The following events occurred inDecember 1968:

• Rafael Caldera was elected the newPresident of Venezuela, but would not be declared the winner until more than a week later. Caldera, of theCOPEI Party, wasone of six candidates on the ballot, and won by only 31,000 votes, defeating ruling party candidateGonzalo Barrios by a margin of 1,082,941 to 1,051,870.^[1] Incumbent PresidentRaul Leoni was barred by the constitution from running for re-election. The night before the election, all six candidates appeared on television at the same time to announce that they would all respect the outcome of the voting.^[2]
• Pakistan's President Mohammed Ayub Khan announced major concessions to university and college students who had been rioting for the past three weeks, including the repeal of a 1961 law that allowed the Pakistani government to take away the college degrees of graduates who had been accused of subversive activities. Other reforms announced by Ayub Khan were to lower requirements for academic promotion, and a pledge to release opposition political leaders.^[3]
• Israel's Air Force destroyed two important bridges inJordan that served as railroad and highway links betweenAmman and the cities ofMa'an andAqaba, effectively dividing the kingdom's links between North and South Jordan. The destruction of the railroad bridge cut off access for Jordanian Muslims from making the pilgrimage toMecca.^[4]

• All 39 people aboardWien Consolidated Airlines Flight 55 were killed when theirFairchild F-27 turboprop plane crashed in Alaska during a violent snowstorm. The plane had taken off fromAnchorage and was 15 minutes away from its scheduled arrival at the small village ofIliamna.^[5][6]
• Born:
  • Darryl Kile, American baseball player (d. 2002); inGarden Grove, California
  • Rena Sofer, American TV actress; inArcadia, California
  • Lucy Liu, American TV and film actress; inQueens

• The 50-minute television specialElvis (sponsored by American sewing machine manufacturerThe Singer Company), taped in June with a live audience inBurbank, California, aired onNBC, marking the comeback ofElvis Presley after 7 years during which the legendary musician's career had centered on the movie industry. The eagerly-anticipated return of the "King of Rock and Roll" would prove to be the most watched special broadcast of the 1968 holiday season in the United States. One observer would later note that "the Elvis special was not just a ratings winner; it was also one of the most riveting pieces of television ever broadcast. It was Elvis at his rocking best, interacting with an audience as he never had on film or on programs such asThe Ed Sullivan Show", and that "the '1968 Comeback Special' proved that the singer was still the most powerful live entertainer in the world. Millions who had never before listened to Elvis found themselves caught under the singer's spell."^[7] At the close of the show, Presley concluded with the premiere of "If I Can Dream", a song inspired byMartin Luther King Jr.. The show is followed by aBrigitte Bardot special.
• The international Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space, commonly known as the "Rescue Agreement", came into force, seven months after the United Nations had opened it for signature on April 22. The agreement does not apply to human space travelers who are stranded in outer space, only to those who require assistance on Earth and who are within the territorial limits of a participating nation, either on land or at sea, and makes no provision for how rescues are conducted or who bears the cost of a rescue.^[8]
• TheOhio State Buckeyes were granted a share of the survey-based national championship of college football, as the final UPI survey of 35 coaches ranked OSU in first place, ahead of the previous #1, theUniversity of Southern California Trojans.^[9] USC had been unbeaten until its final game on November 30, when Notre Dame tied the game, 21 to 21. At the time, United Press International did not take a poll after the bowl games, so the results would be unaffected by the1969 Rose Bowl, which would pit Big Ten champion Ohio State against Pacific Eight champion USC.
• Born:
  • Montell Jordan, American singer and producer; inLos Angeles^[10]
  • Brendan Fraser, American-Canadian film actor; inIndianapolis^[11]

• U.S. President-electRichard M. Nixon askedEarl Warren to delay Warren's retirement from serving asChief Justice of the United States, and to continue until the end of the U.S. Supreme Court's current term in June. Despite Nixon's conservative stance and Warren's liberal view of the U.S. Constitution, both Nixon and Warren had both been the Republican Party's nominee for Vice President (Nixon successfully in 1952 and 1956, and Warren unsuccessfully in 1948), and both had been selected for national office by U.S. PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower.^[12]
• TheIsraeli Air Force added a new dimension to retaliatory airstrikes on neighboringJordan, and attacked a division of the Army of Iraq, killing at least six of them and wounding 14. A spokesman for Israel charged that the Iraqi troops, which had been based in northern Jordan since 1967, had fired artillery shells at 12 Israeli settlements for three days.^[13][14]
• Died:Archie Mayo, 77, American film director

