On This Day, Dec. 20: Industrial waste landslide kills 73 in Shenzhen, China

Dec. 20 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1803, the United States formally took over territory acquired from France in the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1860, South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States.

In 1956, a Montgomery, Ala., public bus boycott officially ended but not until it had given a major boost to the civil rights struggle in the South. The boycott had been called in reaction to the Dec. 1, 1955, arrest of Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man.

In 1968, the so-called Zodiac Killer killed his first two confirmed victims — David Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen — in Vallejo, Calif. He would go on to kill at least five people, though he took credit for three dozen deaths.

In 1987, a passenger ferry struck by an oil tanker sank in the Philippines and nearly 1,600 people died in what was called the century’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.

In 1989, the United States invaded Panama to oust Manuel Noriega and install the duly elected civilian government.

In 1990, Eduard Shevardnadze abruptly resigned as Soviet foreign minister, warning that a “dictatorship is coming.” The Soviet Union formally broke up a year later and Shevardnadze became leader of his native Georgia.

In 1995, 160 people were killed when an American Airlines 757 crashed into a mountain shortly before it was scheduled to land in Cali, Colombia.

In 1995, NATO assumed peacekeeping duties in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the close of the Bosnian War.

In 1998, a Houston woman, Nkem Chukwu, gave birth to seven babies after delivering the first of her octuplets 12 days earlier. The six girls and two boys were the only known set of octuplets to be born alive in the United States. The smallest baby, a girl, died a week later.

In 2001, Argentine President Fernando de la Rua resigned amid mass protests.

In 2007, Queen Elizabeth II became the oldest monarch in British history, outliving her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria, who lived 81 years, seven months, four weeks and one day. Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022 at age 96 years and 140 days.

In 2007, two paintings, including one by Pablo Picasso called Portrait of Suzanne Bloch, were stolen from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil. The paintings were recovered in January 2008.

In 2011, the Kepler, NASA’s orbiting space observatory, discovered two Earth-size planets outside the solar system but scientists said both orbit too close to a sun-like star to have water on the surface.

In 2014, two New York police officers were killed execution-style while sitting in their patrol vehicle. The shooter had posted threatening messages on social media against police and in support of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, both killed by police.

In 2015, a landslide at an industrial park in Shenzhen, China, toppled dozens of buildings and killed 73 people. The disaster was caused by construction waste.

In 2017, the U.S. Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the first major overhaul of the U.S. tax code in 30 years. The legislation slashed corporate taxes permanently from 35 percent to 21 percent and temporarily cut the top income tax bracket from 39.6 percent to 37 percent.

In 2019, President Donald Trump signed a bill creating White Sands National Park in New Mexico. Two years later, scientists announced that human footprints found preserved in sediment in the park are likely 21,000 to 23,000 years old. If accurate, they would push the timeline of human settlement in the Americas back by up to 10,000 years.

In 2022, the Taliban announced a ban on women in Afghanistan attending universities.

In 2024, a vehicle rammed into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, killing six people. Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a Saudi refugee who worked as a psychiatrist, was charged with six counts of murder and 338 counts of attempted murder. His trial began in November.