What happened on 29 December?

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

1. 1989 Presidency of Václav Havel The dissident playwright as president, through the Velvet Divorce and into NATO.
2. 1170 Murder of Thomas Becket Four knights kill Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral after Henry II's rash words; canonised in 1173.
3. 1916 Lucknow Pact Congress and Muslim League agree on joint demands for self-rule.
4. 1916 Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Stephen Dedalus from infant babble to artistic exile — Joyce's autobiographical novel that stretched English prose to fit a growing mind.
5. 1989 Japanese economic miracle ends Conventional end of Japanese economic miracle.
6. 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre Days after Sitting Bull's killing, the 7th Cavalry opens fire while disarming Spotted Elk's band at Wounded Knee Creek, killing around 250 Lakota men, women and children — the end
7. 1895 Jameson Raid Rhodes's botched putsch against the Transvaal — a private invasion that failed in four days and lit the fuse of the Second Boer War.