• The Czechoslovakian government announced the dismissal ofPeter Colotka, who had been the Deputy Premier responsible for censorship of the news media, and whose liberal policies had given reporters and publishers room to criticize the government. Communist Party First SecretaryAlexander Dubček, who had been forced by the Soviet Union to retract many of the reforms of thePrague Spring, told a crowd in the city ofMost that the government would take steps to make the Czechoslovakian press "an instrument which will help to implement the policy of the Party" in order to prevent upheaval.^[15] Six months later, Colotka would be appointed as the Premier of the Slovak SR section of Czechoslovakia.
• TheU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission outlawed "give-ups", the sharing ofcommissions between brokers earned from the sale ofstock^[16] and relaxed its rules for a minimum commission rate by permitting discounted rates for large transactions. The result would be a decrease of business on regional stock exchanges outside of theNew York Stock Exchange and theAmerican Stock Exchange, both located in New York City.
• Born:Margaret Cho, American comedian and actress; inSan Francisco

• Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, the leader of the Bengali Muslims inEast Pakistan (nowBangladesh) called on his followers to initiate a total shutdown of work in protest of the crackdown by Pakistani police on protesters. Thehartal — a complete refusal by workers, students and shopkeepers to work — happened two days later, and a "Repression Resistance Day" would be observed throughout East Pakistan on December 10. The escalating protests would lead to "Mass Upsurge Day" on January 24.^[17]
• The Rolling Stones released the albumBeggars Banquet, which contains their hit single "Sympathy for the Devil".^[18]

• In one of the worst peacetime disasters for theUnited States Coast Guard, 17 crewmen of theUSCGC White Alder (WLM-541) were killed when the buoy tending ship was sheared in half by theTaiwanese freighterHelena.^[19] Both ships were nearWhite Castle, Louisiana, when the collision occurred and the ship sank in 75 feet (23 m) of water. Although three bodies were recovered by divers, a release from the U.S. Coast Guard would recount in 2017, "river sediment buried the cutter so quickly that continued recovery and salvage operations proved impossible. Fourteen Coast Guardsmen remain entombed in the sunken cutter buried on the bottom of the Mississippi River."^[20] Anaid to navigation structure and light now marks the site of the sinking.
• The French government chartered theCentre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes, an experimental university, inVincennes, an eastern suburb ofParis, as a campus of theUniversity of Paris system. It would later become the independentUniversité Paris-VIII atSaint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, and is commonly referred to as "Paris-8" or "Vincennes".^[21]
• NASA launchedthe second Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO-2), nicknamedStargazer, into orbit fromCape Kennedy. Four days later, it would send its first images back to theGoddard Space Flight Center, with its telescope cluster aiming first at two stars in theCarina constellation,Beta Carinae (Miaplacidus) andIota Carinae (Aspidiske).^[22]

• Project Schooner, one of the 27 nuclear American tests conducted as part ofProject Plowshare, took place at theNevada Test Site and became noteworthy for the amount of radioactive contamination that it generated around the world. Although Schooner was an underground blast at the depth of 106 metres (348 ft), radionuclides such asstrontium-90,barium-140,tungsten-181 andcesium-134 went 5,000 metres (16,000 ft) into the atmosphere and traveled over the North Pole into the Soviet Union within a week.^[23]
• Graham Nash made the decision to leave his role as a vocalist with the British pop groupThe Hollies and to team up withDavid Crosby andStephen Stills ofBuffalo Springfield to form the classic groupCrosby, Stills & Nash.^[24]
• Born:Mike "Moose" Mussina, American baseball pitcher; inWilliamsport, Pennsylvania

• Douglas Engelbart ofStanford University publicly demonstrated his pioneeringhypertext system, "NLS", together with thecomputer mouse,^[25] at what would become retrospectively known as "The Mother of All Demos".^[26][27] Held as part of the Fall Joint Computer Conference at theSan Francisco Civic Auditorium, Engelbart's demonstration was part of his presentation "A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect".^[28]
• Born:Kurt Angle, Americancollegiate wrestling champion who won a gold medal at the 1996 Olympics and subsequently began aprofessional wrestling career with the WWF and WWE; inMount Lebanon, Pennsylvania
• Died:Enoch "Nucky" Johnson, 85, American political boss who profited during the Prohibition Era by avoiding enforcement of laws against liquor sales, gambling and prostitution inAtlantic City, New Jersey during the 1920s; he was later convicted for tax evasion.

• Four separate labor unions for railway workers merged to form theUnited Transportation Union, a 280,000 member organization that represented 85 percent of American railway workers. The new UTU was created from the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, the Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen, and the Switchmen's Union of North America. Charles Luna, the Railroad Trainmen leader who was designated as the first UTU President, announced in Cleveland that the overall referendum results in the four component unions had been 97,728 in favor and 15,067 opposed. Members of another organization, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, had rejected the merger.^[29]
• The largest heist in the history ofJapan, the never-solved "300 million yen robbery", occurred in theTokyo suburb ofKokubunji. A man dressed as a police motorcyclist pulled over an armored car that was taking holiday bonus money from the Japan National Bank to the Toshiba factory inFuchu. The "policeman" ordered the driver and three guards to get out with a warning that the vehicle was on fire, then climbed into the cab and drove off with ¥294,307,500 (worth US $817,667 at the time and nearly $5.8 million or more than one billion yen fifty years later).^[30][31]
• Died:
  • Thomas Merton, 53, French-born American Trappist monk and author, was electrocuted by an exposed wire in a cord for an electric fan while he was visiting Thailand.^[32]
  • Karl Barth, 82, Swiss Protestant theologian

