On This Day — 19 December

2000s

2016

Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov is assassinated while at an art exhibition in Ankara. The assassin, Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, is shot and killed by a Turkish guard.

Andrei Karlov

2016

A vehicular attack in Berlin, Germany, kills 12 and injures 56 people at a Christmas market.

2016 Berlin truck attack

2013

Spacecraft Gaia is launched by the European Space Agency.

Gaia (spacecraft)

2012

Park Geun-hye is elected the first female president of South Korea.

Park Geun-hye

2005

Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101 crashes into the Government Cut channel immediately after takeoff from Miami Seaplane Base, killing 20.

Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101

2005

A passenger train from Sucha Beskidzka to Żywiec in Poland loses its brakes while on a steep downhill part of the route. It is stopped in a controlled collision in Świnna by a train travelling in opposite direction. 2 drivers and 6 passengers are injured.

Sucha Beskidzka

2001

Argentine economic crisis: December riots: Riots erupt in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1998–2002 Argentine great depression

1900s

1999

Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-103, the third Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission.

Space Shuttle Discovery

1998

President Bill Clinton is impeached by the United States House of Representatives, becoming the second president of the United States to be impeached.

Bill Clinton

1997

SilkAir Flight 185 crashes into the Musi River, near Palembang in Indonesia, killing 104.

SilkAir Flight 185

📅

1995

The United States Government restores federal recognition to the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Native American tribe.

Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi

1986

Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, releases Andrei Sakharov and his wife from exile in Gorky.

Mikhail Gorbachev

1985

Aeroflot Flight 101/435 is hijacked to China by its first officer.

Aeroflot Flight 101/435

1984

The Sino-British Joint Declaration, stating that China would resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and the United Kingdom would restore Hong Kong to China with effect from July 1, 1997, is signed in Beijing by Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher.

Sino-British Joint Declaration

1983

The original FIFA World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

FIFA World Cup

1981

Sixteen lives are lost when the Penlee lifeboat goes to the aid of the stricken coaster Union Star in heavy seas.

Penlee lifeboat disaster

📅

1977

The Ms  5.8 Bob–Tangol earthquake strikes Kerman Province in Iran, destroying villages and killing 665 people.

1977 Bob–Tangol earthquake

1974

Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford under the provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Nelson Rockefeller

1972

Apollo program: The last crewed lunar flight, Apollo 17, carrying Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth.

Apollo program

1967

Harold Holt, the Prime Minister of Australia, is officially presumed dead.

Harold Holt

1961

India annexes Daman and Diu, part of Portuguese India.

Indian annexation of Goa

1956

Irish-born physician John Bodkin Adams is arrested in connection with the suspicious deaths of more than 160 patients. Eventually he is convicted only of minor charges.

John Bodkin Adams

1946

Start of the First Indochina War.

First Indochina War

1945

John Amery, British Fascist, is executed at the age of 33 by the British Government for treason.

John Amery

1941

World War II: Adolf Hitler appoints himself as head of the Oberkommando des Heeres.

World War II

📅

1941

World War II: Limpet mines placed by Italian divers heavily damage HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth in Alexandria harbour.

Limpet mine

1940

Risto Ryti, the Prime Minister of Finland, is elected President of the Republic of Finland in a presidential election, which is exceptionally held by the 1937 electoral college.

Risto Ryti

1932

BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service.

BBC World Service

1929

The Indian National Congress promulgates the Purna Swaraj (the Declaration of the Independence of India).

Indian National Congress

1927

Three Indian revolutionaries, Ram Prasad Bismil, Roshan Singh and Ashfaqulla Khan, are executed by the British Raj for participation in the Kakori conspiracy.

Ram Prasad Bismil

1924

The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.

Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost

1924

German serial killer Fritz Haarmann is sentenced to death for a series of murders.

Fritz Haarmann

1920

King Constantine I is restored as King of the Hellenes after the death of his son Alexander of Greece and a plebiscite.

Constantine I of Greece

1912

William Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum which caught fire and killed over one thousand people, is pardoned by U.S. President William Howard Taft after 3+1⁄2 years in Sing Sing prison.

Steamboat

1907

Two hundred thirty-nine coal miners die in the Darr Mine Disaster in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.

Darr Mine disaster

📅

1900

Hopetoun Blunder: The first Governor-General of Australia John Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun, appoints Sir William Lyne premier of the new state of New South Wales, but he is unable to persuade other colonial politicians to join his government and is forced to resign.

Hopetoun Blunder

1900

French parliament votes amnesty for all involved in scandalous army treason trial known as Dreyfus affair.

Dreyfus affair

1800s

1828

Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun sparks the Nullification Crisis when he anonymously publishes the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828.

Vice President of the United States

Before 1800

1796

French Revolutionary Wars: Two British frigates under Commodore Horatio Nelson and two Spanish frigates under Commodore Don Jacobo Stuart engage in battle off the coast of Murcia.

French Revolutionary Wars

1793

War of the First Coalition: The Siege of Toulon ends when Napoleon's French artillery forces the British to abandon the city, securing southern France from invasion.

War of the First Coalition

1783

William Pitt the Younger becomes the youngest Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at 24.

William Pitt the Younger

1777

American Revolutionary War: George Washington's Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

American Revolutionary War

1776

Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in The Pennsylvania Journal entitled "The American Crisis".

Thomas Paine

1688

Glorious Revolution: Williamite forces defeat Jacobites at Battle of Reading, forcing James II to flee England.

Glorious Revolution

1675

The Great Swamp Fight, a pivotal battle in King Philip's War, gives the English settlers a bitterly won victory.

Great Swamp Fight

1606

The ships Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery depart England carrying settlers who founded, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.

Susan Constant