The U.S. House of Representatives impeaches President Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.
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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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Macau is handed back to China by Portugal, marking the end of Portuguese colonial rule.
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 Panama Canal is transferred from U.S. control to Panamanian ownership.
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
Argentina defaults on its external debt and announces the suspension of payments, the biggest debt default in history to date. The government suspended payments on over $132 billion of federal sovereign debt. The default followed a four-year recession and mounting social unrest.
Argentina defaulted again on May 22, 2020, missing a $500 million payment to creditors, marking its ninth default in history. Argentina has a history of debt defaults and restructurings having experiencied nine defaults since gaining independence in 1816. More
Saddam Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq, is captured by U.S. forces near Tikrit. after 9 months of hiding. He was tried and convicted of crimes against humanity. He was executed on December 30, 2006.
The Sumatra-Andaman 9.3 Earthquake, strikes in the India Ocean off the coast of Sumatra. The massive under-sea quake triggered a Tsunami with waves up to 100 Feet (30 meters) affecting 14 countries, resulting in an estimated 230,000 fatalities and billions in material losses.
Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka experienced the highest death tolls, with the city of Banda Aceh in Indonesia being particularly hard-hit. It was the largest earthquake ever recorded in Asia and one of the largest worldwide and the tsunami, the deadliest tsunami in history. More
Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, is executed December 30, 2006, after being convicted in 2004 of crimes against humanity. More
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in Rawalpindi. More
Bernard Madoff, American hedge-fund investment manager is arrested by the FBI at his home on December 11, 1988.
He was tried, found guilty and sentenced to up to 150 years in prison for operating the largest Ponzi scheme in history worth an estimated $65 billion. Madoff pleaded guilty in March 2009 to 11 federal felonies, including securities fraud and money laundering, and was subsequently sentenced to 150 years in prison, dying in 2021
The Lisbon Treaty, which reformed the European Union's (EC) institutions, comes into force on December 1, 2009. It had been signed on December 13, 2007.
The outbreak of the Arab Spring begins when Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, sets himself on fire in protest, sparking widespread demonstrations.
The last convoy of U.S. troops leaves Iraq, officially marking the end of the Iraq War. Violence continued and in fact worsened over the subsequent years. As of the end of 2024, the U.S. still has a military presence of about 2,500 personnel in Iraq as part of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve effort. Talks continue on Security cooperation. More
Typhoon Bopha, known in the Philippines locally as Pablo makes landfall three times in the Philippines in spreading destruction across 30 provinces. In all, 5.4 million people were affected, and at least 2,000 died or were reported missing. More
Twenty first graders from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and six school employees are killed by Adam Lanza before turning a gun on himself. Earlier the same day, he killed his mother at the home they shared. More
Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa and anti-apartheid icon, died on December 5, 2013, at the age of 95. He passed away at his home in Houghton, Johannesburg, surrounded by his family.