8 Dec 1978       ‘The Deer Hunter’ starring Robert De Niro had its premiere in Los Angeles.
8 Dec 1980       John Lennon was murdered.
8 Dec 2013       Metallica did a show in Antarctica, making them the first band to perform on all seven continents.
8 Dec 2019       The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in China.

9 Dec 1851       The first YMCA in North America was established in Montreal.
9 Dec 1868       The first traffic lights were installed outside the Palace of Westminster in London.
9 Dec 1929       Howard Hughes divorced his first wife Ella Rice.
9 Dec 1960       ‘Coronation Street’ made its TV debut.
9 Dec 1990       Lech Wałęsa became Poland’s first elected president.

10 Dec 1768     The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published.
10 Dec 1799     The Metric system was first adopted in France.
10 Dec 1936     Edward VIII abdicated the British throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
10 Dec 1953     Winston Churchill received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
10 Dec 1962     ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ starring Peter O’Toole had its premiere at the Odeon in Leicester Square.
10 Dec 1967     Otis Reading died.
10 Dec 1997     Evel Knievel divorced Linda Joan Bork after 38 years of marriage.

11 Dec 1816     Indiana became the 19th US state.
11 Dec 1934     Bill Wilson had his last drink and co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous.
11 Dec 1972     Apollo 17 became the sixth and final Apollo mission to land on the Moon.

12 Dec 1901     Guglielmo Marconi sent the first transatlantic radio signal, from Poldhu in Cornwall to Newfoundland, Canada.
12 Dec 1988     35 people died in the Clapham Junction rail crash.
12 Dec 1991     Richard Gere married Cindy Crawford in Las Vegas.
12 Dec 1992     Princess Anne married Timothy Laurence.
12 Dec 2019     Boris Johnson won the General Election with a landslide victory with an 80 seat majority.
12 Dec 2021     Max Verstappen won his first F1 World championship, the first from the Netherlands to win the title.

13 Dec 1577     Francis Drake set sail from England on an epic three year circumnavigation of the world aboard the ‘Pelican’, later renamed the ‘Golden Hind’.
13 Dec 1961     The Beatles signed a formal management agreement with Brian Epstein.
13 Dec 1989     ‘Driving Miss Daisy, starring Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy was released.
13 Dec 2001     Kate Winslet divorced Jim Threapleton after 3 years of marriage.

14 Dec 1542     Princess Mary Stuart succeeded her father James V and became Queen Mary I of Scotland at 6 days old.
14 Dec 1840     Napoleon Bonaparte received a French state funeral in Paris 19 years after his death.
14 Dec 1903     The Wright brothers made their first attempt to fly with the Wright Flyer.
14 Dec 1911     Roald Amundsen’s Antarctic expedition became the first to reach the South Pole.
14 Dec 1962     NASA’s Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.
14 Dec 1993     ‘Philadelphia’ starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington had its premiere.