• With 39 days left before he would be inaugurated as the 37th President of the United States,Richard M. Nixon appeared on national television to introduce the 12 people whom he had selected to serve in his cabinet, starting with former U.S. Attorney GeneralWilliam P. Rogers as his Secretary of State, Continental Illinois Bank ChairmanDavid M. Kennedy as Treasury Secretary, Wisconsin CongressmanMelvin R. Laird for Defense Secretary, and Nixon's former law partner (at Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferndon in New York),John N. Mitchell as Attorney General.^[33]
• The filmOliver!, based on the hit London andBroadway musical, opened in the U.S. after being released first in England. It would go on to win theBest Picture.
• Born:Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt, German speed skater and three-time world champion; inPotsdam,East Germany
• Died:
  • Bob Bartlett, 64, U.S. Senator for Alaska from its attainment of statehood in 1959, died of a cardic arrest three weeks after surgery for an arterial blockage. He andErnest Gruening (whose term of office would end in 1969) had been Alaska's first two U.S. Senators.^[34]
  • Arthur Hays Sulzberger, 77, American newspaper publisher who doubled the circulation ofThe New York Times and increased its revenue sevenfold during the 1940s and 1950s.^[35]

• After Brazil's military sought an order to court-martial CongressmanMarcio Moreira Alves for treason for a speech he had made on the floor of theChamber of Deputies, a joint session was held by the Chamber and by theFederal Senate to vote on whether to revoke the immunity allowed to congress members under the 1967 Constitution. In an affront to thePresident, GeneralArtur da Costa e Silva, the legislators refused to revoke Moreira's immunity, with only 141 in favor and 216 against.^[36]
• All 50 people onPan Am Flight 217 were killed when theBoeing 707 crashed into the Caribbean Sea, off of the coast ofVenezuela, while making its final approach toCaracas on a flight fromNew York City. Contact was lost at 9:59 at night, shortly after the crew of the flight had been given clearance by the control tower for the scheduled 10:00 landing.^[37][38]
• Born:Rory Kennedy, American documentary filmmaker who was born six months after the assassination of her father, U.S. SenatorRobert F. Kennedy; inWashington, D.C.
• Died:Tallulah Bankhead, 66, American stage and film actress^[39]

• TheChamizal dispute between the United States and Mexico was formally ended by outgoing U.S. PresidentLyndon Johnson and Mexican PresidentGustavo Diaz Ordaz, as the waters of theRio Grande were diverted into a new concretecanal named for former Mexican PresidentAdolfo López Mateos.^[40] The two presidents met in the middle of theSanta Fe Bridge over the river betweenEl Paso inTexas andCiudad Juárez inChihuahua state, then simultaneously pushed red buttons after which an explosive charge was to follow, removing a temporary dirt dam and allowing the Rio Grande to flow through the channel. The diversion of the river affected 437 acres (177 ha) of sagebrush covered land, previously north of the Rio Grande in the U.S., and now south of the border as Mexican territory.^[41] The buttons weren't actually connected to the detonator, and an engineer was to carry out the actual blast, but the explosive charge failed; engineers quickly bulldozed the dam so that the ceremony could be completed.^[42]
• The day after being defied by the Brazilian Congress, President Artur da Costa enacted Institutional Act Number 5 (AI-5), closing Congress and suspending all constitutional rights indefinitely. AI-5 would remain in effect for more than a decade until its revocation in 1979, and Brazil would be ruled by decree by the military dictatorship.^[36]
• Died: USAF ColonelFrancis J. McGouldrick, Jr., 39, was killed when his B-57E Canberra collided with another American plane overLaos. His remains and the wreckage of his aircraft would be found 43 years later, in 2012, and buried atArlington National Cemetery on the 45th anniversary of his death.^[43]

• Tired of the continued protests and student strikes at theUniversity of Panama that had followed the military takeover of the Central American nation,Omar Torrijos sentPanamanian National Guard troops to close the campus for the next six months. At 2:00 in the morning local time, three units of the Guardia Nacional's red beret troops arrived on campus and began occupation of all of the buildings, marking the first time that the university had been seized by the military.^[44]
• Brazil's President da Costa arrested many of his political opponents, including former PresidentJuscelino Kubitschek, and newspaper editorsCarlos Lacerda, Tenorio Cavalcanti and Helio Fernandes, and hundreds of other critics of the government.^[45]
• Died:Margarete Klose, 69, German operatic mezzo-soprano

