Key Historical Events Remembered on December 30 and 31

From the creation of the Soviet Union to the resignation of Boris Yeltsin, these dates mark significant historical milestones.

December 30 commemorates the 1922 signing of the treaty that established the Soviet Union, uniting Russia, Ukraine, and two other republics.
On December 31, 1999, Boris Yeltsin resigned as Russia's president, paving the way for Vladimir Putin to assume the role of acting president.
In 1879, Thomas Edison demonstrated his incandescent lamp publicly for the first time on December 31 in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
December 30, 1903, saw the tragic Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago, which claimed 602 lives and led to global theater safety reforms.
The final days of December also mark milestones such as the U.S.'s full control of the Panama Canal in 1999 and the first report of a novel coronavirus cluster in Wuhan, China, in 2019.