Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 31
This is a list of selected December 31 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
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December 31: New Year's Eve in the Gregorian calendar
- 1225 – Lý Chiêu Hoàng, the only empress regnant in the history of Vietnam, married Tran Thai Tong, making him the first emperor of the Tran Dynasty at age seven.
- 1857 – Queen Victoria selected Ottawa, then a small logging town, to be the capital of the British colony of Canada.
- 1907 – Times Square in New York City held its first New Year's Eve celebrations with the ball drop (2007 version pictured).
- 1963 – Despite Prime Minister Roy Welensky's efforts, the Central African Federation officially collapsed, splitting into three separate nations: Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.
- 1998 – The European Exchange Rate Mechanism froze the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone and established the value of the euro currency.
- 2004 – Taipei 101 in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan, opened to the public as the world's tallest skyscraper.