December 31

1719: English astronomer John Flamsteed, who established the Greenwich Observatory, died. 1857: Britain's Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada. 1879: Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, NJ. 1905: Aleksandr Popov, considered in Russia to be the inventor of radio, died. 1935: A patent was issued for the game of Monopoly, assigned to Parker Brothers. 1940: French biophysicist Jacques-Arsène d' Arsonval, who invented the reflecting moving-coil galvanometers used to measure weak electric currents, died. 1974: Private U.S. citizens were allowed to buy and own gold in bullion for the first time in more than 40 years (high of $875/oz. in 1980, currently around $600/oz). 1991: The USSR was officially dissolved. 1995: The final Calvin and Hobbes comic strip was published - reruns are not allowed. 1997: Intel cut price of Pentium II-233 MHz from $401 to $268. 2004: Taipei 101, the world's tallest skyscraper, was fully opened.