On This Day: December 20th

Six people are killed and over 200 are injured when an anti-Islam activist drives a car into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany.

A mass stabbing occurs in a primary school in Zagreb, Croatia, in which a 7-year-old pupil is killed and six more are injured by a knife-wielding 19-year-old male.

The United States Space Force becomes the first new branch of the United States Armed Forces since 1947.

Aerosucre Flight 157 crashes during takeoff from Germán Olano Airport in Puerto Carreño, Colombia, killing five people.

Elizabeth II becomes the oldest monarch in the history of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years and 243 days.

The Portrait of Suzanne Bloch (1904), by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, and O Lavrador de Café by Brazilian modernist painter Cândido Portinari, are stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil. Both will be recovered a few weeks later.

A gang of thieves steal £26.5 million worth of currency from the Donegall Square West headquarters of Northern Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, one of the largest bank robberies in British history.

Macau is handed over to China by Portugal.

American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757, crashes into a mountain 50 km north of Cali, Colombia, killing 159 of the 163 people on board.

A Missouri court sentences the Palestinian militant Zein Isa and his wife Maria to death for the honor killing of their daughter Palestina.