In Montgomery, Alabama, USA, Rosa Parks refuses to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger and is arrested, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott.
Operation Olive Leaves, an Israeli reprisal operation against Syria, ends with the destruction of Syrian emplacements, and fifty-four Syrians killed in action, with another thirty taken prisoner. Six IDF fatalities are reported.[6]
UK cargo ship Victoria City collides with Italian ship SS Valentina Bibolini off Ameland, Netherlands, and sinks.[10]
Hugh Gaitskell becomes leader of the UK Labour Party, having been Chancellor of the Exchequer during the final year of the previous Labour government.[11]
Born:Hervé Guibert, French writer and photographer, in Saint-Cloud (died 1991)
In the Saarland, the Deutsche Heimatbund (German Patriotic Front, including the three parties favorable to the reunification with West Germany) wins the election, with 65% of votes.[15]
Under the leadership of Ismail al-Azhari, Sudan adopts a declaration of independence from Egypt, to take effect on 1 January 1956 with the agreement of Egypt and the UK.
The Representative of Portugal to the United Nations makes a Declaration of Acceptance, on behalf of the Government of Portugal, of the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in a dispute with India, resulting in further legal controversy.[17][clarification needed]
In Jordan, King Hussein declares the state of siege, after the riots and the attacks to the foreign embassies because the announced adherence of the country to the Baghdad Pact. The Hazza' al-Majali government, in charge for less than a week, resigns.[18]
Cardiff is declared the capital of Wales by the British Government.
In the Jordan sector of Jerusalem, the crowd assaults the embassies of USA and France; the American diplomatic staff takes refuge in the Israeli sector.[19]
Ibrahim Hashem becomes acting Prime Minister of Jordan, thus beginning his third term in the post.
Khrushchev and Bulganin come back in Moscow, warmly welcomed by the crowd, after an official trip in Burma, India and Afghanistan lasting over a month.[21]
In France, the Prime MinisterEdgar Faure convenes an extraordinary cabinet meeting because the troubles in Algeria, where the guerrilla has caused an hundred victims only in the last 24 hours.[22]
The countess Pia Bellentani is released from the Pozzuoli penal psychiatric hospital. The woman, sentenced to ten years in 1952 for the killing of her lover Carlo Sacchi, had been pardoned by the Italian president Gronchi.[24]
In Chateau-Chinon, a Francois Mitterrand’s election rally is interrupted by the raid of 500 UDCA militants, headed by Pierre Poujade himself. In the following harsh debate between the two politicians, however, the young socialist clearly outclasses his adversary.[25]
Otto John, former head of the German secret service (BfV) is arrested in Wiesbaden. After a clamorous defection to East the last year, he had returned in West Germany the 12th of December.[26]
In his Christmas radio-message, aired by Vatican radio, Pope Pius XII asks for the banishment of nuclear weapons. The speech is relayed also by Radio Moscow (except for the part where the pope confirms the condemnation of communism).[30]
Daniel Havas, a forty year old confectioner with mental troubles, puts a home-made time bomb in the Sacre Coeur of Montmartre to protest against the atomic threat (another device was destined for Notre Dame). The bomb, unexploded, is discovered on Christmas day, following reports by Havas himself.[32]
Japanese cargo ship SS Tanda Maru is driven ashore in a typhoon on Honshu and breaks in two. Fourteen of her 24 crew are rescued by a US helicopter.[34]
L’Express publishes some frames, shot by the cameraman Georges Chassagne for Fox-Movietone, showing the summary execution of an Algerian rebel by a gendarme, after the battle of Philippeville. The French government first charges Chassagne to have staged the scene and even to have paid the gendarme for carrying out the killing, then has to admit the truth of the images.[38]