• Fans of thePhiladelphia Eagles NFL team, watching the final home game in a season with only 2 wins, were so upset that they booed, and then threw snowballs atSanta Claus, earning the city a reputation as having the most boorish sports supporters in the nation.^[46][47] Frank Olivo, the man recruited to portray Jolly St. Nick and to walk around the field during halftime of the game against theMinnesota Vikings, would laugh years later about being pelted by snowballs. The incident has become a part of the franchise's history.^[48][49]
• TheAsian Rugby Football Union was founded by therugby union organizations ofCeylon (now Sri Lanka),Hong Kong,Japan,Malaysia,Singapore,South Korea,Taiwan, andThailand.^[50] In 1969, it would conduct its first international rugby tournament, and in 2015, would rename itself asAsia Rugby.
• Died:
  • David Jacobs, 56, British solicitor and lawyer who negotiated merchandising rights forThe Beatles and other celebrities, hanged himself in the garage of his home atHove inSussex, England.^[51]
  • Jess Willard, 86, American boxer who reigned as world heavyweight boxing champion from his knockout ofJack Johnson in 1915, until beingdefeated byJack Dempsey in 1919.

• Spain rescinded theAlhambra Decree, made onMarch 31,1492, that had ordered the expulsion of all practicing Jews from Spain and its territories.^[52] The edict had been issued byKing Ferdinand of Aragon and his wife,Queen Isabella of Castile, during theSpanish Inquisition, and required the Jewish population to convert fromJudaism toRoman Catholicism, or to leave the country.^[53] The decree's rescission was announced by the government during the opening of the ceremoniesBeth Yaacov Synagogue inMadrid, the first newsynagogue to be built in Spain in more than 600 years.^[54] Only 8,500 Jews remained in Spain by 1968, compared to a population of 600,000 when the decree had been made.
• The 538 members of theAmerican electoral college cast their ballots in the1968 U.S. presidential election in meetings in their individual states.^[55] In every case except one, the electors (who were picked based on which party's presidential nominee won a plurality of the popular votes in their state) voted for their party's candidate. Dr. Lloyd W. Bailey, one of the 13 Republican electors inNorth Carolina, cast his vote for George Wallace rather than for Richard Nixon. As a result, Nixon received 301 of the 538 votes rather than 302, and Wallace got 46 instead of 45. Hubert Humphrey received all 191 of his pledged electors.

• The 83-hour ordeal ofBarbara Mackle began when the 20-year-old daughter of a millionaire family was kidnapped at gunpoint and then buried alive while her captors awaited a ransom payment. Mackle, a student atEmory University, had been spending the night at a Rodeway Inn motel inDecatur, Georgia, while her mother was visiting whenGary Steven Krist gained entry to the room by posing as a detective. He and his accomplice,Ruth Eisemann-Schier, then tied the mother up, kidnapped Barbara at gunpoint, and demanded a $500,000 ransom from Barbara's father.^[56][57]
• Mass murdererRichard Speck, convicted of the 1966 killing of eight student nurses, was granted a stay of execution by the Illinois Supreme Court, and his January 31, 1969 scheduled death in the electric chair was postponed indefinitely pending a decision by the United States Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the death penalty.^[58] The U.S. Supreme Court would rule, on June 29, 1972, that all pending death sentences (including Speck's) were void.
• TheRoyal Mint, whichminted coins for the United Kingdom as well as for the British Empire and many of the British Commonwealth nations, moved to its current headquarters in the small town ofLlantrisant inWales. After operating inLondon since the year886, the mint phased out its operations in England and gradually closed its other branches.^[59]
• Mary Bell, aged 11, was found guilty of murdering two small boys and sentenced to life indetention, initially at a secure children's home (a juvenile detention center), and later to a prison.^[60] She would be released from prison on May 14, 1980^[61][62] and would later be granted anonymity.^[63]
• Born:Paul Tracy, Canadian-born race car driver; inScarborough, Ontario

• The Americancommunications satelliteIntelsat III F-2, the first of a series of eight orbiting relays and described as "the most sophisticated switchboard ever built", was launched at 7:32 p.m. local time from Florida. It was placed into temporary orbit and then rocketed a few days later togeostationary orbit 22,236 miles (35,785 km) above a spot in the Atlantic Ocean east of Brazil.^[64]The first attempt to launch an Intelsat III had failed on September 19.
• U.S. PresidentLyndon Johnson became the latest of thousands of Americans to be hospitalized because of the1968 flu pandemic, and was admitted to theBethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland; on the same day, U.S. Vice PresidentHubert Humphrey canceled planned speaking engagements after contracting theHong Kong Flu (H3N2) and became bedridden while visiting Phoenix.^[65] During the epidemic betweenJuly 1968 andMarch 1969, the worst since theAsian Flu of 1957, more than 750,000 around the world (as well as 30,000 in the UK and 33,800 in the U.S.) died from complications of the influenza strain.^[66][67]
• A directive forGibraltar to be returned by theUnited Kingdom toSpain was passed in theUnited Nations General Assembly by a vote of 67 to 18, with 34 abstentions.^[68] The UK declined to honor the resolution.Lord Caradon, the BritishMinister of State for Foreign Affairs andPermanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, told the General Assembly that the residents of Gibraltar had voted in a referendum to continue as a British colony, and added that "such a clumsy attempt at coercion is wholly unacceptable to them and to us."^[69]
• William C. Schneider was appointed NASA Director of theApollo Applications Program, succeeding the late Harold T. Luskin. Schneider had formerly been Mission Director in theApollo Program andGemini Program Director.^[70]
• Born:Rachel Griffiths, Australian film actress; inMelbourne
• Died:Earl D. Eisenhower, 70, former electrical engineer and Illinois state legislator, younger brother of former U.S. PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower

