Today:
1497 – Vasco da Gama rounds the Cape of Good Hope, opening a sea route to India.
1653 – Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
1707 – The last eruption of Mount Fuji in Japan begins, lasting until January 1, 1708.
1773 – The Boston Tea Party takes place as American colonists protest British taxation by dumping tea into Boston Harbor.
1835 – A great fire devastates New York City, destroying over 600 buildings in lower Manhattan.
1907 – The American Great White Fleet, a group of 16 battleships, begins its circumnavigation of the globe to demonstrate naval power.
1944 – The German military begins the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, a major offensive in the Ardennes region.
1965 – NASA launches Gemini 6A, with astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford aboard, for the first rendezvous in orbit with Gemini 7.
1991 – Kazakhstan declares independence from the Soviet Union, becoming the last republic to do so.
2014 – The United States and Cuba announce the restoration of diplomatic relations after decades of tension.
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