- 1990 – Garry Kasparov beat Anatoly Karpov to retain the chess championship.
- 1991 – The Soviet Union’s parliament formally voted the country out of existence.
- 1995 – Israel turned dozens of West Bank villages over to the Palestinian Authority.
- 1996 – Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, CO.
- 1998 – Iraq announced that it would fire on U.S. and British warplanes that patrol the skies over northern and southern Iraq.
- 1999 – Alfonso Portillo, a populist lawyer, won Guatemala’s first peacetime presidential elections in 40 years.
- 2000 – Michael McDermott, age 42, opened fire at his place of employment killing seven people. McDermott had no criminal history.
- 2002 – The first cloned human baby was born. The announcement was made the December 27 by Clonaid.
- 2004 – Under the Indian Ocean, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake sent 500-mph waves across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal. The tsunami killed at least 283,000 people in a dozen countries, including Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Sumatra, Thailand and India.
- 2004 – Orange Revolution: The final run-off election in Ukraine is held under heavy international scrutiny.
- 2006 – 2006 Hengchun earthquakes.
- 2012 – China opens the world’s longest high-speed rail route, which links Beijing and Guangzhou.
- 2015 – During the December 2015 North American storm complex, a Tornado Outbreak occurred in the DFW Metroplex, with the most notable tornadoes being an EF2, EF3, and an EF4. About a dozen people died due to various reasons, 10 of which due to the EF4, which did substantial damage to the suburb of Rowlett.
Celebrating Birthday today
- 1981 – Pablo Canavosio, Argentinian-Italian rugby player
- 1981 – Nikolai Nikolaeff, Australian actor
- 1982 – Kenneth Darby, American football player
- 1982 – Noel Hunt, Irish footballer
- 1982 – Aksel Lund Svindal, Norwegian skier
- 1983 – Yu Takahashi, Japanese singer-songwriter
- 1983 – Alexander Wang, American fashion designer
- 1984 – Ahmed Barusso, Ghanaian footballer
- 1984 – Leonardo Ghiraldini, Italian rugby player
- 1984 – Alex Schwazer, Italian race walker
- 1985 – Beth Behrs, American actress
- 1986 – Joe Alexander, American-Israeli basketball player
- 1986 – Kit Harington, English actor
- 1986 – Hugo Lloris, French footballer
- 1986 – Selen Soyder, Turkish actress and beauty queen
- 1989 – Yohan Blake, Jamaican sprinter
- 1990 – Jon Bellion, American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer
- 1990 – Andy Biersack, American singer-songwriter
- 1990 – Denis Cheryshev, Russian footballer
- 1990 – Aaron Ramsey, Welsh footballer
- 1991 – Eden Sher, American actress
- 1992 – Cecilia Costa Melgar, Chilean tennis player
- 1992 – Jade Thirlwall, English singer
- 1994 – Souleymane Coulibaly, Ivorian footballer