306: St Marcellus I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
722: Pope Gregory II names Boniface as missionary bishop
1016: Cnut the Great (Canute), King of Denmark, claims the English throne after the death of Edmund 'Ironside'
1215: Pope Innocent III closes 4th council of Lateranen
1406: Angelo Correr elected Pope Gregory XII
1648: English Parliamentary army captures King Charles 1
1678: Roman Catholics banned from English parliament
1700: King Charles XII of Sweden defeats Russia at Narva [NS]
1700: Utrecht, Overijssel, Buren, Leerdam and IJsselstein go on Gregoria calendar
1731: Beijing hit by an earthquake; about 100,000 die
1735: States of Holland forbid Free Masonry
1747: Dutch State of Zealand declare governorship hereditary for women
1922: Hitler speaks to 50,000 national-socialists in Munich
1949: New Zealand general election won by Sidney Holland's National party, ousting Peter Fraser's Labour government
1957: Assassination attempt on Indonesian first President Sukarno, kills 8
1981: South Africa anti-apartheid advocate Bulelani Ngcuka arrested
1981: Cold War: In Geneva, representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear weapon reductions in Europe (the meetings ended inconclusively on December 17)
1993: 42nd US President Clinton signs Brady Gun Control Bill
2004: Lion Air Flight 538 crash lands in Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia, killing 26
2005: John Sentamu becomes the first black archbishop in the Church of England with his enthronement as the 97th Archbishop of York
2007: Hillary Clinton presidential campaign office hostage crisis: Leeland Eisenberg enters campaign office of Hillary Clinton in Rochester, New Hampshire with suspected bomb and holds three people hostage for 5 hours
2012: At least 32 people are killed in a Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane crash in the Congo
2013: 14th Rugby League World Cup: Australia beats New Zealand 34-2
2014: Australia experiences its hottest spring and second-hottest November recorded
2014: Tabaré Vázquez is re-elected President of Uruguay
2015: Pope Francis urges peace while visiting controversial mosque in Bangui's PK5 district in Central African Republic
2017: World's longest recorded rainbow - 8 hrs 58 min in Taipei's Yangmingshan mountain range
2013: Paul Walker, American actor (The Fast and the Furious), dies in a car accident at 40
DEATH S
1016: Edmund II, Ironsides, King of the Saxons (1016), dies at 27
1694: Marcello Malpighi, Italian physician who founded the science of microscopic anatomy, dies at 66
1700: Artus II Quellinus [Quellien/"the Young], Flemish sculptor, dies at 75
1703: Nicolas de Grigny, composer, dies at 31
1705: Catherine of Braganza, Portuguese Roman Catholic Queen of Charles II of England, dies at 67
1718: Charles XII, king of Sweden (1697-1718), dies during a siege of the fortress Fredriksten in Norway at 36
1987: James Baldwin, writer (Go Tell it on the Mountain), dies at 63
2002: Tim Woods, American professional wrestler (b. 1934
2003: Gertrude Ederle, American swimmer (1st female English Channel 1926), dies at 98
2007: Evel Knievel, American motorcycle daredevil (Snake River Canyon), dies of pulmonary disease at 69
2011: William L. Waller, American politician and ex-Governor of Mississippi, dies at 85
