On December 19

Andrei Karlov (pictured), Russia's ambassador to Turkey, was assassinated at an art gallery in Ankara.

The European Space Agency's spacecraft Gaia was launched with the goal of constructing the largest and most precise star catalogue ever made.

Titanic, the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time with a worldwide total of more than US$2.2 billion, was released in the United States.

SilkAir Flight 185 crashed into the Musi River in Indonesia, killing 104 people.

Aeroflot Flight 101/435 was hijacked by its co-pilot; it landed in a cow pasture in China, where he was apprehended.

China and the United Kingdom signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, agreeing to the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China on 1 July 1997.

The Jules Rimet Trophy, awarded to the winner of the FIFA World Cup, was stolen from the offices of the Brazilian Football Confederation.

The ruling junta of South Vietnam, led by Nguyễn Khánh, initiated a coup, dissolving the High National Council, a civilian advisory body.

British physician and suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams was arrested in connection with the death of Edith Alice Morrell.

A Christmas Carol (illustration pictured), a novella by Charles Dickens about the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation after being visited by ghosts, was published.

Nullification crisis: American vice president John C. Calhoun's South Carolina Exposition and Protest, written to protest the Tariff of Abominations, was presented to the South Carolina House of Representatives.

Thomas Paine published the first in a series of pamphlets entitled The American Crisis, opening with the line: "These are the times that try men's souls."

Henry II (depicted) was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey, London.