What happend on 31st December

30.12
01.01
1999

The Panama Canal comes completely under Panama's jurisdiction.

1999

Five hijackers, who had been holding 155 hostages on an Indian Airlines plane, leave the plane with two Islamic clerics that they had demanded be freed.

1999

Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, to be replaced by Vladimir Putin

1997

After 26 years in operation, Opryland USA theme park in Nashville, Tennessee closes permanently.

1995

The publication of the last new Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip.

1992

In the last of the great ITV franchise renewals, Thames Television, Television South West and Television South cease broadcasting, replaced by Carlton Television, Westcountry Television and Meridian Television respectively.

1991

The Soviet Union is officially dissolved.

1990

Russian Garry Kasparov holds his title by winning the World Chess Championship match against his countryman Anatoly Karpov.

1988

Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins becomes the first player in National Hockey League history to score one goal of each type in a single hockey game: a even-strength goal, a power-play goal, a short-handed goal, a penalty shot, and an empty-net goal.

1986

A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 and injures 140.