On December 28, 1989, Newcastle experienced an earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale which killed 13 people, injured 162 and destroyed or severely damaged a number of prominent buildings which had to be subsequently demolished.
It was one of Australia’s most serious natural disasters. The damage bill has been estimated at A$4 billion (including an […]

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Elizabeth Jordan Carr (born 28 December 1981) was the United States’ first baby born from the in-vitro fertilization procedure and the 15th in the world.
The technique was conducted at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk under the direction of Doctors Howard Jones and Georgeanna Seegar-Jones, who were the first to try it in the United […]

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Billy Wright was a Northern Irish paramilitary, a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and leader of the extremist Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF).
Wright had been convicted of threatening to kill a woman and imprisoned in the Maze Prison in April 1997. A tense situation existed within the Maze prison. In July, INLA inmates told […]

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The Rome and Vienna airport attacks were two major terrorist attacks carried out on December 27, 1985.
At 0815 GMT, four gunmen walked to the ticket counter of Israel’s El Al Airlines and TWA Airlines at Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome, Italy, and opened fire with assault rifles and grenades. They killed 16 people and […]

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The Soufrière Hills volcano (otherwise nicknamed Montserrat) is an active complex stratovolcano with many lava domes forming its summit on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.
After a long period of dormancy, seismic activity had occurred at the volcano for most of the 20th century, but 1995 was the first time an eruption had occurred. When pyroclastic […]

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The Tupolev Tu-144 was the first supersonic transport aircraft (SST), constructed under the direction of the Soviet Tupolev design bureau.
Western observers nicknamed the plane Concordski, sounding like a Russian surname yet still very close to the Concorde, to which the Tu-144 was visually similar. A prototype first flew on 31 December 1968 near Moscow, two […]

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Salyut 4 (DOS 4) was a Salyut space station launched on December 26, 1974 into an orbit with an apogee of 355 km, a perigee of 343 km and an orbital inclination of 51.6 degrees.
It was essentially a copy of the DOS 3, and unlike its ill-fated sibling it was a complete success. Three crews […]

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The initial Soviet deployment of the 40th Army in Afghanistan began on December 25, 1979.
The Soviet war in Afghanistan also known as the Soviet-Afghan War was a nine-year conflict involving Soviet forces supporting the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government against the largely Islamic fundamentalist Mujahideen insurgents. The latter group found support from […]

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The Stone of Scone, also commonly known as the Stone of Destiny or the Coronation Stone is an oblong block of red sandstone, about 26 inches by 16 inches by 10.5 inches in size and weighing approximately 336 pounds that traditionally sat in the Coronation Chair.
On Christmas Day 1950, a group of four Scottish students […]

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The Constitution of the Republic of China is currently the basic governing document for the areas controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), namely all of Taiwan Province, Taipei and Kaohsiung municipalities, and Kinmen county and part of Lienchiang county of Fukien (or Fuchien) Province.
The constitution itself was drafted before the fall of mainland China […]

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