What happened on 20 December?

10 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1860 South Carolina secedes from the Union Six weeks after Lincoln's election — before he has even taken office — South Carolina votes unanimously to leave the United States; its declaration of causes, issued four days late
2. 69 Death of Vitellius As the Flavian army fights into Rome — the Capitol itself burning in the street-fighting — Vitellius is dragged from a doorkeeper's cell, paraded half-naked through the Forum he ha
3. 1990 First website goes online On a NeXT computer at CERN, Berners-Lee's server info.cern.ch goes live with the world's first web page — a page explaining what the World Wide Web is.
4. 1999 Macao handover to China Macao returns to PRC sovereignty.
5. 1917 Lenin founds the Cheka Six weeks after taking power, the Bolsheviks create the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission — the Cheka — under Felix Dzerzhinsky, with an open licence against 'counter-revolution
6. 1955 Cardiff becomes capital of Wales Cardiff is formally proclaimed the first capital city of Wales.
7. 1817 Jane Austen's Persuasion Anne Elliot, persuaded at nineteen to refuse Captain Wentworth, meets him again eight years later — Austen's last novel, published with Northanger Abbey after her death.
8. 1915 Evacuation of Gallipoli The Allies quietly withdraw from Gallipoli, the most successful operation of the failed campaign.
9. 1963 Godard's Contempt Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli and Fritz Lang in a Capri villa: a marriage and a film production fall apart together — Godard's big-budget meditation on cinema.
10. 1192 Richard the Lionheart captured in Austria Shipwrecked on the way home from crusade, Richard is seized near Vienna by Duke Leopold and handed to the emperor; England pays a ransom of 150,000 marks.