Week of December 26 in History

December 26 is the 360th day of the year. There are five days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1791 – Charles Babbage, English mathematician and inventor who conceptualized the computer, was born. He died in 1871.
• 1799 – 4000 people attended George Washington’s, he was declared "first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
• 1846 – Trapped in snow in the Sierra Nevadas and without food, members of the Donner Party resorted to cannibalism.
• 1862 – Four nuns serving as volunteer nurses on the USS Red Rover were the first women nurses on a US Navy hospital ship.
• 1871 – Gilbert and Sullivan collaborated for the first time, on their lost opera, Thespis.
• 1898 – Marie and Pierre Currie announced the isolation of radium.
• 1919– Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox was sold to the New York Yankees.
• 1933 – FM radio was patented.
• 1941 – US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill establishing the 4th Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.
• 1966 – The first Kwanzaa was celebrated.
• 1982 – Time magazine's Man of the Year was, for the first time, a non-human, it was the personal computer.
• 1985 – Dian Fossey, American zoologist, died. She was born in 1932.
• 2004 – A 9.3 magnitude earthquake created a tsunami that caused devastation around the rim of the Indian Ocean, killing over 230,000 people.

December 27 is the 361st day of the year. There are four days remaining until the end of the year.

• 537 – The Hagia Sophia, an Orthodox basilica, was completed in Istanbul, Turkey.
• 1822 – Louis Pasteur, French chemist and microbiologist, was born. He died in 1895.
• 1831 – Charles Darwin, embarks on his journey aboard the HMS Beagle, during which he began to formulate the theory of evolution.
• 1845 – Ether anesthetic was used for childbirth for the first time by Dr. Crawford Williamson Long in Jefferson, Georgia.
• 1945 – The World Bank and International Monetary Fund were created.
• 1968 – Apollo 8 splashed down in the Pacific ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon.
• 2001 – The People’s Republic of China was granted permanent normal trade relations with the US.
• 2004 – Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar SGR 1806-20 reached Earth. It is the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on the planet.

December 28 is the 362nd day of the year. There are three days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1065 – Westminster Abbey was consecrated.
• 1612 – Galileo Galilei became the 1st astronomer to observe Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.
• 1895 - The Lumière brothers gave the first public screening of films at which admission was charged, the cinema debut.
• 1895 – Wilhelm Roentgen published a paper detailing his discovery of a new type of radiation, which later will be known as x-rays.
• 1945 – The US Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.
• 1950 – The Peak District became the UK's first National Park.
• 1955 – Liu Xiaobo, Chinese human rights activist and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was born He’s currently incarcerated for "inciting subversion of state power.”
• 1958 - The Baltimore Colts defeated the NY Giants in the first ever National Football League sudden death overtime game.
• 1973 – The Endangered Species Act was passed in the US.
• 2000 – U.S. retail giant Montgomery Ward announced it was going out of business after 128 years.

December 29 is the 363rd day of the year. There are two days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1170– Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was assassinated inside the Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II.
• 1845 – Texas was admitted as the 28th US state.
• 1851 – The first American YMCA opened in Boston, MA.
• 2003 – The last known speaker of Akkala Sami died, rendering the language extinct.

December 30 is the 364th day of the year. There is one day remaining until the end of the year.

• 1919 – Lincoln’s Inn in London (law school) admitted its first woman student.
• 1922 – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed.
• 1924 – Edwin Hubble announced the existence of other galaxies.
• 1940 – California opened its first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway.
• 1953 – The first color television sets went on sale for about $1,175 each from RCA.
• 1984 – Massa, the oldest gorilla on record, died. He was born in 1930. #gorillas
• 1992 – Ling-Ling, the panda given to the US by China, died. She was born in 1969.
• 2010 – The last roll of Kodachrome film was developed concluding the film's 74-year run as a photography icon.

December 31 is the 365th and last day of the year.

• 1600 – The British East India Company was chartered.
• 1695 – A window tax was imposed in England, causing many householders to brick up windows to avoid the tax.
• 1759 – Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum in Dublin, Ireland and started brewing Guinness, a dry stout.
• 1857 – Queen Victoria chose Ottawa, Ontario, then a small logging town as the capital of Canada.
• 1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrated incandescent lighting to the public for the first time.
• 1891 – A new immigration depot was opened on Ellis Island in New York Harbor.
• 1904 – The first New Year’s Eve celebration was held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in New York City.
• 1907 – For the first time, a ball was dropped in New York City’s Times Square to signify the start of the New Year.
• 1909 – The Manhattan Bridge, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, opened to traffic.
• 1923 – The chimes of Big Ben were broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.
• 1946 – President Harry Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
• 1951 – The Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $13.3 billion USD in foreign aid to help rebuild Europe.
• 1960 – The farthing coin ceased being legal tender in the UK.
• 1983– The AT&T Bell System was ordered to disband by the US Justice Department.
• 1991– All official Soviet Union institutions had ceased operations by this date and the Soviet Union was officially dissolved.
• 1999 – The handed control of the Panama Canal to Panama.
• 2004 – The official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper in the world at 1,670 ft. #architecture

January 1 is the first day of the year. There are 365 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1773– The hymn that became known as Amazing Grace, then titled 1 Chronicles 17:16–17 was first used to accompany a sermon by John Newton in the town of Olney, England. 
• 1804 – French rule ended in Haiti. Haiti became the first Black republic and second independent country in North America after the U.S.
• 1808 – The importation of slaves into the United States was banned.
• 1845 – The Cobble Hill Tunnel in Brooklyn was completed.
• 1863 – The Emancipation Proclamation took effect in Confederate territory. 
• 1863 – The first claim under the Homestead Act was made by Daniel Freeman for a farm in Nebraska.
• 1880– Ferdinand de Lesseps began construction on the Panama Canal for the French.
• 1890 – The first Tournament of Roses Parade was held in Pasadena, California. 
• 1892 – Ellis Island began processing immigrants into the United States.
• 1898 – New York City annexed land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York. The four initial boroughs, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens were joined on January 25 by Staten Island to create the modern city of five boroughs.
• 1902 – The first American college football, the Rose Bowl, between Michigan and Stanford, was held in Pasadena, California.
• 1912 – The Republic of China was established.
• 1934 – Alcatraz Island became a United States federal prison.
• 1966 – A twelve-day New York City transit strike began.
• 1971 – Cigarette advertisements were banned on American television.
• 1983 – The ARPANET officially changed to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.
• 1985 – The first British mobile phone call was made by Ernie Wise to Vodafone.
• 1985 – The Internet’s Domain Name System was created.
• 1990 – David Dinkins was sworn in as New York City's first black mayor.
• 1995 – The World Trade Organization began operation.