Tag: december

Here are 31 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries in December 2024
(listed six months in advance so you have time to write about them)

Historical anniversaries are great for ‘On This Day in History’ features, articles, biographies and other anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with newspaper and magazine readers and radio stations, and editors, producers and presenters love them. They’re easy to research too. You can also turn them into movies, documentaries, novels, use them to plan events and exhibitions, and much more.
(Find out more at the end of this article.)

We’ve randomly selected an anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2024, which lists more than 3,000 anniversaries. The Date-A-Base Book 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2029 are also available.

1 Dec 1999 – 25 years ago
An international team of scientists working for the Human Genome Project announced that they had mapped an entire human chromosome (number 22). In April 2003 they announced that they had mapped all human chromosomes.

2 Dec 1954 – 70 years ago
Red Scare: the U.S. Senate censured Senator Joseph McCarthy for bringing the Senate into ‘dishonour and disrepute’ in his investigation of suspected communists in the government, military and other areas of society.

3 Dec 1984 – 40 years ago
Bhopal disaster, India. A poisonous gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant killed thousands of people and left at least 120,000 with long-term health problems.

4 Dec 1964 – 60 years ago
The Beatles’ album Beatles for Sale was released in the UK.
(In the USA and Canada, a slimmed-down version containing only 8 of the 14 tracks was released on 15^th December under the title Beatles ’65.)

5 Dec 1899 – 125 years ago
Death of Henry Tate, British sugar merchant and philanthropist who established the Tate Gallery in London.

6 Dec 1774 – 250 years ago
The world’s first state education system began in Austria when the Educational Statute came into effect.

7 Dec 1924 – 100 years ago
German federal election – the second election of the year. The Social Democratic Party won. The Nazi Party had been outlawed and its leaders, including Adolf Hitler, were in prison following the Beer Hall Putsche. (Hitler was released on 20^th December.)

8 Dec 1974 – 50 years ago
In a referendum the citizens of Greece voted to abolish the monarchy and remain a republic.

9 to 11 Dec 1994 – 30 years ago
The first Summit of the Americas was held, in Miami, Florida, USA. Leaders from 34 countries in North and South America met to discuss the establishment of the world’s largest free trade zone, and strategies for fighting poverty, organised crime, drug trafficking and other issues.

10 Dec 1924 – 100 years ago
Birth of Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica (1972–80, 1989–92). (Died 1997.)

11 Dec 1964 – 60 years ago
Death of Sam Cooke, American soul/pop/gospel/R&B singer, songwriter, producer and entrepreneur.
Regarded as one of the founders of soul music. (Shot dead by the manager of a motel in disputed circumstances, aged 33.)

12 Dec 1874 – 150 years ago
The first reigning monarch to visit the USA: King Kalakaua of Hawaii.
He came to the USA to help negotiate the Reciprocity Treaty, a free trade agreement, which was signed on 30^th January 1875.
He attended a state dinner hosted by U.S. President Andrew Grant on 14^th December.

13 Dec 1124 – 900 years ago
Death of Pope Callixtus II (1119–24). Succeeded by Honorius II.
(Celestine II was elected before Honorius, but he resigned when factional violence broke out, and was never enthroned as pope.)

14 Dec 1974 – 50 years ago
The world première of the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, in Japan.
(UK/U.S. première: 19th December, released: 20^th December.)

15 Dec 1994 – 30 years ago
The first commercial web browser, Netscape Navigator 1.0, was released. It quickly overtook the first popular graphical web browser, Mosaic.

16 Dec 1899 – 125 years ago
Birth of Noël Coward, British playwright, composer, director, actor and singer. His plays include Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter and Blithe Spirit. He also wrote hundreds of songs, including Mad Dogs and Englishmen.

17 Dec 1874 – 150 years ago
Birth of William Lyon Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada (1921–26, 1926–30, 1935–48).

18 Dec 1964 – 60 years ago
The first Pink Panther cartoon, The Pink Phink, was released. It won the 1964 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

19 Dec 1974 – 50 years ago
The MITS Altair 8800, the first commercially successful personal computer, went on sale.
It was sold in kit form for $395 or fully assembled for $495, and sold ten times more units than expected.
It is regarded as the machine that sparked the personal computer revolution.
(Microsoft’s first product was a programming language for the Altair 8800: Altair BASIC.)

