German General Erich Ludendorff ordered the consolidation of the country’s leading motion-picture studios to form UFA (Universum Film-Aktien Gesellschaft).
1957 – World’s 1st full scale nuclear power plant for only peacetime use begins to generate electricity, at the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania.
1997 – Kim Dae-Jung was elected president of South Korea, the first opposition leader in that country’s history to win that position.
Births & Deaths:
1737 – Famed Italian violin maker Antonio Stradivari died in Cremona.
1879 – Swiss-German artist Paul Klee, was born.
1943 – British guitarist Keith Richards of the rock band the Rolling Stones was born.
1946 – American film director Steven Spielberg—who enjoyed great critical and commercial success with such movies as Jaws (1975), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Schindler’s List (1993), and Saving Private Ryan (1998)—was born.
1963 – American actor Brad Pitt, known for his portrayal of unconventional characters, was born.
2011 – Czech playwright, poet, and political dissident Václav Havel—who served as president of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and of the Czech Republic (1993–2003) and had been a prominent participant in the liberal reforms of 1968 (the Prague Spring)—died in Hrádeček, Czech Republic.
Music:
1892 – Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet “Nutcracker Suite” premieres.
