DecemberDecember 1: Release of
The Last Battle, the twelfth book and triumphant conclusion to the long-running
Narnia series of children’s fantasy novels by C.S. Lewis.
December 2: CIA intelligence analysts are alarmed by a snippet of apparently authentic film footage of the Emperor of China that does not appear to show him needing to breath.
December 3: The Venezuelan aircraft carrier
Simon Bolivar runs aground near La Guaira on Lake Maracaibo after falling victim to a complex illusion.
December 4: Millionaire British chocolatier Willy Wonka announces an international competition for tours of his fabled London factory, the first in almost fifteen years.
December 5: Initiation of the Royal Rainmaking Project in Thailand after years of complex research.
December 6: A group of Vermont schoolchildren inadvertently create a living snowman after adorning their creation with a magician’s hat and dubbing him ‘Frosty’.
December 7: Six murderers and three insurrectionists are guillotined around France as the new government continues with its popular populist approach to law and order.
December 8: The Soviet negotiating delegation in Tehran issues a proposal for an armistice based on the cessation of hostilities, the lifting of the blockade of North Vietnam, American and South Vietnamese recognition of the North Vietnamese government, partition of Laos, a full exchange of prisoners of war, establishment of a 15km wide demilitarised border zone through to the Thai border and a phased withdrawal of US and Western troops from South Vietnam.
December 9: Construction is completed of the Federal Reserve Bunker inside Mount Pony, Virginia, a deep underground storage facility designs for the safekeeping of bullion and currency in the event of nuclear war.
December 10: Sir Derek Barton is awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, whilst Sir Henry Moseley becomes just the third person to win two Nobel Prizes in becoming the Physics laureate. No Peace Prize is awarded, whilst Professor Sir J.R.R. Tolkien is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
December 11: An Italian astronomer in Padua spots a supernova in the NGC 6946 galaxy, some 24 million years after it occurred.
December 12: Outbreak of a renewed, well-armed Communist insurgency in Northern Afghanistan.
December 13: A boy is inadvertently trapped in a hot air balloon that breaks loose during an NFL game in Minneapolis and flies free until crashing into a nearby river. The intrepid gridiron fan swims free and manages to return to catch the end of the game.
December 14: Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka indicates that he will not seek to contest another general election and that, whilst he had no specifically favoured successor, he approved of the performance of the Governor of Tokyo, Yukio Mishima.
December 15: The supertanker SS
Marpessa sinks off the coast of Senegal whilst en route to the Persian Gulf.
December 16: Germany and Ottoman Turkey sign an extensive arms agreement worth more than $1400 million for a range of new aircraft, tanks, armoured vehicles, guns, rockets and missiles.
December 17: Police investigating repeated reports of an invisible boy in Trieste find nothing despite looking all over the middle of the city.
December 18: USS
America breaks the previous record for the number of combat sorties in a day, launching 173 in daylight hours whilst deployed on Yankee Station off Vietnam.
December 19: American Department of Magic diviners and seers report several days of dire portents and dark, mysterious dreams.
December 20: The Soviet Ministry of Railways announces the successful development and testing of an atomic locomotive for use on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
December 21: Japanese scientists display a large meteor in Tokyo containing a number of unknown minerals and new elements discovered in Antarctica.
December 22: Two French gangsters are arrested after being caught attempting to steal from the British Empire Strategic Tea Reserve in Arnescote, Oxfordshire.
December 23: The United States announces that it will abide by a Christmas truce and cease the bombing of North Vietnam until the new year, holding out the separate possibility of an extended bombing pause.
December 24: Norwegian petroleum prospectors discover a very large offshore oil deposit off the coast of Central Norway.
December 25: Queen Elizabeth II’s Christmas message to the British Empire and the world focuses on the joys of family, peace and hope, touching upon the Royal Wedding and the joy it brought.
December 26: US military personnel serving in Vietnam and the surrounding theatre receive a special Christmas bonus of $100.
December 27: The first squadron of Royal Air Force Blue Streak LRBMs equipped with five new Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles apiece becomes operational.
December 28: American doctors report success in trials for a cure for shaking palsy; following on from the breakthrough cures for cancer and the common cold, the next frontier in the human body is seen by many as the diseases and afflictions of the mind.
December 29: A special Egyptological expedition announces the discovery of the fabled Tomb of Nefertiti.
December 30: The Congolese government resigns, apparently to head off a suspected imminent coup, but none of the four major factions planning coups had one scheduled for this week, on account of Christmas. Confusion reigns before being replaced by a quintipartite caretaker administration including the Presidential Palace caretaker.
December 31: USS
Enterprise goes missing in the Pacific whilst en route between Subic Bay and Pearl Harbor.
- although I'm not a fan of Jagger and while Picasso was an hypocrite and a waste of space to have him murdered like that in the name of ignorance is deeply depressing. 