1648 English Parliamentary army captures King Charles I
1707 – The second Siege of Pensacola comes to end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida.
1718 – King Charles XII of Sweden dies during a siege of the fortress of Fredriksten in Norway.
1782 – American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris).
1782 – Britain signs agreement recognizing US independence
1786 – The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, under Pietro Leopoldo I, becomes the first modern state to abolish the death penalty (later commemorated as Cities for Life Day).
1803 – In New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to a French representative. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.
1838 – Mexico declares war on France
1853 – Crimean War: Battle of Sinop: The Imperial Russian Navy under Pavel Nakhimov destroys the Ottoman fleet under Osman Pasha at Sinop, a sea port in northern Turkey.
1864 – American Civil War: The Confederate Army of Tennessee suffers heavy losses in an attack on the Union Army of the Ohio in the Battle of Franklin.
1916 – Costa Rica signs the Buenos Aires Convention, a copyright treaty.
1922 – Hitler speaks to 50,000 national-socialists in Munich
1938 – Germany bans Jews being lawyers
1939 – Winter War: Soviet forces cross the Finnish border in several places and bomb Helsinki and several other Finnish cities, starting the war.
1942 – World War II: Battle of Tassafaronga; A smaller squadron of Japanese destroyers led by Raizō Tanaka defeats a U.S. cruiser force under Carleton H. Wright.
1947 – 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine begins, leading up to the creation of the state of Israel.
1953 – Edward Mutesa II, the kabaka (king) of Buganda is deposed and exiled to London by Sir Andrew Cohen, Governor of Uganda.
1961 – USSR vetoes Kuwaits application for UN membership
1964 – USSR launches Zond 2 towards Mars; no data returned
1966 – Barbados becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
1967 – The People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
1967 – The Pakistan Peoples Party is founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who becomes its first chairman.
1967 – Pro-Soviet communists in the Philippines establish Malayang Pagkakaisa ng Kabataan Pilipino as its new youth wing.
1971 – Iran seizes the Greater and Lesser Tunbs from the United Arab Emirates.
1972 – Vietnam War: White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler tells the press that there will be no more public announcements concerning American troop withdrawals from Vietnam because troop levels are now down to 27,000.
1981 – Cold War: In Geneva, representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear weapon reductions in Europe. (The meetings end inconclusively on December 17.)
1987 – Afghanistan Constitution adopted
1990 – US President George H. W. Bush offers to send Secretary of State James Baker to Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein
1994 – MS Achille Lauro catches fire off the coast of Somalia.
1995 – Official end of Operation Desert Storm.
1995 – U.S. President Bill Clinton visits Northern Ireland and speaks in favour of the “Northern Ireland peace process” to a huge rally at Belfast City Hall; he calls terrorists “yesterday’s men”.
1999 – In Seattle, United States, demonstrations against a World Trade Organization meeting by anti-globalization protesters catch police unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies.
1999 – British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merge to form BAE Systems, Europe’s largest defense contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world.
2005 – John Sentamu becomes the first black archbishop in the Church of England with his enthronement as the 97th Archbishop of York.
2012 – An Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane belonging to Aéro-Service, crashes into houses near Maya-Maya Airport during a thunderstorm, killing at least 32 people.
2015 – Till 10th Dec – COP21 (21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) held in Paris