Today in History in 1783 George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis.

The On This Day In History archives at “Simple English Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia” contains over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

December 23 is the 357th day of the year (358th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are eight days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

583 - Maya Queen Yohl Ik'nal is crowned ruler of Palenque.

679 - King Dagobert II of Paris is murdered on a hunting trip.

962 - Arab-Byzantine Wars: Under future Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, Byzantine troops storm the city of Aleppo in present-day Syria.

1572 – Theologian Johann Sylvan is executed in Heidelberg.

1631 - Thirty Years' War: Sweden takes over the city of Mainz.

1672 – Giovanni Cassini discovers Saturn's moon Rhea.

1688 – James II of England flees to Paris, as Mary II and William III take the throne to rule jointly.

1783 - George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis.

1787 – The HMVA Bounty is sent to Tahiti to collect breadfruit plants.

1793 - Battle of Savenay: Decisive defeat of the royalist counter-revolutionaries in the war in the Vendee during the French Revolution.

1823 - "A Visit from St. Nicholas", also known as "The Night Before Christmas", is published anonymously.

1876 - First day of the Constantinople Conference which results in an agreement for the political reforms in the Balkans.

1888 – Part of Vincent van Gogh's left ear is cut off in as-yet unexplained circumstances.

1893 - The opera Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck is performed for the first time.

1913 - The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by US President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve Bank.

1914 – World War I: Australian and New Zealand troops land in Cairo, Egypt.

1916 - World War I: Battle of Maghdaba - Allied forces defeat Turkish forces on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

1920 - The UK government agrees on the Government of Ireland Act, which ends up splitting the island of Ireland in two.

1933 - A train crash occurs at Lagny-Pomponne in France, killing 204 people, and injuring 120.

1936 – Colombia becomes a signatory of the Buenos Aires Convention.

1938 - The first modern coelacanth fish is discovered in South Africa. The species was thought to be extinct.

1940 - World War II: Greek submarine Papanikolis (Y-2) sinks the Italian motor ship Antonietta.

1941 – World War II: After 15 days of fighting, Japan takes control of Wake Island.

1947 – The transistor is first demonstrated.

1948 – Japanese officials who were found guilty of war crimes, are executed.

1954 - The first successful kidney transplant is performed by J. Hartwell Harrison and Joseph Murray.

1957 - Ian Craig of Australia becomes the youngest test cricket captain in history.

1958 – The Tokyo Tower is dedicated, becoming the world's tallest self-supporting iron tower.

1968 - The 82 sailors from the USS Pueblo are released after 11 months of internment in North Korea.

1970 – The North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City is topped out at a height of 417 metres.

1970 - The Democratic Republic of the Congo officially becomes a single-party state.

1972 – A major earthquake hits Nicaragua, killing thousands of people. It was of magnitude 6.2.

1972 – Members of a Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes, near the border between Chile and Argentina, are rescued.

1973 - Royal Air Maroc airliner crashes over Morocco, killing 106 people.

1978 - An Alitalia Douglas DC-9 crashes on landing, into the Mediterranean Sea off Palermo, Sicily, killing 108 people. 22 people are saved and transported to land in fishing boats.

1979 – Soviet forces occupy Kabul, Afghanistan.

1982 - The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces that it has detected dangerous levels of dioxin in the soil of Times Beach, Missouri.

1986 – Voyager becomes the first aircraft without an aerial or ground refuelling to fly non-stop around the world.

1990 – In a referendum, most of Slovenia's voters support independence from Yugoslavia.

1991 – Germany recognises Croatia's independence.

2003 – An explosion at the PetroChina Chuandongbei natural gas field near Chongqing, China, kills 234 people.

2005 – Lech Kaczynski becomes President of Poland. His time in office ends with his death in a plane crash on April 10, 2010.

2007 - An agreement is made for Nepal to change its system of government from a monarchy to a republic.

2011 – At least 40 people are killed in bomb attacks in Damascus, Syria.

2013 - A storm hits the UK and Ireland, with strong winds and heavy rain, killing 2 people and affecting transport in the run-up to Christmas.

2017 - A fire at a shopping center in Davao City, Southern Philippines, kills at least 37 people.