December 22 in History

AD 69 (LXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the consulship of Galba and Vinius. The denomination AD 69 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Pope Innocent I (Latin: Innocentius I) was the bishop of Rome from 401 to his death on 12 March 417. From the beginning of his papacy, he was seen as the general arbitrator of ecclesiastical disputes in both the East and the West. He confirmed the prerogatives of the Archbishop of Thessalonica, and issued a decretal on disciplinary matters referred to him by the Bishop of Rouen. He defended the exiled John Chrysostom and consulted with the bishops of Africa concerning the Pelagian controversy, confirming the decisions of the African synods. The Catholic priest-scholar Johann Peter Kirsch, 1500 years later, described Innocent as a very energetic and highly gifted individual "...who fulfilled admirably the duties of his office".

The Damghan earthquake or the Qumis earthquake occurred on 22 December 856 (242 AH) in Khorasan province, Abbasid Caliphate. The earthquake had an estimated magnitude of 7.9, and a maximum intensity of X (Extreme) on the Mercalli intensity scale. The meizoseismal area (area of maximum damage) extended for about 350 kilometres (220 mi) along the southern edge of the eastern Alborz mountains of present-day Iran including parts of Tabaristan and Gorgan. The earthquake's epicenter is estimated to be close to the city of Damghan, which was then the capital of the Persian province of Qumis. It caused approximately 200,000 deaths and is listed by the United States Geological Survey as the sixth deadliest earthquake in recorded history. This death toll has been debated.

Luoyang is a city located in the confluence area of the Luo River and the Yellow River in the west of Henan province, China. Governed as a prefecture-level city, it borders the provincial capital of Zhengzhou to the east, Pingdingshan to the southeast, Nanyang to the south, Sanmenxia to the west, Jiyuan to the north, and Jiaozuo to the northeast. As of December 31, 2018, Luoyang had a population of 6,888,500 inhabitants with 2,751,400 people living in the built-up area made of the city's five out of six urban districts and Yanshi District, later being conurbated. By the end of 2022, Luoyang Municipality had jurisdiction over 7 municipal districts, 7 counties and 1 development zone. The permanent population was 7.079 million as of 2022.

Henry I (c. 1068 – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in 1087, Henry's elder brothers Robert Curthose and William Rufus inherited Normandy and England, respectively, thereby leaving Henry landless. He subsequently purchased the County of Cotentin in western Normandy from Robert, but his brothers deposed him in 1091. He gradually rebuilt his power base in the Cotentin and allied himself with William Rufus against Robert. When William died in a hunting accident, Henry seized the English throne ahead of Robert, promising at his coronation to correct many of William's less popular policies. He married Matilda of Scotland and they had two surviving children, Empress Matilda and William Adelin. Robert disputed Henry's control of England and invaded from Normandy in 1101. The ensuing military campaign ended in a negotiated settlement that confirmed Henry as king. The peace was short-lived, however, and Henry invaded the Duchy of Normandy in 1105 and 1106, finally defeating Robert at the Battle of Tinchebray. Henry kept Robert imprisoned for the rest of his life. Henry's control of Normandy was subsequently challenged by Louis VI of France, Baldwin VII of Flanders and Fulk V of Anjou, who promoted the rival claims of Robert's son, William Clito, and supported a major rebellion in the Duchy between 1116 and 1119. Following Henry's victory at the Battle of Brémule, a favourable peace settlement was agreed with Louis in 1120. Considered by contemporaries to be a harsh but effective ruler, Henry skilfully manipulated the barons in England and Normandy. In England, he drew on the existing Anglo-Saxon system of justice, local government and taxation, but also strengthened it with more institutions such as the royal exchequer and itinerant justices. Many of the officials who ran Henry's system were "new men" of obscure backgrounds, rather than from families of high status, who rose through the ranks as administrators. Henry encouraged ecclesiastical reform but became embroiled in a serious dispute in 1101 with Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury, which was resolved through a compromise solution in 1105. He supported the Cluniac order and played a major role in the selection of the senior clergy in England and Normandy. Henry's son William drowned in the White Ship disaster of 1120, throwing the royal succession into doubt. Henry took a second wife, Adeliza of Louvain, in the hope of having another son, but their marriage was childless. In response to this, he declared his daughter Matilda his heir and married her to Geoffrey of Anjou. The relationship between Henry and the couple became strained, and fighting broke out along the border with Anjou. Henry died on 1 December 1135 after a week of illness. Despite his plans for Matilda, the King was succeeded by his nephew Stephen of Blois, resulting in a period of civil war known as the Anarchy.

Pope Honorius III (c. 1150 – 18 March 1227), born Cencio Savelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 18 July 1216 to his death. A canon at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, he came to hold a number of important administrative positions, including that of Camerlengo. In 1197, he became tutor to the young Frederick II. As pope, he worked to promote the Fifth Crusade, which had been planned under his predecessor, Innocent III. Honorius repeatedly exhorted King Andrew II of Hungary and Emperor Frederick II to fulfill their vows to participate. He also gave approval to the recently formed Dominican and Franciscan religious orders.

