HISTORY & TIMELINE
19 December

A journey through
19 December in history

From the coronation of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1154 to the launch of a spacecraft built to map a billion stars, 19 December has brought crowns, treaties, wars and one very famous ghost story. This timeline follows the date across more than eight centuries.

II
THE MIDDLE AGES

Medieval History

Kingdoms, conflict, faith, power and the changing medieval world.

1154
The tomb effigies of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II at Fontevraud Abbey.The tomb effigies of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II at Fontevraud Abbey.Image: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain
politics · Europe

Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine are crowned

Henry of Anjou and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, were crowned in Westminster Abbey on Sunday 19 December 1154 by Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry was twenty-one. His succession ended nearly twenty years of civil war between King Stephen and Henry’s mother, the Empress Matilda. He was already Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, and through Eleanor Duke of Aquitaine, so he now ruled from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees. The Plantagenet dynasty he founded held the English throne until 1485.

Source: Westminster Abbey: Henry II ↗
III
A CHANGING WORLD

Early Modern Era

Exploration, political change, scientific development and expanding global connections.

1777
Baron von Steuben drilling American troops at Valley Forge, painted by Edwin Austin Abbey.Baron von Steuben drilling American troops at Valley Forge, painted by Edwin Austin Abbey.Image: Edwin Austin Abbey · Public domain
world · Americas

Washington’s army marches into Valley Forge

On 19 December 1777 about 12,000 soldiers of George Washington’s Continental Army, beaten at Brandywine and Germantown and with the British holding Philadelphia, marched into winter quarters at Valley Forge, about 20 miles to the north-west. Many had worn out their shoes and clothes; they built rows of log huts on the frozen hillsides. Around 2,000 men died of disease over the winter. But the army that marched out in June 1778 was a better one: the Prussian officer Baron von Steuben had drilled it into shape, and Valley Forge became a byword for endurance in the American story.

Source: National Park Service: the Continental Army arrives at Valley Forge ↗
IV
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The 1800s

Industry, empire, invention, reform and a century of enormous transformation.

1843
The first edition of A Christmas Carol, with John Leech's frontispiece of Mr Fezziwig's ball.The first edition of A Christmas Carol, with John Leech’s frontispiece of Mr Fezziwig’s ball.Image: John Leech · Public domain
culture · Europe

A Christmas Carol is published

Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol was published by Chapman and Hall in London on 19 December 1843, with four hand-coloured illustrations by John Leech. Dickens wrote it in about six weeks that autumn and paid for the lavish production himself. The first printing of 6,000 copies had sold out by Christmas Eve. The story of Ebenezer Scrooge and the three spirits has never been out of print, and did much to shape the way the English-speaking world keeps Christmas.

Source: The Morgan Library and Museum: Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

War and peace, technological leaps, social change, politics, sport and popular culture.

1909
Borsigplatz in Dortmund's Nordstadt, the square near where the club was founded.Borsigplatz in Dortmund’s Nordstadt, the square near where the club was founded.Image: Marku1988 This image was created with Hugin. · CC BY 3.0
sport · Europe

Borussia Dortmund is founded

On the evening of 19 December 1909 a group of young men from the Holy Trinity parish in Dortmund met at the Zum Wildschütz inn near the Borsigplatz and founded a football club, against the wishes of their chaplain. They took the name Borussia from a brewery nearby. The club has since won eight German championships and, in 1997, the Champions League. Its stadium, the Westfalenstadion, is the largest in Germany.

Source: Borussia Dortmund: 1909, the founding years ↗
1946
Ho Chi Minh, about 1946.Ho Chi Minh, about 1946.Image: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain
world · Asia

War breaks out in Indochina

On the evening of 19 December 1946 Viet Minh forces attacked French troops in Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh’s government withdrew to the countryside to fight. The attack is taken as the start of the First Indochina War. In March France had promised to recognise Vietnam as a free state within the French Union, but the agreement had fallen apart, and in November a French bombardment of Haiphong had killed thousands of civilians. The war lasted eight years and ended with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. The Geneva conference that followed divided Vietnam in two, setting the stage for the war that the United States would fight there.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: First Indochina War ↗
1983
Jules Rimet, the FIFA president the first World Cup trophy was named after, in 1933.Jules Rimet, the FIFA president the first World Cup trophy was named after, in 1933.Image: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain
sport · Americas

The original World Cup trophy is stolen

On the night of 19 December 1983 thieves broke into the Rio de Janeiro headquarters of the Brazilian football confederation and took the Jules Rimet Trophy, the gold cup presented to world champions from 1930 to 1970. Brazil had kept it for good after winning its third World Cup in 1970. It had been stolen once before, in London in 1966, and found under a hedge by a dog called Pickles. This time it was never seen again; the police believed it had been melted down.

Source: FIFA Museum: the World Cup is stolen! ↗
1984
The Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where the Joint Declaration was signed.The Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where the Joint Declaration was signed.Image: Zheng Zhou · CC BY-SA 3.0
politics · Asia

Britain and China sign the Hong Kong agreement

In the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 19 December 1984, the British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and the Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Britain would hand the whole of Hong Kong back to China on 1 July 1997, when the lease on the New Territories ran out. In return China promised that Hong Kong would keep its own legal system, economy and way of life for fifty years after the handover, under the formula Deng Xiaoping called ‘one country, two systems’. The agreement was registered as a treaty at the United Nations.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong ↗
1998
The official White House portrait of Bill Clinton.The official White House portrait of Bill Clinton.Image: Bob McNeely, The White House[1] · Public domain
politics · Americas

The House impeaches President Clinton

On 19 December 1998 the US House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton on two articles, perjury before a grand jury and obstruction of justice, arising from his testimony about his relationship with a White House intern. The votes were 228 to 206 and 221 to 212. He was the second president to be impeached, after Andrew Johnson in 1868. At his Senate trial in February 1999 neither article came near the two-thirds majority needed to remove him, and he served out his term.

Source: US House of Representatives, History, Art and Archives: list of individuals impeached by the House ↗
VI
2000 TO TODAY

Modern Day

The events of recent decades that have already become part of the historical record.

2013
Gaia, the European Space Agency's star-mapping spacecraft, in a picture from the German Aerospace Center.Gaia, the European Space Agency’s star-mapping spacecraft, in a picture from the German Aerospace Center.Image: DLR German Aerospace Center · CC BY 2.0
science · Global

Gaia sets off to map a billion stars

The European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft was launched on a Soyuz rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, on 19 December 2013. Its task was to measure the positions, distances and motions of about a billion stars — around one per cent of those in our galaxy — far more precisely than ever before. Working from a point 1.5 million kilometres beyond the Earth, it built the most detailed three-dimensional map of the Milky Way yet made, and its catalogues have been used in many thousands of studies. It finished observing in 2025.

Source: European Space Agency: liftoff for ESA’s billion-star surveyor ↗
WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 19 December, where each entry is chosen for historical significance, human interest and reliability.

Facts are checked against authoritative museums, archives, universities and reference works. Where sources disagree, the page says so.

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