• In the largest number of people hijacked toCuba since the practice began in 1959, the 151 people on boardEastern Air Lines Flight 47 were diverted toHavana as theirDouglas DC-8 jet was nearing the end of a flight betweenPhiladelphia andMiami. After the hijacker was taken into custody by Cuban security police, the remaining 143 passengers and seven crew were taken by bus toVaradero and put on a plane back to the USA.^[71]
• The Kingdom ofCambodia released the 11 U.S. Army soldiers and one South Vietnamese noncom who had been held prisoner since July 17, when their boat strayed into Cambodian waters. A 12th American, who had been captured on November 28 when his helicopter made an unauthorized landing, was freed as well.^[72]
• The Little Drummer Boy, a special produced byRankin/Bass Productions, was first televised on theCTV Television Network, followed four days later by its American release onNBC. The special is based on thesong of the same name and drew in positive reviews on its first showing.^[73]
• Born:Chris Williams, American-born Canadian animation film director, screenwriter, and voice actor best known for directing theDisney filmsBolt andBig Hero 6^[74]
• Died:Norman Thomas, 84, American socialist who ran in six consecutive U.S. presidential elections as the nominee of theSocialist Party of America in 1928, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944 and 1948; in the 1932 election, Thomas received 2.2% of the ballots, with 884,885 votes. U.S. President Lyndon Johnson said a statement, "With the passing of Norman Thomas, America loses one of its most eloquent speakers, finest writers and most creative thinkers."^[75]

• High school students David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were shot and killed while parked along Lake Herman Road nearBenicia, California, becoming the first confirmed victims of theZodiac Killer.^[76] For six months, police had no leads, until a man claiming to be the killer called them from a pay telephone. In late July, after another murder, threeSan Francisco area newspapers would receive a letter that began, "Dear Editor: I am the killer of the 2 teenagers last Christmas at Lake Herman... To prove this I shall state some facts which only I + the police know." Each of the three letters included a piece of a 408-symbolcryptogram.^[77] On August 7, the killer would write again with the words "This is Zodiac speaking." In the fifty years after the killings, no person would ever be tried for the Zodiac killings.^[78][79]
• Barbara Jane Mackle was rescued, alive, after 83 hours inside a ventilated box that had been buried in a shallow ditch, 18 inches (460 mm) underground, about one mile fromBerkeley Lake, Georgia.^[80][81] Kidnapper Gary Krist had directed law enforcement to the area by telephone after receiving a $500,000 ransom, and Mackle's pounding was heard by the rescuers. Krist was captured two days later atHog Island off the coast ofFlorida; his accomplice, Ruth Eisemann-Schier, would elude capture until March 5, 1969. Sentenced to life imprisonment for kidnapping, Krist would be pardoned in 1979 with the approval of Mackle, and would later go to medical school and become a physician inChrisney, Indiana.^[57]
• The Kosmos 261 satellite was launched into orbit as part of the first joint space venture ofInterkosmos, made up of the space agencies of the Communist nations of Eastern Europe, with Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and other nations collaborating on a project to study the aurora borealis.^[82][83]
• TheBulgarian Orthodox Church, which had 80% of the Eastern European nation's population among its adherents, announced that Christmas would be celebrated on December 25, 26, and 27, rather than on January 7 set by the old orthodox calendar.^[84]
• NASA announced that it was discontinuing theNorth American X-15 rocket plane program, and that the 200th and final flight of the X-15, set for that day, was being called off due to poor weather conditions and would not be rescheduled.^[85]
• Died:
  • John Steinbeck, 66, American novelist known forThe Grapes of Wrath,Of Mice and Men andEast of Eden; winner of the 1962Nobel Prize in Literature and a 1940Pulitzer Prize^[86][87]
  • Van Nest Polglase, 70, American film industry art director