The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile (r. 1474–1504) and King Ferdinand II of Aragon (r. 1479–1516), whose marriage and joint rule marked the de facto unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, as they were both descended from John I of Castile. To remove the obstacle that this consanguinity would otherwise have posed to their marriage under canon law, they were given a papal dispensation by Sixtus IV. They married on October 19, 1469, in the city of Valladolid; Isabella was 18 years old and Ferdinand a year younger. Their reign was called by W. H. Prescott "the most glorious epoch in the annals of Spain." Spain was formed as a dynastic union of two crowns rather than a unitary state, as Castile and Aragon remained separate kingdoms until the Nueva Planta decrees of 1707–1716. The court of Ferdinand and Isabella was constantly on the move in order to bolster local support for the crown from local feudal lords. The title of "Reyes Católicos" usually translated as "Catholic King and Queen" was officially bestowed on Ferdinand and Isabella by Pope Alexander VI in 1494, in recognition of their defence of the Catholic faith within their realms.

The Sino-Burmese War (Chinese: 清緬戰爭; Burmese: တရုတ်-မြန်မာ စစ်ပွဲများ), also known as the Qing invasions of Burma or the Myanmar campaign of the Qing dynasty, was a war fought between the Qing dynasty of China and the Konbaung dynasty of Burma (Myanmar). The Qing under the Qianlong Emperor launched four invasions of Burma between 1765 and 1769, which were considered one of his Ten Great Campaigns. Nonetheless, the war, which claimed the lives of over 70,000 Qing soldiers and four commanders, is sometimes described as "the most disastrous frontier war that the Qing dynasty had ever waged", and one that "assured Burmese independence". Burma's successful defense laid the foundation for the present-day boundary between the two countries. At first, the Qing emperor envisaged an easy war, and sent in only the Green Standard Army troops stationed in Yunnan. The Qing invasion came as the majority of Burmese forces were deployed in their latest invasion of Siam. Nonetheless, battle-hardened Burmese troops defeated the first two invasions of 1765–1766 and 1766–1767 at the border. The regional conflict now escalated to a major war that involved military maneuvers nationwide in both countries. The third invasion (1767–1768) led by the elite Manchu Bannermen nearly succeeded, penetrating deep into central Burma within a few days' march from the capital, Ava (Inwa). But the bannermen of northern China could not cope with unfamiliar tropical terrains and lethal endemic diseases, and were driven back with heavy losses. After the close call, King Hsinbyushin redeployed his armies from Siam to the Chinese front. The fourth and largest invasion got bogged down at the frontier. With the Qing forces completely encircled, a truce was reached between the field commanders of the two sides in December 1769. The Qing kept a heavy military lineup in the border areas of Yunnan for about one decade in an attempt to wage another war while imposing a ban on inter-border trade for two decades. The Burmese, too, were preoccupied with the Chinese threat, and kept a series of garrisons along the border. Twenty years later, when Burma and China resumed a diplomatic relationship in 1790, the Qing unilaterally viewed the act as Burmese submission, and claimed victory. Ultimately, the main beneficiaries of this war were the Siamese, who reclaimed most of their territories in the next three years after having lost their capital Ayutthaya to the Burmese in 1767.

Emperor Quang Trung (Vietnamese: [kwāːŋ ʈūŋm]; chữ Hán: 光中, 1753 – 16 September 1792) or Nguyễn Huệ (chữ Hán: 阮惠), also known as Nguyễn Quang Bình (chữ Hán: 阮光平), or Hồ Thơm (chữ Hán: 胡𦹳) was the second emperor of the Tây Sơn dynasty, reigning from 1788 until 1792. He was also one of the most successful military commanders in Vietnam's history. Nguyễn Huệ and his brothers, Nguyễn Nhạc and Nguyễn Lữ, together known as the Tây Sơn brothers, were the leaders of the Tây Sơn rebellion. As rebels, they conquered Vietnam, overthrowing the imperial Later Lê dynasty and the two rival feudal houses of the Nguyễn in the south and the Trịnh in the north. After several years of constant military campaigning and rule, Nguyễn Huệ died at the age of 40. Prior to his death, he had made plans to continue his march southwards in order to destroy the army of Nguyễn Ánh, a surviving heir of the Nguyễn lords. Nguyễn Huệ's death marked the beginning of the downfall of the Tây Sơn dynasty. His successors were unable to implement the plans he had made for ruling Vietnam, leaving the empire weak and vulnerable. The Tây Sơn dynasty was overthrown by its enemy, Nguyễn Ánh, who established the imperial Nguyễn dynasty in 1802.

Izmail is a city and municipality on the Danube river in Odesa Oblast in south-western Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Izmail Raion, one of seven districts of Odesa Oblast, and is the only locality which constitutes Izmail urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine.

