1590 The army of Moroccan Pasha Ahmad al-Mansur begins its epic 135 day crossing of the Saharan desert on his way to defeat the Songhai Empire

1666 The French Academy of Sciences, is founded by Louis XIV with Jean-Baptiste Colbert, holds its first meeting in the Kings Library

1689 A heavy earthquake causes fatalities in Hall and Innsbruck, Austria

1772 Protestant Moravian missionaries construct the first schoolhouse west of Allegheny to establish a community to minister to the Lanape (Delaware) Indians

1775 The Continental navy is organized with 7 ships.  The initial force consisted of several converted merchantmen ships

1807 The US Congress passes the Embargo Act and President Thomas Jefferson signs it into law. The law prohibits American ships from trading in foreign ports, as result of the involvement in hostilities between France and Britain

1870 Frenchman Jules Janssen flies in a balloon in order to study a solar eclipse in Algeria

1882 The first string of Christmas tree lights is created by Thomas Edison

1886 The American Association of Public Accountants' society in founded in NYC

1910 The first US Postal Savings stamps are issued

1936 The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) issued its first common carrier license in Scranton, Pennsylvania, marking a significant milestone in transportation regulation and business oversight

1937 The Lincoln Tunnel, under the Hudson River, opens to traffic, connecting Weehawken, New Jersey to Midtown Manhattan, New York City

1939 A freight train and passenger train head-on collision kills 101 people at Markdorf, Germany

1939 The Genthin Station, Germany rail disaster: 186 people die in train wreck as an express train has a rear-end collision with a train stopped at the station

1941 Winston Churchill arrives in Washington, D.C. for a wartime conference with FDR

1944 Battle of the Bulge: The Germans demand the surrender of American troops at Bastogne, Belgium

1950 Two Long Island railroad trains collide near Kew Gardens, Queens, killing 78 people and injuring 363 others

1956 Colo is born, the first gorilla to be bred in captivity at Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Columbus, Ohio

1962 Harris County voters approve the all-weather, Cold Stadium, for the Major League baseball team, the Houston Colt .45s

1963 The official 30-day mourning period for President John F. Kennedy ends

1964 The first flight of the US aircraft Lockheed SR-71, reaches 2193 mph (record for a jet)

1970 Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps SS commander Franz Stangl is sentenced to life imprisonment

1972 A 6.25 earthquake strikes Managua, Nicaragua, killing over 12,000 people

1973 OPEC Gulf Six decides to raise the posted price of marker crude from $5.12 to $11.65 per barrel effective January 1, 1974

1975 US President Gerald Ford signs the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), establishes the National Petroleum Reserve

1977 36 people die instantly as several dozen grain elevators explode at the Continental Grain Company plant at Westwego, LA

1980 US President-elect Ronald Reagan appoints Jeanne Kirkpatrick as the UN Ambassador

1984 Bernhard Goetz shoots 4 black muggers on a NYC subway train and sparked a nationwide debate on crime in major U.S. cities, the legal limits of self-defense, and the extent to which the citizenry could rely on the police to secure their safety

1988 2 robbers wearing police uniforms rob an armored truck of $4.5 M in NJ.  3 men are eventually convicted of the robbery

1989 After 23 years of dictatorial rule, Romania ousts Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu

1989 Cold wave hits the US: -6°F in Tulsa, Oklahoma; -12°F in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; -18°F in Denver, Colorado; -23°F in Kansas City, Missouri; -42°F in Scottsbluff, Nebraska; -47°F in Hardin, Montana; and -60°F in Black Hills, South Dakota

1990 Iraq announces it will never give up Kuwait

1997 Acteal massacre: Attendees at a prayer meeting of 45 Roman Catholic activists for indigenous causes in the small village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas are massacred by paramilitary forces

2001 Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63

2006 Australian archaeologist Sue O'Connor finds the first evidence of modern humans in Jerimalai cave, near Lene Hara cave in East Timor

2016 The Ebola vaccine VSV-EBOV is found to be 70-100% effective in a study published in The Lancet, becoming the world's first proven vaccine against Ebola

2018 A tsunami hits Indonesia's Sunda Strait. killing over 400 people after part of the Anak Krakatoa volcano slips into the sea

2022 The US Drug Enforcement Administration says it seized enough fentanyl in 2022 to kill every American.  More than 379 million doses