Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 31
This is a list of selected December 31 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
| ← December 30 | January 1 → |
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Staging area
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Flag of the British East India Company -
Vladimir Putin -
Taipei 101 -
Taipei 101 -
Taipei 101, 2008 New Year firework -
2008 Times Square Ball -
Arthur Guinness -
Jean-Bédel Bokassa -
Battle of Quebec - Death of General Montgomery -
Painting of helicopter rescue efforts at the Dupont Plaza fire -
Harrison Plaza on January 1, 2020
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| New Year's Eve (Gregorian calendar) | unreferenced sections |
| Hogmanay in Scotland | refimprove section |
| 406 – The Vandals, Alans and Suebians crossed the Rhine River to begin an invasion of Gaul. | date is probable only |
| 1225 – Lý Chiêu Hoàng, the only empress regnant in Vietnamese history, married Trần Thái Tông to establish the Trần dynasty, with both the bride and groom aged seven. | Hook appears to be dubiously sourced and possibly inaccurate |
| 1600 – The British East India Company was founded by a Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I. | refimprove sections |
| 1960 – The farthing, a British coin first minted in England in the 13th century, ceased to be legal tender. | unreferenced section |
| 1963 – Despite Prime Minister Roy Welensky's efforts, the Central African Federation collapsed and subsequently becoming three separate nations: Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia. | primary sources |
| 1981 – Ghanaian president Hilla Limann was deposed in a coup d'état. | refimprove |
| 1983 – Major-General Muhammadu Buhari was selected to lead Nigeria after a successful military coup d'etat that overthrew civilian President Shehu Shagari. | date not cited |
| 1994 - Two timezones of Kiribati moved west of the International Date Line, causing them to skip December 31. | claim not cited |
| 1999 – Panama assumed full control of the Panama Canal Zone from the United States, in accordance with the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties, concluding a 20-year transition period. | unreferenced section; indiscriminate list |
| 2004 – Taipei 101 in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan, opened to the public as the world's tallest skyscraper. | unreferenced section |
| Diane von Fürstenberg |b|1946 | many dead links |
| Junot Díaz |b|1968| | birthday not cited |
Eligible
- 1759 – Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum to the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin and began brewing Guinness.
- 1775 – American Revolutionary War: At the Battle of Quebec, British forces repulsed an attack by the Continental Army to capture Quebec City and enlist French Canadian support.
- 1862 – The Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, began with an engagement in which both sides would suffer their highest casualty rates in the American Civil War.
- 1907 – New York City held its first annual ball drop event in Times Square as part of New Year's Eve celebrations.
- 1909 – The Manhattan Bridge, connecting Lower Manhattan to Downtown Brooklyn and considered to be the forerunner of modern suspension bridges, opened to traffic.
- 1961 - RTÉ, Ireland's first television network, began broadcasting.
- 1965 – Central African military officers led by Jean-Bédel Bokassa began a coup d'état against the government of President David Dacko.
- 1972 – Puerto Rican baseball player Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash en route to deliver aid to victims of that year's Nicaragua earthquake.
- 1983 – Two Australian biologists initiated the Wells and Wellington affair by publishing an article titled "A Synopsis of the Class Reptilia in Australia".
- 1986 – Three disgruntled employees set fire to the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, killing more than 90 people and injuring 140 others, making it the second-deadliest hotel fire in United States history.
- 1999 – Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin became acting president upon President Boris Yeltsin's unexpected resignation.
- 2010 – 28 tornadoes (one depicted) touched down in midwestern and southern United States, part of an outbreak that led to the deaths of nine people and large property damage.
- Born/died: | Ibn Hawshab |d|914| Carlo Gimach |d|1730| Richard Montgomery |d|1775| Kapiʻolani |b|1834| Cornelius Gallagher |b|1854| Henri Matisse |b|1869| Ion Creangă |d|1889| Samuel Ajayi Crowther |d|1891| Mary Logan Reddick |b|1914| Cornelia Clapp |d|1934| Henry Gerber |d|1972 | Amy Cure |b|1992
Notes
- Lincoln Tunnel appears on December 22, so Manhattan Bridge should not appear in the same year
December 31: Saint Sylvester's Day (Western Christianity)
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Parliament Hill, Ottawa
- 1857 – Queen Victoria announced the choice of Ottawa (pictured), then a small logging town, to be the capital of the British colony of Canada.
- 1950 – Korean War: North Korean troops attacked United Nations forces in the first of two battles at Wonju.
- 1993 – Brandon Teena, an American trans man, was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska; his death led to increased lobbying for hate crime laws in the United States.
- 1998 – The European Exchange Rate Mechanism froze the exchange rates of the legacy currencies in the eurozone, establishing the value of the euro.
- 2006 – War in Somalia: Transitional Federal Government forces attacked the last stronghold of the Islamic Courts Union in the town of Jilib.
- 2019 - Harrison Plaza closed down due to the cease its operations of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Ahmad Maymandi (d. 1032)
- Aleksis Kivi (d. 1872)
- Simon Wiesenthal (b. 1908)
- C. D. Howe (d. 1960)
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