875 – Charles the Bald King of the Franks is crowned as Holy Roman Emperor Charles II.
1851 – The first American YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
1860 – The launch of HMS Warrior, with her combination of screw propeller, iron hull and iron armour, renders all previous warships obsolescent.
1874 – The military coup of Gen. Martinez Campos in Sagunto ends the failed First Spanish Republic and Prince Alfonsois proclaimed King of Spain.
1911 – Mongolia gains independence from the Qing dynasty, enthroning 9th Jebtsundamba Khutughtu as Khagan of Mongolia.
1911 – Sun Yat-sen becomes the provisional President of the Republic of China; he formally takes office on January 1, 1912.
1916 – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the first novel by James Joyce, was first published as a book by an American publishing house B. W. Huebschis after it had been serialized in The Egoist (1914–15).
1930 – Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s presidential address in Allahabad introduces the two-nation theory and outlines a vision for the creation of Pakistan.
1997 – Hong Kong begins to kill all the nation’s 1.25 million chickens to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenzastrain.
1998 – Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the 1970s genocide in Cambodia that claimed over one million lives.
2011 – Samoa and Tokelau skip straight to December 31 when moving from one side of the International Date Line to another.