The Embargo Act of 1807 was a general trade embargo on all foreign nations that was enacted by the United States Congress. Much broader than the ineffectual 1806 Non-importation Act, it represented an escalation of attempts to coerce Britain and France to cease their interference with American merchant shipping as the Napoleonic Wars continued. In the first decade of the 19th century, American shipping grew. During the Napoleonic Wars, British and French authorities seized American merchantmen trading with the other side. American merchantmen bound for trade with "enemy nations" were seized as contraband of war by both European powers. The Royal Navy, angered by thousands of its sailors deserting and finding work on American merchantmen, began stopping US ships and reclaiming alleged deserters. This inflamed American public opinion, which was exacerbated by incidents such as the Chesapeake–Leopard affair. Congress imposed the embargo in direct response to these events. President Thomas Jefferson weighed public support for retaliation, but recognized that the United States was militarily far weaker than either Britain or France. He recommended Congress respond instead with commercial warfare. The experiment appealed to Jefferson and would harm his Northeastern opponents more than his domestic allies, irrespective of any actual impact on the European belligerents. The 10th Congress, controlled by his allies, agreed to the Act, which was signed into law on December 22, 1807. The Embargo failed to improve the American diplomatic position, and sharply increased international tensions. Both widespread evasion of the embargo and loopholes in the legislation reduced the intended economic impact. British commercial shipping, which already dominated global trade, was successfully adapting to Napoleon's Continental System by pursuing new markets—particularly in the restive Spanish and Portuguese colonies in South America. The Act's prohibition on imports protected nascent US domestic industries across the board, particularly the textile industry, marking the beginning of a United States manufacturing system, and reducing the nation's dependence upon imported manufactured goods. Americans opposed to the Act launched bitter protests, particularly in New England commercial centers. Support for the declining Federalist Party, which intensely opposed Jefferson, temporarily rebounded and drove electoral gains in 1808 (Senate and House). In the waning days of Jefferson's presidency, the Non-Intercourse Act lifted all embargoes on American shipping except cargoes bound for Britain or France. Enacted March 1, 1809, that law exacerbated American tensions with Britain, eventually leading to the War of 1812.

Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer, conductor, and pianist. Regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music, he was mentored during the Classical period, and his musical style was a key driver of the transition to Romantic music, and the expansion of instrumental forms such as the symphony, the piano sonata and the string quartet. His compositions have attracted extraordinary casual and scholarly interest, and remain among the most performed in the world. Born in Bonn, Beethoven was a musical prodigy. He was initially taught intensively by his father, Johann van Beethoven, and later by Christian Gottlob Neefe. He found relief from a dysfunctional home life with the family of Helene von Breuning, whose children he loved, befriended, and taught piano. At age 21, he moved to Vienna, which became his base, and studied composition with Joseph Haydn. Beethoven gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist, and was soon patronized by Karl Alois, Prince Lichnowsky for compositions, which resulted in his three Piano Trios, Op. 1, the earliest works to which he accorded an opus number, in 1795. His Pathétique Sonata was composed in 1798. Around this time, Beethoven began experiencing symptoms of hearing loss. His career is divided into three periods. In the first, he composed in the classical style of Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Beethoven's First Symphony premiered in 1800, and his first set of string quartets was published in 1801. The Moonlight Sonata, dedicated to his pupil Julie Guicciardi, is one of his most popular works. In the middle period (1802–1812), he developed a distinctive style. His Third (Eroica) and Fifth Symphonies premiered in 1805 and 1808, respectively. The former was unprecedented in scale and scope. His opera, Fidelio, premiered in 1805, and was later revised. His Violin Concerto appeared in 1806. His Razumovsky quartets were published in 1808. Other middle works include the Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas for piano, the Kreutzer sonata for violin and his Seventh Symphony. His Emperor piano concerto premiered in 1811, without the composer as soloist. His late period (1812–1827) included some of his most innovative works. His Missa solemnis and his final symphony, the Ninth, premiered in 1824. The latter was the first major example of a choral symphony. His Diabelli Variations and late piano sonatas, particularly the Hammerklavier, are summits of the keyboard literature. His late string quartets, including the Große Fuge, of 1825–1826, are considered pinnacles of the genre. After several months of illness, which left him bedridden, Beethoven died on 26 March 1827 at the age of 56.

The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the de facto national library of the United States. It also administers copyright law through the United States Copyright Office, and it houses the Congressional Research Service.

Roorkee (Rūṛkī; Hindi: [ɾuːɽkiː]), formerly also anglicized as Rurki, is a city and municipal corporation in the Haridwar district of the state of Uttarakhand, India. It is 31 km (19 mi) from Haridwar, the district headquarters. It is spread over a flat terrain under the Sivalik Hills of the Himalayas. The city is developed on the banks of the Ganges Canal, its dominant feature, which flows from north–south through the middle of the city. Roorkee is home to Asia's Second engineering college the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, formerly known as Thomson College of Civil Engineering. Roorkee is also known for the Roorkee Cantonment, one of the country's oldest military establishments and the headquarters of Bengal Engineer Group since 1853.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.

