On December 31:
400 Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul.
1229 James I of Aragon the Conqueror entered Medina Mayurqa (now known as Palma, Spain) consummating the Christian conquest of the island of Majorca.
1599 The British East India Company was chartered.
1687– The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope.
1695 A window tax was imposed in England, causing many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid the tax.
1729 Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the British throne, was born.
1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and started brewing Guinness.
1853 Sir George Grey left New Zealand after finishing hisfirst term as Governor.
1879 Thomas Edison demonstrated incandescent lighting to the public for the first time.
1904 The first New Year’s Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in New York.
1908 Simon Wiesenthal, Austrian Holocaust survivor, was born.
1909 Manhattan Bridge opened.
1923 The chimes of Big Ben were broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.
1937 Sir Anthony Hopkins, Welsh actor, was born.
1943 John Denver, American singer and songwriter, was born.
1943 Sir Ben Kingsley, English actor was born.
1943 Pete Quaife, English bassist (The Kinks) was born.
Original lineup in 1965. From left: Pete Quaife, Dave Davies, Ray Davies, Mick Avory.
1946 President Harry Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
1951 The Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $13.3 billion USD in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.[1]
1955 The General Motors Corporation became the first U.S. corporation to make over $1 billion USD in a year.
1960 The farthing coin ceased to be legal tender in the United Kingdom.
1963 The Central African Federation officially collapsed and split into Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.
1965 Nicholas Sparks, American author, was born.
1980 – Richie McCaw, New Zealand rugby player, was born.
1983 – The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government.
1991 All official Soviet Union institutions ceased operations by this date and the Soviet Union was officially dissolved.
1992 Czechoslovakia was dissolved, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
1998 The European Exchange Rate Mechanism froze the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and established the value of the euro currency.
1999 Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.
1999 – The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
2004 The official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper at that time in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft).
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.
Posted by homepaddock 
