December 12
More than two years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece The Mona Lisa is recovered inside Italian waiter Vincenzo Peruggia’s hotel room in Florence. Peruggia previously had worked at the Louvre and had participated in the heist with a group of accomplices dressed as Louvre janitors on the morning of August 21, 1911. – 1913.
December 13
During the Sino-Japanese War, Nanking, the capital of China, falls to Japanese forces, and the Chinese government flees. To break the spirit of Chinese resistance the Japanese butchered an estimated 150,000 male so-called war prisoners, massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process. – 1937.
U.S. vice president Al Gore reluctantly concedes defeat to Texas governor George W. Bush in his bid for the presidency, following weeks of legal battles over the recounting of votes in Florida. Gore had won the national popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, but narrowly lost Florida to give the Electoral College to Bush, 271 to 266. – 2000.
After spending nine months on the run, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is captured. He had controlled the country for more than 20 years. – 2003.
December 14
Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes the first explorer to reach the South Pole ahead of his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott. – 1911.
Some 33,000 striking members of the Machinists end a 69-day walkout at Boeing after winning pay and benefit increases and protections against subcontracting some of their work overseas. – 1995.
A 20-year-old man shoots and kills his mother at their Newtown, Conn., home then drives to nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he kills 20 first graders and six school employees before turning a gun on himself. – 2012.
December 15
The Kansas National Guard is called out to subdue 2,000 to 6,000 protesting women who were going from mine to mine attacking non-striking miners in the Pittsburg coal fields. The women made headlines across the State and the Nation: They were christened the “Amazon Army” by The New York Times. – 1921.
Congress approves the labor-backed Age Discrimination in Employment Act. – 1967.
December 16
In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The midnight raid, popularly known as the “Boston Tea Party,” was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. – 1773.
One of the deadliest earthquakes in history hits the Gansu province of midwestern China and causes massive landslides and the deaths of an estimated 200,000 persons. The earthquake, which measured 8.5 magnitude on the Richter scale, affected an area of some 25,000 square miles, including 10 major population centers. – 1920.
Two airplanes collide over New York City and kill 134 persons on the planes and on the ground. The improbable mid-air collision is the only such accident to have occurred over a major city in U.S. history. – 1960.
December 17
Near Kitty Hawk, N.C., Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Orville piloted the gasoline-powered, propeller-driven biplane, which stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet on its inaugural flight. – 1903.
Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s enigmatic, reclusive dictator, dies of a heart attack. – 2011.
December 18
The British ship Mayflower docks at modern-day Plymouth, Mass., and its passengers prepare to begin their new settlement, Plymouth Colony. – 1620.
Japanese troops land in British crown colony Hong Kong, China. The Japanese troops are given the order “Take no prisoners” and a slaughter ensues. -1941.