939 – Edmund was crowned King of England as his half-brother Aethelstan died.
1394 – The Korean king Yi Song-gye, founder of the Joseon-Dynasty, moved the capital from Kaesŏng to Hanyang, today known as Seoul.
1777 – San Jose, California, was founded as el Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe.
1781 – The crew of the British slave ship Zong murdered 133 Africans by dumping them into the sea in order to claim insurance.
1807 – The Portuguese Royal Family left Lisbon to escape from Napoleonic troops.
1830 – November Uprising: An armed rebellion against Russia’s rule in Poland began.
1832 Louisa May Alcott, American novelist, was born (d. 1888).
1845 – The Sonderbund was defeated by the joint forces of other Swiss cantons under General Guillaume-Henri Dufour.
1849 Sir John Ambrose Fleming, British physicist, was born (d. 1945).
1850 – The treaty, Punctation of Olmütz, signed in Olomouc meant diplomatic capitulation of Prussia to Austrian Empire, which took over the leadership of German Confederation.
1864 – Indian Wars: Sand Creek Massacre – Colorado volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington massacred at least 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho noncombatants.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Spring Hill – Confederate advance into Tennessee missed the opportunity to crush the Union army.
1872 – Indian Wars: The Modoc War began with the Battle of Lost River.
1890 – The Meiji Constitution went into effect in Japan and the first Diet convened.
1893 Elizabeth Yates became the first woman in the British Empire to win a mayoral election when she became Mayor of Onehunga.
1898 C. S. Lewis, Irish writer, was born(d. 1963).
1910 – The first US patent for inventing the traffic lights system was issued to Ernest E. Sirrine.
1915 – Fire destroyed most of the buildings on Santa Catalina Island, California.
1917 Merle Travis, American singer/guitarist, was born (d. 1983).
1922 – Howard Carter opened the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun to the public.
1929 – U.S. Admiral Richard Byrd becamed the first person to fly over the South Pole.
1932 Jacques Chirac, French President, was born.
1933 John Mayall, British blues musician, was born.
1943 – The second session of AVNOJ, the Anti-fascist council of national liberation of Yugoslavia, was held determining the post-war ordering of the country.
1944 – Albania was liberated by the Albanian partisans.
1945 – The Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was declared.
1947 – The United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Palestine (The Partition Plan).
1950 – Korean War: North Korean and Chinese troops force United Nations forces to retreat from North Korea.
1952 – Korean War: U.S. President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfilled a campaign promise by traveling to Korea to find out what can be done to end the conflict.
1961 – Mercury-Atlas 5 Mission – Enos, a chimpanzee, was launched into space.
1963 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
1963 – Trans-Canada Airlines Flight 831: A Douglas DC-8 carrying 118, crashed after taking-off.
1965 – Canadian Space Agency launched the satellite Alouette 2.
1972 – Nolan Bushnell (co-founder of Atari) released Pong (the first commercially successful video game) in Andy Capp’s Tavern in Sunnyvale, California.
1987 – Korean Air Flight 858 exploded over the Thai-Burmese border, killing 155.
1990 – The United Nations Security Council passed United Nations Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing “use all necessary means to uphold and implement” United Nations Security Council Resolution 660″ to restore international peace and security” if Iraq did not withdraw its forces from Kuwait and free all foreign hostages by January 15, 1991.
2007 – The Armed Forces of the Philippines laid siege to The Peninsula Manila after soldiers led by Senator Antonio Trillanes staged a mutiny.
2007 – A 7.4 magnitude earthquake off the northern coast of Martinique.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia