On this day: December 31

Events on December 31

• 1600 The British East India Company is chartered. Wikipedia
• 1687 The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope. Wikipedia
• 1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum to the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin and began brewing Guinness. Wikipedia
• 1775 American Revolutionary War: At the Battle of Quebec, British forces repulsed an attempt by the Continental Army to capture Quebec City and enlist French Canadian support. Wikipedia
• 1857 Queen Victoria announced the choice of Ottawa , then a small logging town, to be the capital of the British colony of Canada. Wikipedia
• 1862 The Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, began with an engagement in which both sides would suffer their highest casualty rates in the American Civil War. Wikipedia
• 1862 American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an enabling act that would admit West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two. Wikipedia
• 1907 New York City held its first annual ball drop event in Times Square as part of New Year's Eve celebrations. Wikipedia
• 1909 The Manhattan Bridge, connecting Lower Manhattan to Downtown Brooklyn and considered to be the forerunner of modern suspension bridges, opened to traffic. Wikipedia
• 1950 Korean War: North Korean troops attacked United Nations forces in the first of two battles at Wonju. Wikipedia
• 1951 Cold War: The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Western Europe. Wikipedia
• 1955 General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year. Wikipedia
• 1961 RTÉ, Ireland's first television network, began broadcasting. Wikipedia
• 1965 Central African military officers led by Jean-Bédel Bokassa began a coup d'état against the government of President David Dacko. Wikipedia
• 1972 Puerto Rican baseball player Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash en route to deliver aid to victims of that year's Nicaragua earthquake. Wikipedia
• 1983 Two Australian biologists published an article titled "A Synopsis of the Class Reptilia in Australia", initiating the Wells and Wellington affair. Wikipedia
• 1986 Three disgruntled employees set fire to the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, killing more than 90 people and injuring 140 others, making it the second-deadliest hotel fire in American history. Wikipedia
• 1991 All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date, five days after the Soviet Union is officially dissolved. Wikipedia
• 1992 Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Wikipedia
• 1993 Brandon Teena, an American trans man, was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska; his death led to increased lobbying for hate crime laws in the United States. Wikipedia
• 1998 The European Exchange Rate Mechanism froze the exchange rates of the legacy currencies in the eurozone, establishing the value of the euro. Wikipedia
• 1999 Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin became acting president upon President Boris Yeltsin's unexpected resignation. Wikipedia
• 1999 In accordance with the Torrijos–Carter Treaties, Panama assumed full control of the Panama Canal Zone from the United States. Wikipedia
• 2004 Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan, opened to the public as the world's tallest building. Wikipedia
• 2006 War in Somalia: Transitional Federal Government forces attacked the last stronghold of the Islamic Courts Union in the town of Jilib. Wikipedia
• 2019 The World Health Organization is informed of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause, detected in Wuhan. This later turned out to be COVID-19, the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wikipedia

Born on December 31

• 1378 Pope Callixtus III (died 1458) Wikipedia
• 1491 Jacques Cartier, French navigator and explorer (died 1557) Wikipedia
• 1514 Andreas Vesalius, Belgian anatomist, physician, and author (died 1564) Wikipedia
• 1668 Herman Boerhaave, Dutch botanist and physician (died 1738) Wikipedia
• 1720 Charles Edward Stuart, Scottish claimant to the throne of England (died 1788) Wikipedia
• 1738 Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, English general and politician, 3rd Governor-General of India (died 1805) Wikipedia
• 1741 Gottfried August Bürger, German poet and academic (died 1794) Wikipedia
• 1805 Marie d'Agoult, German-French historian and author (died 1876) Wikipedia
• 1830 Isma'il Pasha, Egyptian ruler (died 1895) Wikipedia
• 1838 Émile Loubet, French lawyer and politician, 7th President of France (died 1929) Wikipedia
• 1855 Giovanni Pascoli, Italian poet and scholar (died 1912) Wikipedia
• 1869 Henri Matisse, French painter and sculptor (died 1954) Wikipedia
• 1880 George Marshall, American general and politician, 50th United States Secretary of State (died 1959) Wikipedia
• 1908 Simon Wiesenthal, Ukrainian-Austrian Nazi hunter and author (died 2005) Wikipedia
• 1937 Avram Hershko, Hungarian-Israeli biochemist and physician Wikipedia
• 1941 Sir Alex Ferguson, Scottish footballer and manager Wikipedia
• 1954 Alex Salmond, Scottish economist and politician (died 2024) Wikipedia
• 1959 Val Kilmer, American actor (died 2025) Wikipedia
• 1959 Baron Waqa, Nauruan composer and politician, 14th President of Nauru Wikipedia
• 1960 Steve Bruce, English footballer and manager Wikipedia
• 1982 Craig Gordon, Scottish footballer Wikipedia
• 1987 Seydou Doumbia, Ivorian footballer Wikipedia

Died on December 31

• 192 Commodus, Roman emperor (born 161) Wikipedia
• 335 Pope Sylvester I Wikipedia
• 1384 John Wycliffe, English philosopher, theologian, and translator (born 1331) Wikipedia
• 1691 Robert Boyle, Anglo-Irish chemist and physicist (born 1627) Wikipedia
• 1719 John Flamsteed, English astronomer and academic (born 1646) Wikipedia
• 1872 Aleksis Kivi, Finnish author and playwright (born 1834) Wikipedia
• 1877 Gustave Courbet, French-Swiss painter and sculptor (born 1819) Wikipedia
• 1936 Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish philosopher, author, and poet (born 1864) Wikipedia
• 1980 Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher and theorist (born 1911) Wikipedia
• 1993 Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgian anthropologist and politician, 1st President of Georgia (born 1939) Wikipedia
• 2015 Natalie Cole, American singer-songwriter and actress (born 1950) Wikipedia
• 2021 Betty White, American actress, comedian and producer (born 1922) Wikipedia
• 2022 Pope Benedict XVI, German Roman Catholic cardinal and theologian, pope (2005–2013) and archbishop of Munich and Freising (1977–1982) (born 1927) Wikipedia
• 2024 Arnold Rüütel, Estonian politician, 3rd President of Estonia (born 1928) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Pope Sylvester I (Catholic Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: December 31 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• International Solidarity Day of Azerbaijanis (Azerbaijan) Wikipedia
• New Year's Eve (International observance), and its related observances: First Night (United States) Wikipedia
• New Year's Eve (International observance), and its related observances: Last Day of the Year or Bisperás ng Bagong Taón, special holiday between Rizal Day and New Year's Day (Philippines) Wikipedia
• New Year's Eve (International observance), and its related observances: Novy God Eve (Russia) Wikipedia
• New Year's Eve (International observance), and its related observances: Ōmisoka (Japan) Wikipedia
• New Year's Eve (International observance), and its related observances: The first day of Hogmanay or "Auld Year's Night" (Scotland) Wikipedia
• The seventh of the Twelve Days of Christmas (Western Christianity) Wikipedia
• The sixth and penultimate day of Kwanzaa (United States) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “December 31” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/December 31” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “December 31” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for December 31 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.