Local

1986: A seven-hour concert titled Hope ’86 is held at the Salt Lake Stadium on December 29. One of the biggest concerts ever staged in the country, the state-organised event features the who’s who of Bollywood like Amitabh Bachchan, Mithun Chakraborty, Sridevi, Rekha, Lata Mangeshkar, and Kishore Kumar. The concert draws a crowd of a lakh, and the proceeds go to charity.

National

1986: Freedom fighter Bina Das dies on December 26 at the age of 75. A member of Chhatri Sangha, a revolutionary group for women, Das had tried to assassinate Bengal governor Stanley Jackson, at the University of Calcutta. She had fired five shots at him, but they failed to hit Jackson. Das was jailed, but her detailed confession, though censored by the British, got leaked to the masses, further inspiring nationalist sentiment.

1925: The All-Bengal Library Association is formed on December 20 at a meeting held at Albert Hall. Rabindranath Tagore serves as its founder president. The body works to promote libraries and reading, and even starts a mobile wing that takes books to villagers. The group is later renamed to Bengal Library Association and remains active well into the 21st century.

1995: Unauthorised weapons are dropped from an Antonov An-26 aircraft in Purulia on December 17. A Danish national Niels Holck is implicated and claims the incident is a conspiracy by the Congress government, R&AW and MI5, to overthrow the communist government in West Bengal. The arms were to be used to protect members of Ananda Marga, a socio-spiritual group, from communists. Holck’s claims are never substantiated and Purulia Arms Drop remains one of India’s enduring mysteries.

Global

1824: British explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell make an arduous climb to a summit near Melbourne on December 7. Hume suffers injuries on the way, delaying their journey by five days. And when they finally reach the peak and expect to see a clear view of Port Phillip Bay, dense forests obscure the sight. Their disappointment makes them name the mountain Mount Disappointment. In later years, the summit becomes a popular hiking spot.

1875: Mileva Maric is born on December 19 in what later becomes Serbia. She grows up to break the glass ceiling and become a physicist and mathematician, working extensively to develop calculus, geometry, mechanics, theoretical, applied and experimental physics, and astronomy. Maric’s achievements are dwarfed by her colleague and husband, Albert Einstein, although she is said to have contributed to his works too.

1989: Italian artiste Arturo Di Modica, on the night of December 14, drives into New York’s Wall Street and illegally drops an 11ft tall bronze sculpture of a charging bull outside New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Considered an act of guerrilla art, the police remove the bull (a symbol of financial prosperity). But the art had become a tourist attraction, and so the artiste gets temporary permission to exhibit it elsewhere. Public outcry later gets it reinstalled near Wall Street on December 20, where it becomes synonymous with the institution.

Sports

1831: Poet Henry Derozio dies of cholera on December 26, at the age of 22. Born in Calcutta to Indo-Portuguese and British parents, Derozio was a radical thinker, popular especially among the youth. As assistant headmaster at Hindu College, he encouraged students to debate and question norms. His followers called themselves Young Bengal, and his ideas influenced the Bengal Renaissance.

1992: Twenty-year-old surfer Kelly Slater later wins the Association of Surfing Professionals World Tour in Hawaii to become the world’s youngest world champion. This launches a legendary career for the American, who goes on to become the greatest professional surfer of all time, with 56 championship tour victories under his belt. Slater is also remembered for stint in the hit TV series Baywatch and continues to surf into the 21st century.

2009: Hollywood science fictionthriller Avatar premieres on December 10. Written and directed by James Cameron, the film follows humans mining a distant moon called inhabited by tall, blue-skinned indigenous species. The movie stands out for its groundbreaking 3D and special effects, and becomes the first to gross more than $2 billion worldwide. It earns nine Oscar nominations, winning three, and spawns a series of sequels.