20 Dec 1984 – 40 years ago
Summit Tunnel fire, Yorkshire, England.
One of the largest underground fires ever recorded occurred when a freight train carrying 1.1 million litres (242,000 gallons) of gasoline derailed in the tunnel under the Pennines near Todmorden.

21 Dec 1824 – 200 years ago
Death of James Parkinson, British surgeon, politician, geologist and palaeontologist.
Parkinson’s disease is named after him, as he was the first person to describe it in 1817.

22 Dec 1964 – 60 years ago
The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird made its first flight, in California, USA. It is the world’s fastest jet aircraft.

23 Dec 1954 – 70 years ago
The world’s first successful kidney transplant was carried out in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Anti-rejection drugs were not available until 1964, so transplants were only carried out between identical twins until then.

24 Dec 1974 – 50 years ago
British politician John Stonehouse was arrested in Australia (on suspicion of being Lord Lucan).
He had faked his death on 20th November by leaving a pile of clothing on a beach in Miami, Florida, USA.

25 Dec 1899 – 125 years ago
Birth of Humphrey Bogart, American stage and film actor. Noted for his tough-guy roles. His films include The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, Key Largo, The African Queen and The Caine Mutiny.
Husband of the actress Lauren Bacall.
(Died 1957, aged 57, oesophageal cancer.)

26 Dec 2004 – 20 years ago
Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami (also called the Boxing Day Tsunami).
A massive undersea earthquake near Sumatra caused a devastating tsunami that swamped coastal areas in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and east Africa. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history, killing more than 230,000 people in 14 countries.

27 Dec 1724 – 300 years ago
Death of Thomas Guy, British bookseller, investor and politician. The founder of Guy’s Hospital in London. (Aged 79/80.)

28 Dec 1984 – 40 years ago
Rajiv Gandhi won a massive victory in the Indian general election after being persuaded to stand for his assassinated mother Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party. He was also assassinated in 1991, 18 months after leaving office.

29 Dec 1874 – 150 years ago
The First Spanish Republic (February 1873 – December 1874) ended. A military coup by General Arsenio Martínez Campos ended the regime and restored the monarchy. Alfonso XII became the new King of Spain.

30 Dec 1899 – 125 years ago
AT&T acquired the American Bell Telephone Company and became the parent company of American Bell and the Bell System.

31 Dec 1974 – 50 years ago
Private citizens in the USA were allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in nearly 40 years, after U.S. President Gerald Ford repealed Executive Order 6102, issued in 1933. The Order had prohibited the private ownership of gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates because of the Great Depression.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2024.

The 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2029 editions are also available if you work further ahead.

Each edition is available as a PDF ebook (with free Excel spreadsheet) or as a printed paperback book.

How to use the anniversaries:

How can you turn the anniversaries listed here and in The Date-A-Base Books into articles for magazines, newspapers and websites? How do you get paid for writing them, and how can you make a great living from it?

Download our free guide Ditch Your Day Job. It tells you everything you need to know!

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Here are 31 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries in December 2023 (listed six months in advance so you have time to write about them)

Historical anniversaries are great for ‘On This Day in History’ features, articles, biographies and other anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with newspaper and magazine readers and radio stations, and editors, producers and presenters love them. They’re easy to research too. You can also turn them into movies, documentaries, novels, use them to plan events and exhibitions, and much more. (Find out more at the end of this article.)

We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2023, which lists more than 3,000 anniversaries.

1 Dec 1948 – 75 years ago
The board game Scrabble was copyrighted and trademarked, and the first sets went on sale. It was designed by James Brunot of Connecticut, USA. It was a revised version of an earlier game by Alfred Mosher Butts.

2 Dec 1823 – 200 years ago
U.S. President James Monroe issued his ‘Monroe Doctrine’. It stated that European interference in any state in the Americas would be treated as an act of hostility against the USA. This was a warning to European countries that were seeking to annex Latin American countries as they gained independence from Spain and Portugal. The doctrine also declared that the USA would remain neutral in European conflicts, and would not interfere in European affairs, but its sphere of interest included the entire Western Hemisphere.

