1st December

Every December 1st., World's AIDS Day is celebrated worldwide to remember the victims of HIV and AIDS, to learn more about the devastating effects of the disease around the world, and to reaffirm the world's commitment to fight HIV and AIDS. This year's theme is "Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS"; a theme that focuses on how the effects of HIV/AIDS have significantly increased among women.

Global HIV and AIDS estimates, end of 2009

The latest statistics of the global HIV and AIDS epidemic were published by UNAIDS in November 2010, and refer to the end of 2009.

	Estimate	Range
People living with HIV/AIDS in 2009	33.3 million	31.4-35.3 million
Adults living with HIV/AIDS in 2009	30.8 million	29.2-32.6 million
Women living with HIV/AIDS in 2009	15.9 million	14.8-17.2 million
Children living with HIV/AIDS in 2009	2.5 million	1.6-3.4 million
People newly infected with HIV in 2009	2.6 million	2.3-2.8 million
Adults newly infected with HIV in 2009	2.2 million	2.0-2.4 million
AIDS deaths in 2009	1.8 million	1.6-2.1 million
Orphans (0-17) due to AIDS in 2009	16.6 million	14.4-18.8 million

At the end of 2009, women accounted for just over half of all adults living with HIV worldwide.

1st December

• 1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

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2nd December

1930 – Great Depression: US President Herbert Hoover goes before the United States Congress and asks for a US$150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.

3rd December

1973 – Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.

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4th December

1619 – 38 colonists from Berkeley Parish in England disembark in Virginia and give thanks to God (this is considered by many to be the first Thanksgiving in the Americas).

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5th December

1484 – Pope Innocent VIII issues the Summis desiderantes, a papal bull that deputizes Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger as inquisitors to root out alleged witchcraft in Germany and leads to one of the most oppressive witch hunts in European history.

6th December

1877 – Thomas Edison creates the first recording of a human voice, reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
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7th December

1941 – World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy attacks the US Pacific Fleet and its defending Army Air Forces and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

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8th December

1660 – Margaret Hughes becomes the first actress to appear on an English public stage, playing the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare's play Othello.

9th December

1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction.

10th December

1830 – Emily Dickinson, American poet is born.

11th December

1946 – The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is established.

12th December

( This cartoon reads: The meatgrinder has become operational)

1941 – Adolf Hitler announces extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery

13th December

• 13/12 1577 – Sir Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.

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14th December

1903 – The Wright brothers make their first attempt to fly with the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

15th December

. 1944 – Chico Mendes, Brazilian campaigner, is born.

16th December

• 16/12 1497 – Vasco da Gama rounds the Cape of Good Hope, the point where Bartolomeu Dias had previously turned back to Portugal.

17th December

• 1531 – Pope Clement VII establishes a parallel body to the Inquisition in Lisbon, Portugal.

18th December

. 1620: passengers on the British ship Mayflower come ashore at modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, to begin their new settlement: Plymouth Colony.

19th December

•  1932 – BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service.

20th December

•1999 – Macau is handed over to the People's Republic of China by Portugal.

21st December

• 1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated film, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theater.

22nd December

•  1989 – Berlin's Bradenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.

23rd December

•  1947 : Bell Labs demonstrates the worlds first Transistor Radio, Bell had also created the first transistor just a few months earlier.

1955 – NORAD Tracks Santa for the first time in what will become an annual Christmas Eve tradition.

25th December

CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

26th December

2004: Thousands die in Asian tsunami.

Sea surges triggered by an earthquake under the Indian Ocean kill over 10,000 people in southern Asia, with many more feared dead

27th December

• 1978 – Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship.

28th December

• 1612 –  Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the  planet Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.

29th December

•  1997 – Hong Kong begins to kill all the nation's 1.25 million chickens to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.

30th December

• 1922 – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is formed.

In post-revolutionary Russia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is established, comprising a confederation of Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian Federation (divided in 1936 into the Georgian, Azerbaijan, and Armenian republics). Also known as the Soviet Union, the new communist state was the successor to the Russian Empire and the first country in the world to be based on Marxist socialism.

31st December

New year's Eve!!!!!!!!!!!