Prince Itō Hirobumi (Japanese: 伊藤 博文 [i.toː (|) çi.ɾoꜜ.bɯ.mʲi]; born Hayashi Risuke (林 利助); 16 October 1841 – 26 October 1909) was a Japanese statesman who served as the first prime minister of Japan from 1885 to 1888. Itō held office again as prime minister three times between 1892 and 1901. He was also a member of the genrō, a group of senior statesmen who effectively dictated policy for the Empire of Japan during the Meiji era. A key figure in the making of modern Japan, Itō played a central role in the drafting of the 1889 Meiji Constitution as well as the establishment of the National Diet and Japanese cabinet system. Born into a poor farming family in the Chōshū Domain, Itō Hirobumi and his father were adopted into a low-ranking samurai family. After the opening of Japan in 1854, he joined the nationalist sonnō jōi movement before being sent to England in 1863 to study at University College London. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Itō was appointed a junior councilor for foreign affairs in the newly formed Empire of Japan. Later in 1870, he traveled to the United States to study Western currency, and subsequently helped establish Japan's modern banking and taxation systems. Itō then set off on another overseas trip with the Iwakura Mission to the U.S. and Europe. Upon his return to Japan in 1873, he became a full councilor and public works minister. By the early 1880s, Itō emerged as the de facto leader of the Meiji oligarchy. In 1881, he was officially entrusted with overseeing the drafting of the Meiji Constitution. After traveling to Europe to study its nations' political systems, Itō settled on adopting a constitution emulating that of Prussia by reserving considerable power with the emperor while limiting political parties' involvement in government. In 1885, he replaced the Daijō-kan with a cabinet composed of ministry heads, and became Japan's first prime minister. After the Meiji Constitution was drafted in 1888, he established a supra-cabinet Privy Council led by himself to review it before its official promulgation in 1889. Even out of office as prime minister, Itō continued to exert significant influence on government policy as an imperial adviser, or genkun, and as President of the Privy Council. In 1900, he founded the Rikken Seiyūkai political party as party politics grew more prominent in the Diet. On the world stage, Itō pursued an active foreign policy. He strengthened diplomatic ties with Western powers including Germany, the United States, and especially the United Kingdom. In Asia, he oversaw the First Sino-Japanese War and negotiated the surrender of China's ruling Qing dynasty on terms favorable to Japan, including the annexation of Taiwan and the release of Korea from the Chinese tributary system. After the Russo-Japanese War, the ensuing Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905 made Itō the first Resident-General of Korea. Despite initially supporting a protectorate rather than outright annexation of Korea, pressure from the Imperial Japanese Army leadership and the failure of his gradualist approach contributed to his support for annexation. Itō resigned as Resident-General in June 1909 only to be assassinated four months later by Korean-independence activist and nationalist An Jung-geun in Harbin, Manchuria.

The Christmas Meeting of 1888 (Faroese: Jólafundurin 1888) is considered to be the official start of the Faroese National Movement. In spite of a raging storm and slushy roads, a large crowd of people gathered in the house of the Løgting that afternoon. Speeches were made and patriotic songs were sung. The highlight of the meeting came when the poet Rasmus Effersøe recited a battle hymn written for the occasion by young Jóannes Patursson. The message of the lengthy poem was evident in the first stanza: Now the hour has come, when we must join hands and rally around our native tongue.

The Cornwallis Valley Railway (CVR) was a historic Canadian railway in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley. It was built in 1889 and ran 13.6 miles (21.9 km) from Kentville to Kingsport serving the Cornwallis Township area of Kings County. For most of its history, it operated as a branch line of the Dominion Atlantic Railway and was sometimes known as the "Kingsport Line".

323 Brucia is a stony Phocaea asteroid and former Mars-crosser from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately its diameter is 33 kilometers (21 miles). It was the first asteroid to be discovered by the use of astrophotography.

The Dreyfus affair (French: affaire Dreyfus, pronounced [afɛːʁ dʁɛfys]) was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent, was wrongfully convicted of treason for communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and sent overseas to the penal colony on Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent the following five years imprisoned in very harsh conditions. In 1896, evidence came to light—primarily through the investigations of Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage—that identified the real culprit as a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. High-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, and a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting two days. The Army laid additional charges against Dreyfus, based on forged documents. Subsequently, writer Émile Zola's open letter "J'Accuse...!" in the newspaper L'Aurore stoked a growing movement of political support for Dreyfus, putting pressure on the government to reopen the case. In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus, the "Dreyfusards" such as Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Charles Péguy, Henri Poincaré, Georges Méliès, and Georges Clemenceau; and those who condemned him, the "anti-Dreyfusards" such as Édouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the antisemitic newspaper La Libre Parole. The new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was pardoned and released. In 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated. After being reinstated as a major in the French Army, he served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He died in 1935. The Dreyfus affair came to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world; it remains one of the most notable examples of a miscarriage of justice and of antisemitism. The affair divided France into pro-republican, anticlerical Dreyfusards and pro-army, mostly Catholic anti-Dreyfusards, embittering French politics and encouraging radicalisation. The press played a crucial role in exposing information and in shaping and expressing public opinion on both sides of the conflict.

