About December 31
December 31, 2025 is the 365th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. The day of the week is Wednesday.
You can browse the full year calendar in case you need it.
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Capricorn is the sun sign of a person born on this day. Turquoise is the modern birthstone for this month. Onyx is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 48 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
December 31: More About This Day
It is widely known as New Year’s Eve since the following day is New Year’s Day. It is the last day of the year.
What Happened On December 31
- 535 –Byzantine General Belisarius completes the conquest of Sicily, defeating the Ostrogothic garrison of Syracuse, and ending his consulship for the year.
- 1600 –The British East India Company is chartered.
- 1660 –James II of England is named Duke of Normandy by Louis XIV of France.
- 1687 –The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope.
- 1759 –Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
- 1790 –Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today is published for the first time.
- 1857 –Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, Ontario, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.
- 1862 –American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River begins near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
- 1879 –Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
- 1906 –Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar signs the Persian Constitution of 1906.
- 1907 –The first New Year’s Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in New York, New York.
- 1909 –Manhattan Bridge opens.
- 1923 –The chimes of Big Ben are broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.
- 1951 –The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
- 1981 –A coup d'état in Ghana removes President Hilla Limann’s PNP government and replaces it with the Provisional National Defence Council led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.
- 1983 –In Nigeria a coup d'état led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari ends the Nigerian Second Republic.
- 1983 –The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government.
- 1986 –A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 and injures 140.
- 1991 –All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date and the Soviet Union is officially dissolved.
- 1999 –Boris Yeltsin, the first president of Russia, resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.
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