World/nation trivia: The week of Dec. 29-Jan. 4

Dec. 29:

1890, the Wounded Knee massacre took place in South Dakota as more than 250 Lakota people were killed by U.S. troops sent to disarm them.

1940, during World War II, Germany dropped incendiary bombs on London, setting off what came to be known as “The Second Great Fire of London.”

2021, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in New York of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by the late Jeffrey Epstein; the verdict capped a monthlong trial featuring accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14. (Maxwell would be sentenced to 20 years in prison.)

Dec. 30:

1860, 10 days after South Carolina seceded from the Union, the state militia seized the United States Army arsenal in Charleston.

1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) officially came into existence.

2006, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging after being convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi High Tribunal.

2015, Bill Cosby was charged with drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.

Dec. 31:

1879, Thomas Edison first demonstrated his electric incandescent lights for the public by illuminating some 100 bulbs in and around his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

1972, Major League baseball player Roberto Clemente, 38, was killed when a plane he had chartered and was traveling on to bring relief supplies to earthquake-devastated Nicaragua crashed shortly after takeoff from Puerto Rico.

1985, singer Rick Nelson, 45, and six others were killed when fire broke out aboard a plane that was taking the group to a New Year’s Eve performance in Dallas.

2019, the health commission in the central Chinese city of Wuhan announced that experts were investigating an outbreak of respiratory illness and that most of the victims had visited a seafood market in the city; the statement said 27 people had become ill with a strain of viral pneumonia, which would eventually be known as COVID-19.

Jan. 1:

1808, the federal law prohibiting the importation of enslaved people to the United States took effect.

1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War, declaring that all enslaved people in rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

1959, Fulgencio Batista resigned as Cuban president and fled the country, marking victory for Fidel Castro’s rebel troops and the end of the Cuban Revolution.

2000, an anxious world held its breath as computers silently switched to the year 2000, but the dreaded “Y2K bug” caused few serious issues.

Jan. 2:

1959, the Soviet spacecraft Luna 1 launched, becoming the first spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravity.

1974, President Richard Nixon signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 miles an hour as a way of conserving gasoline in the face of an OPEC oil embargo. (The 55 mph limit was effectively phased out in 1987; federal speed limits were abolished in 1995.)

2016, a heavily armed group led by brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, beginning a 41-day standoff to protest the imprisonment of two ranchers convicted of setting fires on public land and to demand the federal government turn over public lands to local control.

2023, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest after making a tackle during the first quarter of an NFL game against the Cincinnati Bengals, requiring life-saving treatment on the field. The game was cancelled; Hamlin would recover fully and return to play the following season.

Jan. 3:

1777, Gen. George Washington’s army routed British troops in the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey.

1920, Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold the contract of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, beginning a championship era for the Yankees and decades of heartache for Red Sox fans. (The Red Sox would ultimately break the “curse” in 2004, winning their first World Series in 86 years.)

1977, Apple Computer was incorporated in Cupertino, California, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Mike Markkula Jr.

Jan. 4:

1853, New Yorker Solomon Northup regained his freedom after being kidnapped in Washington, D.C., and forced into slavery in 1841; he would later tell his story in his memoir, “Twelve Years a Slave.”

1974, President Richard Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.

2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a significant stroke; his official powers were transferred to his deputy, Ehud Olmert. (Sharon remained in a coma until his death in January 2014.)

2010, the Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the world, opened in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

– Associated Press