What happened on 23 December?

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

1. 1947 Invention of the transistor Bell Labs scientists Bardeen, Brattain, Shockley invent the semiconductor transistor; foundation of the digital age.
2. 1954 First successful organ transplant (kidney) Twin-brother kidney transplant by Joseph Murray's team.
3. 1688 Flight of James II James II flees to France, allowing Parliament to treat the throne as vacant and offer it to William and Mary.
4. 1783 Washington resigns his commission The victorious commander-in-chief appears before Congress at Annapolis and hands back his commission to return to his farm — an act with almost no precedent since Cincinnatus. Geor
5. 1588 Assassination of the Duke of Guise Summoned to the king's chamber at Blois, the head of the Catholic League — master of Paris, more powerful than the crown itself — walks into the royal bodyguard's daggers. 'Now I a
6. 1913 Federal Reserve established The US creates its central bank after recurring panics, a pillar of the modern financial system.
7. 1888 Van Gogh cuts off his ear After a quarrel ends Gauguin's stay at the Yellow House in Arles, Van Gogh severs his left ear with a razor; he is hospitalised and later paints himself bandaged.
8. 1871 Iwakura Mission tours the West Half the new government's leadership spends twenty-one months touring American and European factories, parliaments, schools and shipyards to learn how the modern world works. They
9. 1815 Jane Austen's Emma 'Handsome, clever, and rich' — Austen's comedy of a heroine only she would much like, and the high-water mark of her art.
10. 1876 Tanzimat reforms end Conventional end of Tanzimat reforms.
11. 1966 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly released Sergio Leone's spaghetti-western showdown; soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.
12. 1776 Paine's The American Crisis 'These are the times that try men's souls' — written during the retreat across New Jersey, Paine's pamphlet is read to Washington's freezing army before the attack on Trenton.
13. 1969 Ekofisk: North Sea oil discovered Phillips strikes oil in the Norwegian North Sea just as the search was being abandoned; the fund built on it makes Norway one of the world's richest countries per head.
14. 1938 Renoir's La Bête humaine Jean Gabin as a train driver haunted by murderous impulses in Renoir's adaptation of Zola, shot on real locomotives.