The Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR approved the Law of the RSFSR "On renaming of the state of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic", which took effect immediately. The new name of the state was the Russian Federation (Russia) Effective dissolving the USSR. The Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin and then replaced by the tricolor Russian Federation flag. More
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What Happened in December?
Victories, births, and treaties. Explore the significant historical events and milestones that occurred in December. Dates for earlier events may be approximate.
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The first text message is sent from a computer by Neil Papworth, a 22-year-old software programmer from the UK working for Vodaphone to his colleague Richard Jarvis. The message was “Merry Christmas.”
One year later in 1993, Nokia introduced an SMS feature with a distinctive ‘beep’ to signal an incoming message. More
U.S. President George H.W. Bush, orders about 25.000 U.S. troops to Somalia as part of an agreement with the UN to protect aid workers. The military operation encounter difficulties from the start due to the absence of a national Somali leadership and the daily fighting in the streets of the capital city of Mogadishu.
Weeks later, the new U.S. president, Bill Clinton, ordered the number of U.S. troops to be reduced as other UN forces come in. In October 1993, soon after an incident at Mogadishu where 18 U.S. soldiers lost their lives and two U.S. two helicopters were shut down, Clinton orders all U.S. combat troops to be out of Somalia by March 31. A year later UN troops were also withdrawn, leaving the country engulfed in clan warfare. More
The Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India, is demolished by Hindu nationalists, leading to communal violence.
Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is killed in a shootout with authorities.
Russian troops enter Chechnya on December 11,1994 (First Chechen War) to restore Russian rule after Chechnya declared independence following the Soviet collapse. It was a devastating operation, particularly the siege of Grozny with massive civilian casualties. Russian control was regained but the insurgency continued.
The Dayton Agreement is signed, ending the Bosnian War with the goal of achieving peace in the Balkans.
The NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) is deployed to Bosnia to insure compliance to the Dayton Agreement as NATO assumes peacekeeping duties. More
The Mars Pathfinder American robotic spacecraft is launched by NASA on December 4. 1996 aboard a Delta II booster. It landed a base station with a roving probe on Mars on July 4 1997. It was the first rover to operate outside the Earth–Moon system.
It consisted of a lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and a lightweight, 10.6 kg (23 lb) wheeled robotic Mars rover named Sojourner. The mission carried a series of scientific instruments to analyze the Martian atmosphere, climate, and geology and the composition of its rocks and soil. The mission terminated in 1998.
South African President Nelson Mandela signs a new constitution into law on December 10, 1996 that completes a transition from a long period of white minority rule (apartheid) to full-fledged democracy. More
The Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty to combat climate change, is adopted.
President Clinton orders air attack on Iraq and the United States joined by Britain begin operation "Desert Fox" on December 16,1998 as a reaction to Saddam Hussein's refusal to cooperate with UNSCOM's inspectors and to degrade Iraq's ability to produce weapons of mass destruction as well as to diminish the Iraqi threat to its neighbors. More
The U.S. House of Representatives impeaches President Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Macau is handed back to China by Portugal, marking the end of Portuguese colonial rule.
The Panama Canal is transferred from U.S. control to Panamanian ownership.
Vladimir Putin becomes Russia's acting president on December 31, 1999, after Boris Yeltsin resignation. He was officially elected and inaugurated on May 7, 2000, beginning his first term. Since then, he has served multiple terms as president, with breaks as prime minister, holding the presidency from 2000–2008, 2012–present, and earlier as acting president.
The United States Supreme Court releases its 5-4 decision in the case of Bush v. Gore with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor providing the "swing vote".
The Court decision effectively ended the Florida recount of the presidential election. The decision led to the election of George W. Bush as President of the United States. Gore won the popular vote by 537,179 votes but Bush won 271 Electoral votes versus 266 for Gore, who conceded the following day. More
The Enron Corporation files for bankruptcy. Eventually some of Enron aggressive accounting practices which misrepresented its financial results.
The accounting practices included claiming future unrealized gains from some trading contracts into current income and the transferring of troubled operations to so-called special purpose entities (SPEs), keeping the assets off Enron’s books, making its losses look less severe than they really were. Enron’s collapse, cost investors billions of dollars, wiped out over 5,600 jobs and liquidated over $2 billion in pension plans. It also triggered the collapse of Arthur Anderson which had served not only as Enron’s auditor but also as a consultant to the company. More about Enron - More about the executives
China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO) after 15 years of negotiations.
Richard Reid, the “Shoe bomber” attempts to detonate bombs on a Paris to Miami flight, just months after the 9/11 attacks. More