Historical Events in Indian and World History on December 31.

1492: 100,000 Jews evacuated from the Sicily region of Italy.

1781: The first bank of America ‘Bank of North America’ opened.

1600: Establishment of the British East India Company.

1802: A treaty of Vasai signed between the British and the second Bajirao Peshwa.

1879: Thomas Edison demonstrated the first electric lamp in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

1929: Purna Swaraj (Complete Independence) announced at the Lahore session of the Congress.

1944: In World War II, Hungary declared war on Germany.

1955: General Motors became the first US Company to earn 1 billion a year.

1964: Indonesia was expelled from the United Nations.

1984: Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India and Congress President for the first time.

1985: United Kingdom became a member of UNESCO.

1999: Indian Airlines Flight 814 hijacking ended after seven days with the release of 190 survivors at Kandhar Airport, Afghanistan. 

2003: Foreign secretaries of India and other SAARC countries began talks before the summit.

2019: The World Health Organization was informed of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause, detected in Wuhan. This later turned out to be COVID – 19, the cause of the COVID -19 pandemic. 

 

Famous birthdays and birth anniversaries– December 31 in Indian history

 1869: Henri Émile Benoît Matisse, a French artist.

1898: Krishna Ballabh Sahay, an Indian freedom fighter, and politician.

1910: Mallikarjun Mansur, an Indian classical singer from Karnataka.

1925: Shrilal Shukla, a Hindi writer, notable for his satire.

1934: Ameer Muhammad Akram Awan, an Islamic scholar and spiritual leader of the Naqshbandi Owaisiah order of Sufism.

1937: Anthony Hopkins, a Welsh actor, composer, director, and film producer. 

1956: Prabhu, an Indian film actor, businessman, and film producer.

1977: Psy, a South Korean singer, rapper, songwriter, and record producer.

 

Death anniversaries of famous people– December 31

1953: Albert Plesman, a Dutch pioneer in aviation and the first administrator and later director of the KLM.

1956: Ravishankar Shukla, a leader of the Indian National Congress, and Indian independence movement activist.

1986: Raj Narain, an Indian freedom fighter and politician.

1993: Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a Georgian politician, and the first democratically elected President of Georgia.

2001: Harshad Mehta, an Indian stockbroker.