1854 - Eureka Stockade: More than twenty goldminers at Ballarat, Australia were killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences. Claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy.
1929 - Great Depression: US President Herbert Hoover announces to U.S. Congress that the worst effects of the recent stock market crash are behind the nation and the American people have regained faith in the economy.
1979 - In Cincinnati, Ohio, a stampede for seats at Riverfront Coliseum during a Who concert kills eleven fans (band members were not made aware of the deaths until after the show).
1984 - Bhopal Disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures anywhere from 150,000 to 600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.
1989 - Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of Malta, US President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the cold war between their nations may be coming to an end (some commentators from both nations exaggerated the wording and independently declared the Cold War over).
1990 - At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a McDonnell Douglas DC_9 carrying Northwest Airlines Flight 1482 collides with a Boeing 727 carrying Northwest Airlines Flight 299 on the runway, killing 8 passengers and 4 crewmembers aboard flight 1482.
1992 - The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil runs aground in a storm while on approach to La Coruña, Spain, and spills much of its cargo.
1997 - In Ottawa, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign a treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, Russia do not sign the treaty, however.
The Bush administration summons Canadian ambassador Frank McKenna, and is expected to formally lodge a complaint after Prime Minister Paul Martin's criticism on December 7 of the United States at the Montreal conference on climate change.
At an inquest into the death of UN worker Iain Hook, Paul Wolstenholme, a United Nations worker in Jenin claims that moments after Iain Hook was shot by a mysterious sniper rifle-shot to the pelvis, an Israeli sniper rifle laser was pointed at his head.
Williams is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 0:01 PST on December 13.