3 Dec 1998 – 25 years ago
The first commercially successful MP3 player, the Diamond Rio PMP300 went on sale in the USA after an injunction filed by the RIAA was lifted. (It was not the first MP3 player, but it was the first successful one, selling around 200,000 units.)

4 Dec 1973 – 50 years ago
The U.S. space probe Pioneer 10 made its closest approach to Jupiter and sent back the first close-up images of the planet.

5 Dec 1933 – 90 years ago
Prohibition was repealed in the USA after more than 13 years.

6 Dec 1923 – 100 years ago
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge gave the first presidential address to be broadcast on radio.

7 Dec 1963 – 60 years ago
Videotaped instant replay was first used in a live sports broadcast in the USA. CBS broadcast an instant replay of a touchdown during the Army-Navy football game.
(Replays had been used since 1955, using film rather than tape, but it had taken several minutes to process them.)

8 Dec 1943 – 80 years ago
World War II: Colossus Mark I, the world’s first programmable, electronic, digital computer, was completed, tested, and found to work satisfactorily. It was then dismantled and shipped (on 18th January 1944) to Britain’s secret cryptanalysis headquarters at Bletchley Park. It began operating there on 5th February, helping with the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher.

9 Dec 1953 – 70 years ago
Red Scare: General Electric announced that all communist employees would be fired.

10 Dec 1898 – 125 years ago
The Spanish–American War officially ended when the USA and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris.
Spain relinquished its sovereignty of Cuba, and ceded Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the USA.
The USA paid compensation of $20 million in exchange for the Philippines.

11 Dec 1993 – 30 years ago
The novelty song Mr Blobby reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart. It was also the Christmas No. 1 single in the UK that year. It is regarded as one of the worst pop songs ever recorded.

12 Dec 1963 – 60 years ago
Kenya became independent from the UK. Jomo Kenyatta became its first president.

13 Dec 1948 – 75 years ago
Birth of Lillian Board, South African-born British athlete. 400 m and 800 m sprinter whose career was cut short when she developed cancer and died in 1970, aged 22.

14 Dec 1948 – 75 years ago
Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr and Estle Ray Mann were granted a U.S. patent for their ‘Cathode Ray Amusement Device’ – the first electronic game. (U.S. Patent No. 2,455,992). They built a few prototypes, but it was never produced commercially.

15 Dec 1973 – 50 years ago
The American Psychiatric Association declared that homosexuality was not a mental illness, and removed it from its list of mental disorders.

16 Dec 1773 – 250 years ago
The Boston Tea Party, Massachusetts, USA.
American patriots boarded ships and threw chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company into Boston Harbor, in a protest against the British Parliament’s tax on tea.

17 Dec 1983 – 40 years ago
An IRA car bomb exploded outside Harrods department store in London, killing 3 police officers and 3 members of the public.

18 Dec 1898 – 125 years ago
The first officially recognised land speed record (39.24 mph) was set by Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat of France in a Jeantaud Duc electric car.

19 Dec 1848 – 175 years ago
Death of Emily Brontë, British novelist and poet. Best known for her only novel Wuthering Heights. (Tuberculosis, aged 30.)

20 to 24 Dec 1963 – 60 years ago
Cyprus Crisis: Bloody Christmas.
Intercommunal violence between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. 174 Greek Cypriots and 364 Turkish Cypriots were killed. About 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 104 villages were displaced into enclaves, and their houses were ransacked or destroyed.

21 Dec 1963 – 60 years ago
The Daleks made their first appearance on the British science fiction TV series Doctor Who.

22 Dec 1943 – 80 years ago
Death of Beatrix Potter, British children’s writer and illustrator. She created animal characters including Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and many more.

23 Dec 1823 – 200 years ago
The poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (commonly known as The Night Before Christmas) was first published (anonymously) in the Sentinel newspaper in Troy, New York, USA. It was written by Clement Clarke Moore.

