1808 – German composer Ludwig van Beethoven premiered his Fifth Symphony, one of the most popular and well- known compositions in all of European classical music, at theTheater an der Wien in Vienna – Itō Hirobumi (pictured), a samurai from Chōshū, became the first Prime Minister of Japan – While riding a New York City Subway train, Bernhard Goetz shot four African American youths who attempted to rob him, sparking a nationwide debate on vigilantism, racism, and the legal limits of self-defense.

1990 – The Parliament of Croatia adopted the country's current constitution – Richard Reid unsuccessfully attempted to detonate a bomb in his shoe on a transatlantic flight from Paris, France, to Miami, Florida.

962 – Byzantine–Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city of Aleppo – A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, was first published anonymously. Authorship was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore (pictured). 1888– During a bout of mental illness, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh stalked his friend French painter Paul Gauguin with a razor, and then afterwards cut off the lower part of his own left ear and gave it to a prostitute.

1954 – Drs. Joseph Murray and J. Hartwell Harrison performed the first successful kidney transplant – The Tokyo Tower, the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world at metres (1,091 ft), opened – About eighty-eight percent of the population in Slovenia voted to secede from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.