Events on December 31 51
Year 535
Byzantine general Belisarius completes the conquest of Sicily, defeating the Gothic garrison of Palermo (Panormos), and ending his consulship for the year.
Year 870
Battle of Englefield: The Vikings clash with ealdorman Æthelwulf of Berkshire. The invaders are driven back to Reading (East Anglia), many Danes are killed.
Year 1225
The Lý dynasty of Vietnam ends after 216 years by the enthronement of the boy emperor Trần Thái Tông, husband of the last Lý monarch, Lý Chiêu Hoàng, starting the Trần dynasty.
Year 1229
James I of Aragon the Conqueror enters Medina Mayurqa (now known as Palma, Spain) thus consummating the Christian reconquest of the island of Majorca.
Year 1757
Empress Elizabeth I of Russia issues her ukase incorporating Königsberg into Russia.
Year 1759
Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
Year 1775
American Revolutionary War: Battle of Quebec: British forces repulse an attack by Continental Army General Richard Montgomery.
Year 1790
Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today, is published for the first time.
Year 1853
A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London, England.
Year 1857
Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.
Year 1862
American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.
Year 1862
American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River begins near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
Year 1878
Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879.
Year 1879
Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
Year 1907
The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in Manhattan.
Year 1944
World War II: Operation Nordwind, the last major German offensive on the Western Front begins.
Year 1946
President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.
Year 1951
The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
Year 1955
General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.
Year 1961
RTÉ, Ireland's state broadcaster, launches its first national television service.
Year 1963
The Central African Federation officially collapses, subsequently becoming Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.
Year 1965
Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central African Republic army, and his military officers begins a coup d'état against the government of President David Dacko.
Year 1968
The first flight of the Tupolev Tu-144, the first civilian supersonic transport.
Year 1981
A coup d'état in Ghana removes President Hilla Limann's PNP government and replaces it with the Provisional National Defence Council led by Flight lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.
Year 1983
In Nigeria a coup d'état led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari ends the Second Nigerian Republic.
Year 1986
Arson at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico kills 97 people and injures 140.
Year 1991
All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date 5 days after the Soviet Union is officially dissolved.
Year 1992
Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Year 1994
This date is skipped altogether in Kiribati as the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands change time zones from UTC−11:00 to UTC+13:00 and UTC−10:00 to UTC+14:00, respectively.
Year 1998
The European Exchange Rate Mechanism freezes the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and establishes the value of the euro currency.
Year 1999
First President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor.
Year 1999
The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
Year 1999
Indian Airlines Flight 814 hijacking ended after seven days with the release of 190 survivors at Kandahar Airport, Afghanistan.
Year 2004
The official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper at that time in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft).
Year 2010
Tornadoes touch down in midwestern and southern United States, including Washington County, Arkansas; Greater St. Louis, Sunset Hills, Missouri, Illinois, and Oklahoma, with a few tornadoes in the early hours. A total 36 tornadoes touched down, resulting in the deaths of nine people and $113 million in damages.
Year 2011
NASA succeeds in putting the first of two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory satellites in orbit around the Moon.
Year 2014
A New Year's Eve celebration stampede in Shanghai kills at least 36 people and injures 49 others.
Year 2015
A fire broke out at the Downtown Address Hotel in Downtown Dubai, United Arab Emirates located near the Burj Khalifa 2 hours before the fireworks display was due to commence. 16 injuries were reported; one had a heart attack, another suffered a major injury, and fourteen others with minor injuries,