GOELRO (Russian: ГОЭЛРО) was the first of Soviet Russia's plans for national economic recovery and development. It became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans drafted by Gosplan. GOELRO is the transliteration of the Russian abbreviation for "State Commission for Electrification of Russia" (Russian: Государственная комиссия по электрификации России, romanized: Gosudarstvennaya komissiya po elektrifikatsii Rossii). The Commission and Plan were initiated and supervised by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin's belief in the central importance of electrification to the achievement of communism is represented by his statement: Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.

Visva-Bharati is a public central university and an Institute of National Importance located in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India. The foundation stone was laid on 8 Poush 1325 by Rabindranath Tagore, who called it Visva-Bharati, which means the communion of the world with India. Until independence it was a college. Soon after independence, the institution was given the status of a central university in 1951 by an act of the Parliament.

The Lincoln Tunnel is an approximately 1.5-mile-long (2.4 km) tunnel under the Hudson River, connecting Weehawken, New Jersey, to the west with Midtown Manhattan in New York City to the east. It carries New Jersey Route 495 on the New Jersey side and the unsigned New York State Route 495 on the New York side. It was designed by Ole Singstad and named after Abraham Lincoln. The tunnel consists of three vehicular tubes of varying lengths, with two traffic lanes in each tube. The center tube contains reversible lanes, while the northern and southern tubes exclusively carry westbound and eastbound traffic, respectively. The Lincoln Tunnel was originally proposed in the late 1920s and early 1930s as the Midtown Hudson Tunnel. The tubes of the Lincoln Tunnel were constructed in stages between 1934 and 1957. Construction of the central tube, which originally lacked sufficient funding due to the Great Depression, started in 1934 and it opened in 1937. The northern tube started construction in 1936, was delayed due to World War II-related material shortages, and opened in 1945. Although the original plans for the Lincoln Tunnel called for two tubes, a third tube to the south of the existing tunnels was planned in 1950 due to high traffic demand on the other two tubes. The third tube started construction in 1954, with the delay attributed to disputes over tunnel approaches, and opened in 1957. Since then, the Lincoln Tunnel has undergone a series of gradual improvements, including changes to security and tolling methods. The Lincoln Tunnel is one of two automobile tunnels built under the Hudson River, the other being the Holland Tunnel between Jersey City, New Jersey, and Lower Manhattan. The Lincoln Tunnel is also one of six tolled crossings in the New York area owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The tolls on each crossing are only collected in the New York-bound direction. As of 2016, both directions of the tunnel carry a combined average of 112,995 vehicular crossings every day. The tunnel is part of New Jersey Route 495 on the western half of the river, and New York State Route 495 on the eastern half of the river. However, the New York state highway designation is not signed, and its use is inconsistent in official documents.

Islam is India's second-largest religion, with 14.2% of the country's population, or approximately 172.2 million people, identifying as adherents of Islam in a 2011 census. India has the third-largest number of Muslims in the world. Most of India's Muslims are Sunni, with Shia making up about 15% of the Muslim population.

Himarë is a municipality and region in Vlorë County, southern Albania. The municipality has a total area of 571.94 km2 (220.83 sq mi) and consists of the administrative units of Himarë, Horë-Vranisht and Lukovë. It lies between the Ceraunian Mountains and the Albanian Ionian Sea Coast and is part of the Albanian Riviera. The traditionally perceived borders of the Himarë region gradually shrank during the Ottoman period, being reduced to the town of Himarë and the villages of the coastline, generally including only Palasë, Dhërmi, Pilur, Kudhës, Vuno, Iljas and Qeparo.

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany in the Nazi era from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 under his leadership marked the outbreak of the Second World War. Throughout the ensuing conflict, Hitler was closely involved in the direction of German military operations and was central to the perpetration of the genocide of about six million Jews in the Holocaust as well as the deaths of millions of other victims.

