A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Khövsgöl Province, Mongolia.

Argentine economic crisis (1999-2002)|Argentine economic crisis: December 2001 riots (Argentina)|December 2001 riots

The Leninist Guerrilla Units wing of the Communist Labour Party of Turkey/Leninist attack a Nationalist Movement Party office in Istanbul, killing one person and injuring three.

Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives forwards articles I and III of impeachment against President Bill Clinton to the Senate.

SilkAir Flight 185 crashes into the Musi River, near Palembang in Indonesia, killing 104.

The United States Government restores federal recognition to the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indian tribe.

Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, releases Andrei Sakharov and his wife from internal exile in Gorky.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration, stating that the People's Republic of China would resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and the United Kingdom would restore Hong Kong to China with effect from July 1, 1997 is signed in Beijing by Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher.

The original FIFA World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro.

Sixteen lives are lost when the Penlee lifeboat goes to the aid of the stricken coaster Union Star in heavy seas.

John Paul Stevens is appointed a justice of The United States Supreme Court.

Apollo program: The last manned lunar flight, ''Apollo 17'', crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth.

Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt is officially presumed dead.

The South Vietnamese military junta of Nguyen Khanh dissolved the High National Council and arrested some of the members.

India annexes Daman and Diu, part of Portuguese India.

Start of the First Indochina War.

World War II: Adolf Hitler becomes Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the German Army.

BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service

The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.

King Constantine I is restored as King of the Hellenes after the death of his son Alexander I of Greece and a plebiscite.

World War I: Battle of Verdun

William H. Van Schaick, captain of the steamship ''General Slocum'' which caught fire and killed over 1,000 people, is pardoned by U.S. President William Howard Taft after three-and-a-half-years in Sing Sing prison.

Football club Borussia Dortmund is founded.

A group of 239 coal miners die during a mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.

The first issue of ''The Blade'' newspaper is published in Toledo, Ohio.

Nullification Crisis: Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun pens the ''South Carolina Exposition and Protest'', protesting the Tariff of 1828.

American Revolutionary War: George Washington's Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in the ''Pennsylvania Journal'' titled The American Crisis.

The ''Susan Constant'', the ''Godspeed'', and the ''Discovery'' depart England carrying settlers who found, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.

Anne, Duchess of Brittany, is married to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor by proxy.

Henry II of England is crowned at Westminster Abbey.

Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor.