North Macedonia

1906 – Dositej, the first Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia, is born. He was elected Pontiff of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in 1958. He died in Skopje on May 20, 1981.

1993 – Writer, poet and scholar Blazhe Koneski dies in Skopje. He was the first president of the Macedonian Writers Association, first president of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, laureate of the Struga Poetry Evenings. He was born in the village of Nebregovo near Prilep on Dec. 19, 1921.

World

574 – Byzantine Emperor Justin II retires due to recurring seizures of insanity. He abdicates the throne in favor of his general Tiberius, proclaiming him Caesar.

1724 – Tumult of Thorn: Religious unrest is followed by the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities.

1869 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.

1909 – Nikola Jonkov Vapcarov, Bulgarian and Macedonian poet and revolutionary, is born in Bansko. He was one of the founders of the Macedonian literary circle in Sofia. Vapcarov was shot by the Bulgarian fascists in Sofia on 23 July 1942.

1917 – World War I: The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.

1941 – World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (For Japan’s near-simultaneous attacks on Eastern Hemisphere targets, see Dec. 8.)

1949 – Chinese Civil War: The Government of the Republic of China moves from Nanking to Taipei, Taiwan.

1962 – Prince Rainier III of Monaco revises the principality’s constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils.

1965 – Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously revoke mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.

1971 – Pakistan President Yahya Khan announces the formation of a coalition government with Nurul Amin as Prime Minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Deputy Prime Minister.

1972 – Imelda Marcos survives an assassination attempt using a bolo knife against her.

1972 – Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.

1982 – In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr., becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.

1983 – An Iberia Airlines Boeing 727 collides with an Aviaco DC-9 in dense fog while the two airliners are taxiing down the runway at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 93 people.

1987 – Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shoots both pilots and himself.

1988 – Spitak earthquake: In Armenia an earthquake measuring 6.8 (surface wave magnitude) kills more than 25,000, injures 30,000 and leaves 500,000 homeless out of a population of 3,500,000.

1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.

1999 – A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: The Recording Industry Association of America sues the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster, alleging copyright infringement.

2015 – The JAXA probe Akatsuki successfully enters orbit around Venus five years after the first attempt.

2017 – Unrest in West Bank and Gaza, schools closed and a general strike in response to America’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

2020 – Coca-Cola named the world’s No. 1 plastic polluter, in Break Free From Plastic’s annual brand audit.