The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and referred to by the Germans as Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (transl. Operation Watch on the Rhine), was an offensive campaign on the Western Front during the Second World War, taking place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg and was intended to stop Allied use of the Belgian port of Antwerp and to split the Allied lines, allowing the Germans to encircle and destroy each of the four Allied armies and force the western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis powers' favor. The Germans achieved a total surprise attack on the morning of 16 December 1944, due to a combination of Allied overconfidence based on the favorable defensive terrain and faulty intelligence about Wehrmacht intentions, poor aerial reconnaissance due to bad weather, and a preoccupation with Allied offensive plans elsewhere. American forces were using this region primarily as a rest area for the U.S. First Army, and the lines were thinly held by fatigued troops and inexperienced replacement units. The Germans also took advantage of heavily overcast weather conditions that grounded the Allies' superior air forces for an extended period. American resistance on the northern shoulder of the offensive, around Elsenborn Ridge, and in the south, around Bastogne, blocked German access to key roads to the northwest and west which they had counted on for success. This congestion and terrain that favored the defenders threw the German advance behind schedule and allowed the Allies to reinforce the thinly placed troops. The farthest west the offensive reached was the village of Foy-Notre-Dame, south east of Dinant, being stopped by the U.S. 2nd Armored Division on 24 December 1944. Improved weather conditions from around 24 December permitted air attacks on German forces and supply lines. On 26 December the lead element of General George S. Patton's U.S. Third Army reached Bastogne from the south, ending the siege. Although the offensive was effectively broken by 27 December, when the trapped units of 2nd Panzer Division made two break-out attempts with only partial success, the battle continued for another month before the front line was effectively restored to its position prior to the attack. The Germans committed over 410,000 men, just over 1,400 tanks and armored fighting vehicles, 2,600 artillery pieces, and over 1,000 combat aircraft. Between 63,000 and 104,000 of these men were killed, missing, wounded in action, or captured. The battle severely depleted Germany's armored forces, which remained largely unreplaced throughout the remainder of the war. German Luftwaffe personnel, and later also Luftwaffe aircraft (in the concluding stages of the engagement) also sustained heavy losses. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were effectively out of men and equipment, and the survivors retreated to the Siegfried Line. Allied forces eventually came to more than 700,000 men; from these there were from 77,000 to more than 83,000 casualties, including at least 8,600 killed. The "Bulge" was the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the United States in World War II. It was one of the most important battles of the war, as it marked the last major offensive attempted by the Axis powers on the Western Front. After this defeat, Nazi forces would only retreat for the remainder of the war.

The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) is the national military force of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the armed wing of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). The PAVN is the backbone component of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces and includes: Ground Force, Navy, Air Defence - Air Force, Border Guard and Coast Guard. Vietnam does not have a separate and formally-structured ground force or army service. Instead, all ground troops, army corps, military districts and special forces are designated under the umbrella term combined arms (Vietnamese: binh chủng hợp thành) and belong to the Ministry of National Defence, directly under the command of the CPV Central Military Commission, the Minister of National Defence, and the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army. During the French Indochina War (1946–1954), the PAVN was often referred to as the Việt Minh. In the context of the Vietnam War (1955–1975), the army was referred to by its opposition forces as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA; Quân đội Bắc Việt), serving as the military force of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This allowed writers, the U.S. military, and the general public, to distinguish northern communists from the southern communists, called the Viet Cong (VC), or more formally the National Liberation Front. However, both groups ultimately worked under the same command structure, despite Viet Cong having its own nominal military forces called the Liberation Army of South Vietnam (LASV), and it was practically considered a component of the PAVN by the North Vietnamese. In 1976, following the political reunification of Vietnam, LASV was officially disbanded and merged into the so-called NVA to form the existing incarnation of PAVN, serving as the national military of the unified state of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in April. Truman set up the Marshall Plan to rebuild the badly damaged economy of Western Europe. He established the Truman Doctrine and supported the founding of NATO to contain the expansion of Soviet communism. A member of the Democratic Party, he proposed numerous New Deal coalition liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the conservative coalition that dominated the United States Congress. Born in rural Missouri, Truman was raised in Independence, Missouri, and during World War I, he fought in France as a captain in the Field Artillery. Returning home, he opened a haberdashery in Kansas City, Missouri, and was elected as a judge of Jackson County in 1922. Truman was elected to the U.S. Senate for Missouri in 1934. Between 1940 and 1944, he gained national prominence as the chairman of the Truman Committee, which aimed to reduce waste and inefficiency in wartime contracts. Truman was elected vice president in the 1944 presidential election and became president upon Roosevelt's death in April 1945. Only then was he told about the ongoing Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. Truman authorized the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman's administration engaged in an internationalist foreign policy by working closely with Britain. Truman staunchly denounced isolationism. He energized the New Deal coalition during the 1948 presidential election, despite some Democrats splitting off into the Dixiecrats, and defeated both the Republican Party nominee Thomas E. Dewey and Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. Truman presided over the onset of the Cold War in 1947. He oversaw the Berlin Airlift and the Marshall Plan in 1948. With America's involvement in the Korean War (1950–1953), South Korea repelled the invasion by North Korea. Domestically, the postwar economic challenges such as strikes and inflation created a mixed reaction over the effectiveness of his administration. In 1948, he proposed that Congress should pass comprehensive civil rights legislation. Congress refused, so Truman issued Executive Order 9980 and Executive Order 9981, which prohibited discrimination in agencies of the federal government and desegregated the United States Armed Forces. Investigations revealed corruption in parts of the Truman administration, and this became a major campaign issue in the 1952 presidential election, although they did not implicate Truman himself. He was eligible for reelection in 1952 but he chose not to run due to poor polling. Subsequently, Truman went into a retirement marked by the founding of his presidential library and the publication of his memoirs. It was long believed that Truman's retirement years were financially difficult, resulting in Congress establishing a pension for former presidents. However, evidence eventually emerged that he amassed considerable wealth, some of it during his presidency. When Truman left office, his administration was heavily criticized. Despite this controversy, historians consistently rank Truman in the first quartile of U.S. presidents. In addition, critical reassessments of his presidency have improved his reputation among historians and the general population.

