This Week In History
Dec 23, 1958
The Tokyo Tower, the world’s tallest free-standing steel tower, was dedicated in Japan. The 333m comms tower was inspired by the 301m Eiffel Tower in Paris 1888: In a fit of depression Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear 1938: During the Spanish Civil War, nationalist forces began an offensive to capture Barcelona 1948: General Hideki Tojo, the chief instigator of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour, was hanged for war crimes 2007: Nepal decided to abolish the country’s 240-year-old monarchy to persuade former Maoist rebels to rejoin an interim administration
Dec 24, 1968
The three astronauts on board Apollo 8 became the first humans to orbit the moon, during which Bill Anders captured his iconic “Earthrise” photograph
2002: A new Metro railway system in Delhi, India, was swamped by over a million people on its first day 2003: Italian food-manufacturing giant Parmalat filed for bankruptcy protection
2009: After months of debate the United States Senate passed a historic US$871bil health care reform bill to extend insurance cover to 30 million more Americans 2009: Greece approved emergency government spending cuts in an attempt to reduce its €300bil debt
Dec 25, 1818
The popular carol Silent Night was sung for the first time at a church in Oberndorf, Austria. It has since been translated into around 140 languages
1492: The Santa Maria, flagship of Christopher Columbus, was lost after running aground off Haiti 1741: Anders Celsius devised the centigrade temperature scale 1758: The comet portrayed as the Star of Bethlehem in medieval art returned as predicted by astronomer Edmund Halley, after whom it was later named 1989: Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were executed after a secret trial
Dec 26, 2003
A devastating earthquake in the Iranian city of Bam killed over 26,000 people and destroyed the 2,000-year-old citadel, the world’s largest mud-brick structure 1865: US inventor James H. Nason patented a coffee percolator 1993: An 11-year-old Angora cat from Seattle inherited a US$500,000 estate
2007: Six French charity workers were convicted in Chad of trying to kidnap 103 children for adoption 2009: China opened the world’s longest high-speed rail route, with trains travelling at up to 350km/h between Beijing and Guangzhou, a journey of over 900km
Dec 27, 2016
Carrie Fisher, best known as Princess Leia in Star Wars, died aged 60. Her mother, Singin’ in the
Rain star Debbie Reynolds, died one day later, aged 84 1703: Portugal agreed to admit English textiles and England agreed to lower import duties on Portuguese wines 1966: The Cave of Swallows, the world’s largest known cave shaft, was discovered in Mexico 1978: Spain became a democracy after more than 40 years of fascist dictatorship under General Franco 2009: A tomb claimed to be that of Cao Cao, a 3rd century warlord, was found in China’s Henan province
Dec 28, 1972
Kim Il-sung was elevated to the newly-created post of President of North Korea. Despite his death in 1994 he remains the country’s “Eternal President” 1869: William Finley Semple, a dentist from Ohio, was the first person to receive a patent for chewing gum 1908: Up to 100,000 people were killed when an earthquake reduced Messina, Sicily’s second city, to rubble
1948: Months of unrest and violence in Egypt culminated in the assassination of the prime minister, Nokrashy Pasha 2001: The United States granted permanent normal trade relations status to China, rather than renewing annually
Dec 29, 1938
A coelacanth, a prehistoric fish previously believed to have been extinct for 65 million years, was caught off the Indian Ocean coast of South Africa
1933: Radio Luxembourg, a privately owned French station, broadcast its first commercial programmes in English 1995: A French cargo plane became the first aircraft in three years to land at the Bosnian city of Mostar
1996: The government of Guatemala signed a peace deal with leftist rebels to end 36 years of civil war 2013: Two separate suicide bombings in Russia targeted transport links in Volgograd, killing 34 people