• At 10:47 a.m. (15:47:05 UTC),Apollo 8 became the first space vehicle to carry human beings beyond Earth's orbit,^[88] and the three American astronauts on board —Frank Borman,Jim Lovell, andWilliam Anders — went further away from Earth than any people in history. The spacecraft had been launched fromCape Kennedy at exactly 7:51 local time and reached a 118-mile (190 km) high orbit in 11 minutes. At 10:41, the ignition for translunar injection started and within minutes, the astronauts not only exceeded the previous record distance from Earth of 848 miles (1,365 km), set by the crew ofGemini 11 on September 13, 1966, they reached the fastest speed ever attained by human beings, peaking at 24,227 miles per hour (38,990 km/h) to reach the escape velocity needed to leave Earth's gravitational well.^[89] The December 21 date had been selected so that the mission would be able to view theSea of Tranquility when it was inlunar sunrise (i.e. within the lit portion of awaxing Moon as viewed from Earth) and the long shadows would allow the crew to photograph the future landing site when it was in sharptopographic relief.^[90]
• The collision of a passenger train and a freight train killed 43 people inHungary, and hospitalized 57 others. Most of the dead were travelers who were going home or on vacation for the Christmas holiday. The date would be reported as Sunday, December 22, in reports that reached western Europe,^[91] but the official 1984 report by theMAV, the Hungarian State Railway stated that the accident happened at 5:00 in the evening, betweenSülysáp andMende. Passenger train no. 6616/a collided head-on with the much heavier freight train no. 5565 near the Pusztaszentivan station.^[92]
• The capsizing of the fishing schoonerFederal Queen killed 57 of the 95 people aboard. The boat was bringing construction workers back to their homes on the Caribbean island ofSaint Vincent for the holidays. Most of the victims were trapped below deck, were missing and presumed to have drowned when the ship went under. According to survivors, the disaster happened when people who were on deck rushed to theleeward side of the boat after being drenched by spray from the rough seas.^[93]

• At 11:30 in the morning local time,North Korea released the 82 members of the U.S. Navy shipUSSPueblo after 11 months of captivity that had started when the American ship was seized by North Korean ships onJanuary 23.^[94] The handover of the men, along with the body of Seaman Duane D. Hodges (who had been killed when thePueblo had been fired upon), took place at the border atPanmunjom after U.S. Army Major GeneralGilbert H. Woodward signed a statement of apology on behalf of the U.S. State Department, bringing an end to months of negotiation with North Korean Major General Pak Chung-kuk.^[95] ThePueblo itself was kept by the North Koreans and would later be put on display as a tourist attraction inPyongyang.^[96] The freed crewmen were flown toMiramar Naval Air Station nearSan Diego on Christmas Eve for a reunion with their families.^[97]
• TheDown to the Countryside Movement decree, by Chinese Communist Party ChairmanMao Zedong, was announced in the Party newspaperPeople's Daily. The newspaper quoted Mao as saying, "There is a need for the educated youth to go to the country side to receive reeducation from the poor lower and middle peasants. We must persuade the urban cadres and others to send their offspring who are junior and senior middle-school and university graduates to the countryside... Comrades of the various villages ought to welcome them." The "rustication movement", referred to in China as thexiaxiang ("sent-down"),^[98] would last for more than 10 years; the Chinese government would report at its end that there were 16,230,000 students who participated, with most school graduates leaving for rural work rather than university education.^[99]
• OnApollo 8, astronautFrank Borman vomited while in orbit, the day after taking a dose of thebarbiturate drugSeconal, leaving the three astronauts with the task of avoiding the floating particles in a weightless environment. The episode marked the first experience ofspace-sickness by an American astronaut. In order to keep NASA from ordering the mission to be aborted before the spacecraft could pass the point where it could return without a slingshot trip around the Moon, Borman waited for a while to report that he was ill, and sent a taped message back to Earth.^[100]
• David Eisenhower, grandson of former U.S. PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower, marriedJulie Nixon, the daughter of U.S. President-electRichard Nixon, at a wedding ceremony conducted by the ReverendNorman Vincent Peale at the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan.^[101]
• The government of Cuba released an American Baptist missionary, Reverend J. David Fite, from a prison where he had been held for more than three and a half years, and announced that he would be allowed to return to the U.S.^[102]

• At 3:29 p.m. EST (20:29 UTC),Apollo 8 "crossed the dividing line that separates the Earth's gravitational sphere of influence from that of the moon, propelling men beyond control by Earth for the first time in history" and bringing the three-man crew into the pull of the Moon's gravity.^[103]
• Born:Manuel Rivera-Ortiz, American documentary photographer; inGuayama, Puerto Rico

