2016: Syrian army starts final phase of the attack and progress has been made in the district of, "Sheikh Said" and preparing to storm the neighborhood "Sukkari" in East of Aleppo.
2013: Riots break out in Singapore after a fatal accident in Little India.
2010: The Japanese solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS passes the planet Venus at a distance of about 80,800 km.
1988: A United States Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II crashes into an apartment complex in Remscheid, Germany, killing 5 people and injuring 50 others.
1987: An Israeli army tank transporter kills four Palestinian refugees and injures seven others during a traffic accident at the Erez Crossing on the Israel-Gaza Strip border, which has been cited as one of the events which sparked the First Intifada.
1953: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his "Atoms for Peace" speech, which leads to an American program to supply equipment and information on nuclear power to schools, hospitals, and research institutions around the world.
1941: World War II: Japanese forces simultaneously invade Shanghai International Settlement, Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. (See December 7 for the concurrent attack on Pearl Harbor in the Western Hemisphere.)
1927: The Brookings Institution, one of the United States' oldest think tanks, is founded through the merger of three organizations that had been created by philanthropist Robert S. Brookings.
1922: Northern Ireland ceases to be part of the Irish Free State.
1660: A woman (either Margaret Hughes or Anne Marshall) appears on an English public stage for the first time, in the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare's play Othello.
1432: The first battle between the forces of Švitrigaila and Sigismund Kęstutaitis is fought near the town of Oszmiana (Ashmyany), launching the most active phase of the Lithuanian Civil War.