December 31

Today in History
• 1492 - 100,000 Jews expelled from Sicily
• 1564 - Willem van Orange demands freedom of conscience/religion
• 1600 - British East India Company chartered
• 1687 - 1st Huguenots depart France to Cape of Good Hope
• 1700 - Frisia and Groningen adopt Gregorian calendar
• 1776 - Rhode Island establishes wage and price controls to curb inflation
• 1781 - Bank of North America, 1st US bank opens
• 1841 - Alabama becomes 1st state to license dental surgeons


Holidays - Traditional and Obscure
• Hogmanay
• National Champagne Day
• National Heroes Day (Timor-Leste)
• New Year's Eve
• Restoration Day in Geneva
• Unlucky Day
• World Azerbaijanis Solidarity Day
• World Peace Meditation Day

Birthdays
• 1378 - Pope Callixtus III, head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States
• 1491 - Jacques Cartier, French explorer who claimed what is now Canada for France
• 1720 - [Bonnie Prince] Charles Edward Stuart, English pretender to throne
• 1738 - Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British general and colonial administrator
• 1830 - Isma'il Pasha, Khedive of Egypt (1863-79)
• 1838 - Emile Loubet, French politician (President 1899-1906)
• 1880 - George C Marshall, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, authored Marshall Plan
• 1905 - Guy Mollet, French socialist premier, 1956-57