24 Dec 1923 – 100 years ago
The USA’s first National Christmas Tree was lit up in the grounds of the White House.

25 Dec 1223 – 800 years ago
St. Francis of Assisi created the first nativity scene, in Greccio, Italy, after visiting Jesus’s birthplace in the Holy Land.
It proved enormously popular and inspired other communities to stage their own nativity scenes.

26 Dec 1933 – 90 years ago
The Nissan Motor Company was founded in Tokyo, Japan.

27 Dec 1923 – 100 years ago
Death of Gustave Eiffel, French civil and structural engineer and architect. Best known for designing the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France and the framework for the Statue of Liberty in New York City, USA.

28 Dec 1958 – 65 years ago
The 1958 National Football League (NFL) Championship Game – widely known as ‘the greatest football game ever played’.
The Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants 23 – 17 in sudden-death overtime.
It was the first championship game to go into overtime, and marked the beginning of NFL’s surge in popularity.

29 Dec 1923 – 100 years ago
Russian-born inventor Vladimir K. Zworykin filed a U.S. patent for the first electronic television system. (It was not granted until 1938.)

30 Dec 1948 – 75 years ago
The musical Kiss Me, Kate by Cole Porter opened on Broadway.
It ran for a total of 1,077 performances.
In 1949 it won the first Tony Award presented for Best Musical.

31 Dec 1923 – 100 years ago
The BBC broadcast the chimes of Big Ben for the first time, to welcome in the New Year. The tradition continues to this day.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2023. The 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028 editions are also available if you work further ahead. The anniversaries are available as PDF ebooks, Excel spreadsheets, and printed paperback books.

How to use the anniversaries:

If you’d like to know more about how to turn the anniversaries listed here and in The Date-A-Base Books into articles for magazines and newspapers, take a look at our free 68-page guide, Ditch Your Day Job: the easiest way to make a living (or earn some extra cash) as a writer.

It has some terrific bonuses too, including a complete month of anniversaries from The Date-A-Base Book 2023, hundreds of article-writing tips and ideas, plus a 25 percent discount when you buy two or more editions of The Date-A-Base Book.

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Historical anniversaries are great for “On This Day in History” features and anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with readers and viewers, editors and producers love them, they’re easy to research, and you can easily turn them into newspaper and magazine articles, films, TV/radio/theatre shows, and more.

Here are 31 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries coming up in December 2022 (so you have time to write about them!)

We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2022. You’ll find hundreds more in the book. The 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions are also available if you work further ahead, and the 2027 edition will be available from August 2022.

1 Dec 1942 – 80 years ago
The British Government published the Beveridge Report, which formed the basis of the welfare state.

2 Dec 1942 – 80 years ago
The first man-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved at the University of Chicago, Illinois, USA by Enrico Fermi and his team. They used Chicago Pile-1, the world’s first nuclear reactor.

3 Dec 1947 – 75 years ago
Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire opened on Broadway.

4 Dec 1872 – 150 years ago
The U.S. cargo ship Mary Celeste was spotted sailing erratically near the Azores. It was found to be dishevelled but seaworthy, had ample supplies, and the crews’ personal belongings were untouched. The lifeboat was missing, and the crew had apparently abandoned the ship nine days earlier, for an unknown reason. They were never heard from again.

5 – 8 Dec 1952 – 70 years ago
The Great Smog of London. Dense, cold, smoke-filled fog brought the city to a standstill for four days. More than 4,000 people died.

6 Dec 1922 – 100 years ago
The Irish Free State was established. It became the Republic of Ireland in 1937.

7 Dec 1982 – 40 years ago
American murderer Charles Brooks Jr. became the first person in the USA to be executed by lethal injection, at the Texas State Penitentiary, Huntsville.

8 Dec 1952 – 70 years ago
Death of Charles Lightoller, British naval commander. Second officer on the Titanic. The most senior officer to survive, and last survivor to be rescued.

9 Dec 1962 – 60 years ago
Petrified Forest National Park was established in Arizona, USA.

10 Dec 1942 – 80 years ago
World War II: the first test flight of Germany’s V-1 flying bomb (also known as the doodlebug or buzz bomb). Thousands of V-1s were launched into England between June and October 1944, and then into Belgium between October 1944 and March 1945.

