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Mikhail Gorbachev formally resigns as President of USSR

On the night of this day, Mikhail Gorbachev announces that he is resigning as president of the Soviet Union. He said in a televised speech, "I hereby discontinue my activities at the post of President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." He declared the office extinct and handed over its functions, including control of the Soviet nuclear codes, to Yeltsin.

The World Wide Web is first tested

The World Wide Web was invented by an English scientist Tim Berners-Lee. He used a NeXT Computer as the world's 1st web server and to write the World Wide Web. It is an information space, where documents and other web sources are identified by URLs and interlinked by hypertext links.

The Queen's first televised Christmas Broadcast

The Queen's Christmas Message is a broadcast made by the sovereign of the Commonwealth realms to the Commonwealth of Nations each Christmas. The tradition began in 1932 with a radio broadcast by King George V. Since 1952, the message has been read by Elizabeth II; today, it is broadcast on television, radio, and the Internet via various providers.

The first Royal Christmas Message

Royal Christmas Message is a broadcast made by the sovereign of the Commonwealth realms to the Commonwealth of Nations each Christmas. The tradition began in 1932 with a radio broadcast by King George V. Since 1952, the message has been read by Elizabeth II; today, it is broadcast on television, radio, and the Internet via various providers.

The Christmas Truce

The Christmas truce was a series of widespread but unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front of World War I around Christmas 1914.

Columbus' flagship the Santa María sinks

The largest of the three ships of Christopher Columbus run aground and sunk at Cap-Haïtien, Haiti. The ship's boy was at the helm because both Columbus and steersman went to get some sleep. Seeing that the ship's condition is beyond repair, Columbus ordered to strip the timbers from her. They were used to build a fort called La Navidad (Christmass).

Anniversaries of the (in)famous