Cosmic Convergence....

* 1783 - George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.
* 1793 - The Battle of Savenay, decisive defeat of the royalist counter-revolutionaries in Revolt in the Vendée during the French Revolution.
* 1823 - The poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (AKA The Night Before Christmas) is published in the Sentinel.
* 1888 - Vincent van Gogh cuts off the lower part of his left ear, takes it to a brothel, and gives it to a prostitute named Rachel.
* 1911 - Stanislavski and Craig's seminal production of Hamlet opened at the Moscow Arts Theatre.
* 1913 - The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve.
* 1916 - World War I: Battle of Magdhaba - Allied forces defeat Turkish forces in Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
* 1940 - World War II: Greek submarine Papanikolis (Υ-2) sinks the Italian motor ship Antonietta.
* 1941 - World War II: Japanese Imperial Army occupies Wake Island.
* 1946 - Cristiana is born.
* 1947 - The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
* 1972 - The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, having survived by cannibalism.
* 1979 - Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet forces occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital.
* 1986 - Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world.
* 2007 - A grand conjunction in which the solar system will align with the galactic center.