1481 Battle of Westbrook: Holland defeats Utrecht.

1773 Patriots expel tea ships from Philadelphia

1776 The Battle of Trenton: In a surprise attack, Washington defeats the Hessians

1792 Battle of Geisberg: the French defeat the Austrians.

1798 Neapolitans begin three days of skirmishing with the French-Polish Legion, near Itri

1806 Battles of Pultusk & Golymin: the Russian fight Napoleon to a draw

1811 Great Theatre Fire, Richmond, Va: Over 100 die

1825 The Decemberist Revolution: Russian officers stage an unsuccessful coup to prevent Nicholas I from becoming Tsar

1860 Maj Robert Anderson, commanding the garrison of the Charleston Harbor forts, concentrates his men at Ft Sumter

1862 1st US navy hospital ship, 'Red Rover' commissioned, with four Catholic nuns serving as nurses

1916 Joseph Joffre is made a Marshal of France

1917 American railroads are nationalized for the duration of WW I

1918 SecNav Josephus Daniels reviews the U.S. Fleet at New York

1933 US initiates the "Good Neighbor Policy," forswearing armed intervention in the Western Hemisphere

1941 MacArthur declares Manila an open city

1941 Winston Churchill becomes the first British PM to address Congress

1942 Americal Div makes limited gains against the Gifu, on Guadalcanal

1942 Japanese 20th Div begins moving from Korea to New Guinea

1943 1st Marine Div lands at Cape Gloucester, New Britain

1943 Battle of North Cape: Royal Navy sinks German BB Scharnhorst

1943 USS 'Brownson" (DD-518), sunk by Japanese Army a/c off Cape Gloucester, New Ireland

1944 Battle of the Bulge: US 4th Armored Div relieves Bastogne

1944 Japanese ships attack U.S. beachhead on Mindoro, the Philippines

1944 The Red Army surrounds Budapest

1985 Palestinian terrorists slay 15 at the Rome & Vienna airports, before being killed

1991 Militant Sikhs kill 55 & wound 70 in India