What happened on 22 December?

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

1. 1808 Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 Fate-knocking-at-the-door symphony; the most famous opening notes in classical music.
2. 1989 Brandenburg Gate reopens Brandenburg Gate reopens after 28 years.
3. 1808 Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral) Programmatic symphony evoking the countryside.
4. 1887 Born: Srinivasa Ramanujan Self-taught Indian mathematician whose intuitions still inspire number theory.
5. 1990 Presidency of Lech Wałęsa The Gdansk electrician who broke communism, presiding over shock therapy and losing re-election to a former communist.
6. 1894 Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun Orchestral tone poem often credited with launching musical modernism.
7. 1666 Born: Guru Gobind Singh Tenth Sikh guru; founded the Khalsa and made the Guru Granth Sahib the eternal guru.
8. 1914 Battle of Sarikamish Russian victory destroys an Ottoman army in the Caucasus winter.
9. 1639 Born: Jean Racine Pre-eminent French classical tragedian alongside Corneille and Molière.
10. 1666 Founding of the Académie des sciences (France) Louis XIV's scientific academy.
11. 1858 Born: Giacomo Puccini Italian opera composer of La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly.
12. 218 BCE Battle of the Trebia Hannibal's first major Italian victory; consul Sempronius's army shattered on the Trebia in winter.
13. 1967 The Graduate released Coming-of-age film about Benjamin Braddock; emblem of the 1960s generation gap.