218BCBattle of the Trebia: Hannibal defeats the Romans in northern Italy
856 The Damghan earthquake: some 200,000 die in the devastated Persian city
1379 Venetians trap the Genoese fleet in the Lagoon of Venice
1502 Cesare Borgia arrests his agent Ramiro de Lorqua in Cesena
1509 Battle of Polesella: Ferrara defeats the Venetians
1790 Storming of Ismail: Marshal Suvorov's Russians capture the Turkish fortress-city on the Danube
1793 Maj. Napoleone Buonaparte is promoted to general of the brigade for his role in the capture of Toulon from Royalists & their allies on the 19th.
1798 French Revolutionary armies invade Naples
1810 British frigate 'Minotaur' sinks, 480 die
1841 Steam Paddle Frigate 'Mississippi' commissioned
1861 Combat at Newport News/New Market Bridge, Va
1862 John Hunt Morgan initiates a raid from Bardstown, Ky: Ends Jan 2 at Elizabethtown, KY
1864 Sherman gives Savannah to Lincoln as a Christmas gift
1894 A French court-martial convicts Alfred Dreyfus of treason on trumped-up charges, triggering "The Dreyfus Affair"
1919 US deports 250 alien radicals, including anarchist Emma Goldman
1939 Finnish counteroffensive at Petsamo
1941 B-17s based in Australia attack Japanese shipping off Mindanao
1941 Japanese begin major landing at Lingayen Gulf, Luzon
1941 The German Evangelical Church bars "baptized non-Aryans" from services
1941 Washington: Winston Churchill arrives to confer with FDR
1942 Papua: Australian and American troops are halted on the Sanananda Front
1943 Japanese bombers again hit Kunming in China
1944 Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe has occasion to say "Nuts!"
1944 Vietnamese Liberation Army is formed by Vo Nguyen Giap
1956 Last British and French troops leave Egypt
1970 SS Commander Franz Stangl of Treblinka sentenced to life in prison
2020