On This Day: December 20th

South Carolina becomes the first state to attempt to secede from the United States with the South Carolina Declaration of Secession.

French presidential election: Having won the popular vote in a landslide, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is inaugurated in the chamber of the National Assembly as the first (and only) president of the French Second Republic.

HMS Clio under the command of Captain Onslow arrives at Port Egmont under orders to take possession of the Falkland Islands.

Peninsular War: The Siege of Zaragoza begins.

The Louisiana Purchase is completed at a ceremony in New Orleans.

Cardinal Jacques Fournier, a Cistercian monk, is elected Pope Benedict XII.

Richard I of England is captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after the Third Crusade.

Emperor Henry III convenes the synod of Sutri to mediate between different claimants to the papacy.

Byzantine Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos is arrested by two of his sons, forced to abdicate and to live as a monk for the rest of his life.

Antonius Primus enters Rome to claim the title of Emperor for Nero's former general Vespasian.