6 December 2024 (MIA)

1240 – Mongol invasion of Rus’: Kiev under Daniel of Galicia and Voivode Dmytro falls to the Mongols under Batu Khan.

1534 – The city of Quito in Ecuador is founded by Spanish settlers led by Sebastián de Belalcázar.

1648 – Colonel Thomas Pride of the New Model Army purges the Long Parliament of MPs sympathetic to King Charles I of England, in order for the King’s trial to go ahead; came to be known as “Pride’s Purge”.

1704 – Battle of Chamkaur (1704): During the Mughal-Sikh Wars, an outnumbered Sikh Khalsa defeats a Mughal army.

1745 – Charles Edward Stuart’s army begins retreat during the second Jacobite Rising.

1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published.

1790 – The U.S. Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia.

1865 – The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, banning slavery.

1877 – The first edition of The Washington Post is published.

1884 – The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., is completed.

1897 – London becomes the world’s first city to host licensed taxicabs.

1904 – Theodore Roosevelt articulated his “Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the U.S. would intervene in the Western Hemisphere should Latin American governments prove incapable or unstable.

1907 – A coal mine explosion at Monongah, West Virginia, kills 362 workers.

1916 – World War I: The Central Powers capture Bucharest.

1917 – Finland declares independence from Russia.

1917 – Halifax Explosion: A munitions explosion near Halifax, Nova Scotia kills more than 1,900 people in the largest artificial explosion up to that time.

1917 – World War I: USS Jacob Jones is the first American destroyer to be sunk by enemy action when it is torpedoed by German submarine SM U-53.

1921 – The Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed in London by British and Irish representatives.

1922 – One year to the day after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the Irish Free State comes into existence.

1928 – The government of Colombia sends military forces to suppress a month-long strike by United Fruit Company workers, resulting in an unknown number of deaths.

1933 – U.S. federal judge John M. Woolsey rules that James Joyce’s novel Ulysses is not obscene.

1941 – World War II: The United Kingdom and Canada declare war on Finland in support of the Soviet Union during the Continuation War. Camp X opens in Canada to begin training Allied Secret Agents for the War.

1942 – Partisan Nevena Georgieva – Dunja is killed near village Papradishte, Veles region. She was born in Skopje on July 25, 1925.

1947 – The Everglades National Park in Florida is dedicated.

1953 – Vladimir Nabokov completes his controversial novel Lolita.

1956 – A violent water polo match between Hungary and the USSR takes place during the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, against the backdrop of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

1957 – Project Vanguard: A launchpad explosion of Vanguard TV3 thwarts the first United States attempt to launch a satellite into Earth orbit.

1967 – Adrian Kantrowitz performs the first human heart transplant in the United States.

1971 – Pakistan severs diplomatic relations with India, initiating the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

1973 – The Twenty-fifth Amendment: The United States House of Representatives votes 387 to 35 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States. (On Nov. 27, the Senate confirmed him 92 to 3.)

1975 – The Troubles: Fleeing from the police, a Provisional IRA unit takes a British couple hostage in their flat on Balcombe Street, London, beginning a six-day siege.

1977 – South Africa grants independence to Bophuthatswana, although it is not recognized by any other country.

1978 – Spain ratifies the Spanish Constitution of 1978 in a referendum.

1982 – The Troubles: The Irish National Liberation Army bombed a pub frequented by British soldiers in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, killing eleven soldiers and six civilians.

1989 – The École Polytechnique massacre (or Montreal Massacre): Marc Lépine, an anti-feminist gunman, murders 14 young women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal.

1991 – In Croatia, forces of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) bombard Dubrovnik after laying siege to the city for seven months.

1992 – The Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, India, is demolished, leading to widespread riots causing the death of over 1,500 people.

1997 – A Russian Antonov An-124 Ruslan cargo plane crashes into an apartment complex near Irkutsk, Siberia, killing 67.

1998 – in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez is victorious in presidential elections.

2005 – An Iranian Air Force C-130 military transport aircraft crashes into a ten-floor apartment building in a residential area of Tehran, killing all 84 on board and 44 more on the ground.

2006 – NASA reveals photographs taken by Mars Global Surveyor suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars.

2015 – Venezuelan elections are held. For the first time in 17 years the United Socialist Party of Venezuela loses its majority in parliament.

2017 –”Supermassive” most distant black hole discovery announced by astronomers in journal “Nature”, 13 billion light-years away, 800 x bigger than the Sun. 

2018 – Luxembourg is the first country to make all public transport free.