• At 4:59 a.m. EST (09:59 UTC), afterApollo 8 astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders flew past the Moon, became the first people to see itsfar side, and, making minor course corrections, they fired the engines of the craft to begin mankind's firstlunar orbit. Over the remainder of the day, the men circled the Moon ten times, each trip around taking about two hours, took photos of potential landing sites, and made two television transmissions to Earth. Anders photographedEarthrise, the view of Earth being viewed from the Moon. At the time of the photo, the Earth was seen at half phase, while the view from Earth was of awaxing Moon betweenquarter moon and ahalf moon. The second televised transmission from lunar orbit was set for evening in the United States (9:34 p.m. Eastern time, 6:34 p.m. Pacific, 02:34 UTC Christmas); at 9:57 p.m. Eastern, and with the greatest number of people up to that time listening, the three men took turns toread the first 10 verses of the Book of Genesis^[104] with Anders starting out, "We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth....", followed by Lovell, and concluded by Borman, who finished the reading ("And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.") then told viewers worldwide "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."
• The crash ofAllegheny Airlines Flight 736 killed 20 of the 47 people on board, while making an approach to theBradford Regional Airport inBradford, Pennsylvania as part of a multistop flight fromDetroit toWashington, D.C.. At 8:12 in the evening, the Convair CV-580 impacted trees two miles short of the runway after continuing below the minimum descent altitude of 2,500 feet (760 m) its crew was instructed to follow.^[105][106] The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that both the pilot and the co-pilot were unaware that they were approaching the ground because they were both trying to sight the runway and neither was looking at the instruments.^[107]
• Born:Choi Jin-sil, South Korean film and TV actress; inSeoul (committed suicide, 2008)

• TheKilvenmani massacre was carried out as 44 people were burned alive inside their huts by a gang in the village ofKizhavenmani in theTamil Nadu state of India.^[108] Twenty of the victims were women; 19 of them were children.^[109] All were members of theDalitcaste, commonly called the "untouchables", and were striking laborers and their families.^[110]
• U.S. President-elect Nixon signed a paper to make a donation to theNational Archives of his official papers from his eight-year tenure as Vice President of the United States. Months later, he took atax deduction of at least $60,000 for his federal income tax returns for the 1968 and 1969 tax years for the estimated value of the papers. It was the first of many deductions which theInternal Revenue Service would deny in later years, providing the basis not only for a recommended article of impeachment, but large amount of penalty and interest to be paid to the I.R.S. by 1974.^[111]
• At 06:10 UTC (1:10 in the morning Eastern time) on Christmas Day,Apollo 8 completed its final orbit of the Moon and then ignited its engines to break out of the Moon's gravity and to begin the return to Earth.^[104]

• After several warm-up concerts in England,Led Zeppelin made their American debut, atDenver to open atour of 28 venues in U.S. and Canadian cities. Their first stop wasDenver Auditorium Arena in Colorado.^[112]
• TheNational Eye Institute, located atBethesda, Maryland, admitted its first patients, more than four months after its August 16 establishment.^[113]
• Born:
  • Byron Howard, American animator, film director, and producer who directed theDisney filmsZootopia andEncanto; inMisawa, Aomori, Japan^[114]
  • Bill Lawrence, American television producer, screenwriter, and director; inRidgefield, Connecticut^[115]
  • Malcolm L. McCallum, American environmental scientist and herpetologist; inMaywood, Illinois

• Troops from theSoviet Union and thePeople's Republic of China had the first of several violent confrontations with each other on the island claimed by both of them as part of their territory. CalledZhenbao Island by the Chinese andDamansky Island by the Russians, the disputed land was the site of a battle that was limited to warning shots and troops beating each other with their rifles. No one was killed, but heavy fighting (with 51 battle deaths) would take place on March 2, 1969, with an even bloodier battle starting on March 15.^[116]
• China detonated aplutonium-based thermonuclear weapon for the first time.^[117]
• Twenty-seven people on boardNorth Central Airlines Flight 458 were killed when the airplane crashed into an aircraft hangar while making its landing atChicago'sO'Hare International Airport. The Convair 580 turboprop had started its multistop flight fromMinneapolis more than four hours earlier and was approaching Chicago in poor weather when it hit the building at 8:22 p.m. local time.^[118] Seven teenagers, members of the American Legion drum and bugle corps that had been practicing inside the Braniff Airways hangar, were injured when the plane made its impact. One of them, a 14-year-old boy, would die in the hospital on January 5.^[119]
• TheApollo 8 capsule returned safely to Earth after its historic orbital flight around the Moon at the end of "the hottest and fastest return from space ever" and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 2:51 a.m. local time (15:51 UTC), roughly three miles from the recovery vessel, the aircraft carrierUSSYorktown.^[120]
• Died:E. C. Stoner, 69, English theoretical physicist known for his discoveries inferromagnetism