11 Dec 1922 – 100 years ago
Gabriel Narutowicz became the first President of the Republic of Poland. He was assassinated five days later.

12 Dec 1982 – 40 years ago
30,000 women joined hands around the Greenham Common RAF base in Berkshire, UK to protest against the siting of U.S. Cruise missiles there.

13 Dec 1962 – 60 years ago
NASA launched Relay 1, the first communications satellite to transmit TV broadcasts across the Pacific. It also transmitted fax, telephone and teleprinter signals. It continued operating until February 1965.

14 Dec 1947 – 75 years ago
NASCAR (the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) was founded at Daytona Beach, Florida, USA. The first race was held on 15^th February 1948.

15 Dec 1942 – 80 years ago
World War II – the Guadalcanal campaign – the Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse (also known as the Battle of the Gifu). Allied victory.

16 Dec 1947 – 75 years ago
American physicists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain invented the transistor at Bell Telephone Laboratories, New Jersey.
They, along with William Shockley who further refined the invention, were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.

17 Dec 1997 – 25 years ago
Handguns were banned in the UK.

18 – 29 Dec 1972 – 50 years ago
Vietnam War – Operation Linebacker II. The USA’s heaviest bombing of North Vietnam during the war.
This extension to Operation Linebacker (May – October 1972) used heavy bomber aircraft rather than small tactical aircraft.

19 Dec 1932 – 90 years ago
The BBC World Service was launched (as the BBC Empire Service).

20 Dec 1957 – 65 years ago
American singer Elvis Presley received his draft papers at the height of his fame. He was granted a deferment to complete work on the film musical King Creole, and was inducted into the U.S. Army for two years’ service on 24^th March 1958.

21 Dec 1872 to 1876 – 150 years ago
The Challenger expedition. A British expedition to explore the world, led by Captain George Nares on HMS Challenger. The expedition made many advances and discoveries, catalogued more than 4,000 new species, and laid the foundations for the field of oceanography.

22 Dec 1962 to 5 Mar 1963 – 60 years ago
The Big Freeze in Britain – one of the coldest winters on record. On 29^th – 30^th December the south-west of England and Wales were hit by a blizzard, with snow drifts more than 20 feet deep.

23 Dec 1972 – 50 years ago
Death of Andrei Tupolev, Russian aircraft designer

24 Dec 1922 – 100 years ago
Birth of Ava Gardner, American film actress (Mogambo, The Barefoot Contessa, The Night of the Iguana, and many more). (Died 1990.)

25 Dec 1932 – 90 years ago
The first Royal Christmas Message was broadcast on the radio in the UK. King George V addressed the nation live from Sandringham.

26 Dec 1982 – 40 years ago
Time magazine’s Man of the Year award was given to a machine: the computer.

27 Dec 1822 – 200 years ago
Birth of Louis Pasteur, French biologist, microbiologist and chemist. One of the fathers of germ theory. Best known for his discoveries relating to the prevention of diseases, including the pasteurisation process which is named in his honour.

28 Dec 1922 – 100 years ago
Birth of Stan Lee, American comic book writer, editor and publisher (Marvel Comics). He co-created numerous superhero characters including SpiderMan, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Black Widow, the Fantastic Four, Ant-Man, and more. (Died 2018.)

29 Dec 1952 – 70 years ago
The first commercial product to use a transistor went on sale in the USA: the Sonotone 1010 hearing aid. It was a hybrid device because it also included two miniature vacuum tubes. All-transistor models were introduced a few years later when the technology had improved and transistors produced less electrical noise.

30 Dec 1922 – 100 years ago
The Soviet Union was founded. (Officially known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – USSR.) It was dissolved in 1991.

31 Dec 1997 – 25 years ago
Quaker Oats and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) agreed to pay $1.85 million to the former residents of a state school in Massachusetts, USA. They were used in radioactivity and nutrition experiments in the 1940s and 1950s. As students they were fed radiation-laced breakfast cereal without their knowledge or consent.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2022. The 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions are also available if you work further ahead, and the 2027 edition will be available from August 2022.
Find out more at ideas4writers.com.

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