Sjafruddin Prawiranegara was an Indonesian statesman and economist. He served in various roles during his career, including as head of government in the Emergency Government of the Republic of Indonesia, as Minister of Finance in several cabinets, and as the first Governor of Bank Indonesia. Sjafruddin later became the prime minister of the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia, a shadow government set up in opposition to the country's central government.

Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports of call, where passengers may go on shore excursions.

The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" is a retired long-range, high-altitude, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft that was developed and manufactured by the American aerospace company Lockheed Corporation. Its nicknames include "Blackbird" and "Habu".

Speed limits on road traffic, as used in most countries, set the legal maximum speed at which vehicles may travel on a given stretch of road. Speed limits are generally indicated on a traffic sign reflecting the maximum permitted speed, expressed as kilometres per hour (km/h) or miles per hour (mph) or both. Speed limits are commonly set by the legislative bodies of national or provincial governments and enforced by national or regional police and judicial authorities. Speed limits may also be variable, or in some places nonexistent, such as on most of the Autobahnen in Germany.

The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, in 1966 and lasted until his death in 1976. Its stated goal was to advance Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society and government.

Médecins Sans Frontières, French for Doctors Without Borders, is a charity that provides humanitarian medical care. It is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) of French origin known for its projects in conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases. The organisation provides care for diabetes, drug-resistant infections, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, tropical and neglected diseases, tuberculosis, vaccines and COVID-19. In 2024, the charity was active in more than 75 countries with over 67,000 personnel; mostly local doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, logistical experts, water and sanitation engineers, and administrators. Private donors provide about 98% of the organisation's funding, giving MSF an annual income of approximately EUR 2.36 billion.

Royal Air Maroc is the Moroccan national carrier, as well as the country's largest airline, ranking among the largest in Africa.

Ngazidja, known as Grande Comore in French, and formerly known in English as Comoro, is an island in Comoros off the coast of Africa. It is the largest island in the Comoros nation. Most of its population is of the Comorian ethnic group. Its population as of 2006 is about 316,600. The island's capital is Moroni, which is also the national capital. The island is made up of two shield volcanoes, with Mount Karthala being the country's highest point at 2,361 m (7,746 ft) above sea level. In line with the 2009 revision of the constitution of 2002, it is governed by an elected governor, as are the other islands, with the federal government being much reduced in power.

Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. He assumed the presidency after the resignation of Richard Nixon, under whom he served as the 40th vice president from 1973 to 1974 after the resignation of Spiro Agnew. A member of the Republican Party, Ford previously served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1973.

The 11th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, between August 12–18, 1977, about five years before the 12th National Congress, and four years after the 10th National Congress. 1,510 delegates represented the party's estimated 35 million members.

On December 22, 1984, Bernhard Goetz shot four black teenagers on a New York City Subway train in Manhattan. All four victims survived, though one, Darrell Cabey, was paralyzed and suffered brain damage as a result of his injuries. Goetz fled to Bennington, Vermont, before surrendering to police nine days after the shooting. He was charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment, and several firearms offenses. Goetz claimed self-defense at trial, alleging that the teenagers had attempted to rob him. The jury subsequently found Goetz guilty of one count of carrying an unlicensed firearm and acquitted him of the remaining charges. For the firearm offense, he served eight months of a one-year sentence. In 1996, Cabey obtained a $43 million civil judgment against Goetz after a civil jury ruled Goetz liable.

Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo River, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia to the north, and Mozambique to the east. The capital and largest city is Harare, and the second largest is Bulawayo.

The Romanian revolution was a period of violent civil unrest in the Socialist Republic of Romania during December 1989 as a part of the revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several countries around the world, primarily within the Eastern Bloc. The Romanian revolution started in the city of Timișoara and soon spread throughout the country, ultimately culminating in the drumhead trial and execution of longtime Romanian Communist Party (PCR) General Secretary Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena, and the end of 42 years of Communist rule in Romania. It was also the last removal of a Marxist–Leninist government in a Warsaw Pact country during the events of 1989, and the only one that violently overthrew a country's leadership and executed its leader; according to estimates, over one thousand people died and thousands more were injured.