• KidnapperRuth Eisemann-Schier, on the run since the December 20 kidnapping of Barbara Jane Mackle, became the first woman ever to have her name placed on theFBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.^[121] Ms. Eisemann-Schier would be apprehended on March 5, after having allowed the state ofOklahoma to check her fingerprints in the course of applying to work as a nurse. Sentenced to seven years in prison, the former exchange student from theHonduras would serve for three and then be deported back to Central America.^[57]
• Israeli forces flew intoLebanese airspace, launchingan attack on the airport inBeirut and destroying 13 passenger and freight planes belonging to the Lebanese carriersMiddle East Airlines andTrans Mediterranean Airways.^[122][123] The attack came two days after two members of thePopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine fired guns at anEl Al aircraft at the airport inAthens, killing one Israeli, wounding two others, and badly damaging the airplane.
• Born:Corey Scott, American stunt motorcyclist; inDecatur, Indiana (killed in stunt accident, 1997)

• TheNanjing Yangtze River Bridge, a 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) long double-decker bridge (with a highway on top and a rail-line below), was opened to traffic. The bridge has become infamous as the site of more suicides than any other structure in the world; in its first 40 years, more than 2,000 people would jump to their deaths from the bridge, surpassing the 1,500 who jumped from theGolden Gate Bridge inSan Francisco prior to 2006.^[124]
• The photo of Earth from the Moon,Earthrise, was released to the public by NASA along with eight other spectacular photographs taken during theApollo 8 mission.^[125] The display coincided with the first press conference (at Houston) by astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders since their return to Earth,^[126] and the images were shown on live television, then repeated on evening newscasts around the world and published in the next day's newspapers. In addition to the famous view of a half-lit image of Earth were two pictures of craters on the Moon's far side from an altitude of 69 miles (111 km); a photo of the nearside cratersGoclenius andMagelhaens; a view of theMare Tranquillitatis where the first Earthmen would land inApollo 11; and two other views of the Earth's Western Hemisphere.
• TheNew York Jets upset theOakland Raiders, 27 to 23, to win the American Football League championship and the AFL's spot inSuper Bowl III to be played in Miami. A few hours later, theBaltimore Colts, who had 13 wins and 1 loss regular season, shut out theCleveland Browns, 34 to 0 for theNational Football League championship and the other spot in the Super Bowl.
• Born:Carlo Ponti Jr., Italian orchestra conductor; inGeneva, to movie actressSophia Loren and film producerCarlo Ponti

• A record was set for the highest recordedbarometric pressure — 1083.3millibars — with the mark being measured at the Agata weather station in theEvenk Autonomous Region inSiberia in the Soviet Union, after an adjustment made for the station's altitude of 261 metres (856 ft). On December 19, 2001, the record would be broken (after adjustment to sea level of the actual measure) with a measurement of at the airport atTosontsengel inMongolia at an altitude of 1,624 metres (5,328 ft). The Agata record is considered the official one, since measurements above 750 metres (2,460 ft) are considered less accurate.^[127] The average atmospheric pressure at sea level is 1013.25 mbar.
• UAL Corporation was incorporated as aholding company forUnited Airlines, for the purposes of acquiring other companies for the building of a conglomerate.^[128] Over the next 20 years, UAL would purchase theHilton andWestern International hotel chains, theHertz car rental business, and smaller airlines. After acquiring Continental Airlines in 2010, they would become known asUnited Continental Holdings, Inc..
• Born:Fabrice Guy, French Olympic cross-country skier and 1992 gold medalist; inPontarlier
• Died:
  • Trygve Lie, 72, Norwegian diplomat who was the firstSecretary-General of the United Nations, from its 1946 founding until 1952
  • Bill Tytla, 64, American film animator forWalt Disney Pictures

• TheTupolev Tu-144 became the first civilian supersonic airplane to take to the air, more than two months before the British- and French-designedConcorde, although it would not exceed the speed of sound until after the Concorde had done so. Aftera disastrous crash at theParis Air Show in 1973, the Tu-144 would begin commercial service in 1977 but would make only 55 passenger flights before discontinuing service in 1978 because of two more crashes and high operational costs. A total of 16 Tu-144 transports would be built before the halt of production.^[129]
• U.S. Army MajorJames N. Rowe, who had been held for more than five years as aprisoner of war of theViet Cong, managed to escape his captors after finding an opportunity to overpower and disarm his guard. Major Rowe, a member of theGreen Berets, had been a Special Forces adviser to a South Vietnamese Army unit when he was captured on October 29, 1963. Since then, he had been held in South Vietnam in the Mekong River delta.^[130]
• On the last day of the year,MacRobertson Miller Airlines Flight 1750 crashed inWestern Australia, killing all 26 people on board. TheVickers Viscount 720 turboprop plane was approaching its destination ofPort Hedland at the end of its three-hour flight fromPerth when its right wing sheared loose and the plane plummeted from 7,000 feet (2,100 m).^[131][132]
• Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) awarded a contract toNorth American Rockwell,Downey, California, for preliminary design of modifications to the Apolloblock II command and service modules for use in long-duration AAP missions.^[70]
• Died:George Lewis, 68, American jazz clarinetist

• December 1968
• December by year
• Months in the 1960s

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