German reunification, also known as the expansion of the Federal Republic of Germany (BRD), was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic and the integration of its re-established constituent federated states into the Federal Republic of Germany to form present-day Germany. This date was chosen as the customary German Unity Day, and has thereafter been celebrated each year as a national holiday. On the same date, East and West Berlin were also reunified into a single city, which eventually became the capital of Germany.

Lech Wałęsa is a Polish statesman, anticommunist dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as the president of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democratically elected president of Poland since 1922 and the first-ever Polish president elected by popular vote. An electrician by trade, Wałęsa became the leader of the opposition Solidarity movement and led a successful pro-democratic effort, which in 1989 ended Communist rule in Poland and ushered in the end of the Cold War.

The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is an archipelagic country in Oceania. The sovereign state lies west of the International Date Line and north of the equator in the Micronesia region of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.

Tripoli International Airport is a closed international airport built to serve Tripoli, the capital city of Libya. The airport is located in the area of Qasr bin Ghashir, 24 kilometres (15 mi) from central Tripoli. It used to be the hub for Libyan Airlines, Afriqiyah Airways, and Buraq Air.

Airborne Express Flight 827 was a functional evaluation flight (FEF) of an ABX Air Douglas DC-8 that had undergone a major modification. On December 22, 1996, during the test flight, the aircraft stalled and crashed, killing all six people on board. Accident investigators determined the causes of the accident was improper crew control inputs and ABX's failures to establish a formal functional evaluation program, relying instead on inadequate flight program guidelines, inadequate requirements, and inadequate and misleading pilot training.

The Acteal massacre was a massacre of 45 people attending a prayer meeting of Catholic Indigenous townspeople, including a number of children and pregnant women, who were members of the pacifist group Las Abejas, in the small village of Acteal in the municipality of Chenalhó, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Right-wing paramilitary group Máscara Roja murdered the victims on December 22, 1997, while the Government of Mexico first admitted responsibility for the massacre in September 2020.

London Stansted Airport is an international airport serving London and the south-east of England. It is located near Stansted Mountfitchet, in the district of Uttlesford, Essex; it lies 31 miles north-east of Central London.

Burhanuddin Rabbani was an Afghan politician and teacher who served as the sixth president of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996, and again from November to December 2001.

Richard Colvin Reid, also known as the "Shoe Bomber", is a British terrorist who perpetrated the failed shoe bombing attempt against a transatlantic flight in 2001. Born to a career criminal father, Reid ended up in prison after years of committing petty crimes. While in prison, he was influenced by Muslim inmates he met there and converted to Islam. Later he became radicalised and went to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he trained and became a member of al-Qaeda.

The Kingston Fossil Plant Spill was an environmental and industrial disaster that occurred on December 22, 2008, when a dike ruptured at a coal ash pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion US gallons of coal fly ash slurry. The coal-fired power plant, located across the Clinch River from the city of Kingston, used a series of ponds to store and dewater the fly ash, a byproduct of coal combustion. The spill released a slurry of fly ash and water which traveled across the Emory River and its Swan Pond embayment onto the opposite shore, covering up to 300 acres (1.2 km2) of the surrounding land. The spill damaged multiple homes and flowed into nearby waterways including the Emory River and Clinch River, both tributaries of the Tennessee River. It was the largest industrial spill in United States history.

The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 is a landmark United States federal statute enacted in December 2010 that established a process for ending the "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy, thus allowing gay, lesbian, and bisexual people to serve openly in the United States Armed Forces. It ended the policy in place since 1993 that allowed them to serve only if they kept their sexual orientation secret and the military did not learn of their sexual orientation, which was controversial.

Bashir Ahmad Bilour was a Pakistani member of the provincial assembly of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Senior Minister for Local Government and Rural Development of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus–Zaire Ebola virus (rVSV-ZEBOV), also known as Ebola Zaire vaccine live and sold under the brand name Ervebo, is an Ebola vaccine for adults that prevents Ebola caused by the Zaire ebolavirus. When used in ring vaccination, rVSV-ZEBOV has shown a high level of protection. Around half the people given the vaccine have mild to moderate adverse effects that include headache, fatigue, and muscle pain.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2397 is a resolution adopted unanimously on 22 December 2017 in response to North Korea's launch of a Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile on 28 November of that year. The resolution condemned the launch and further tightened sanctions on the country, restricting fuel imports and other trade, as well as the ability of North Korean citizens to work abroad. On 24 December, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the resolution constitutes an act of war.

The 2018 Sunda Strait tsunami occurred on 22 December 2018 at around 21:38 local time after large parts of the southwestern side of Anak Krakatoa collapsed onto its caldera. The landslide spawned a tsunami wave that struck multiple coastal regions in Banten and Lampung, including the tourist destination of Anyer.