| 19 December 1118 | Aragon, Navarre, Spain [Reconquista of Spain (711–1492)] | King Alfonso I of Aragon and Navarre captures the city of Zaragoza in northeast Spain from the Muslim ruler of the Almoravids. |
| 19 December 1154 | England [administration] | Henry II Plantagenet is crowned as king of England, founding the Plantagenet dynasty. |
| 19 December 1256 | Persia [Mongol conquests (1206–1405)] | A Mongol army under Hulagu, recently appointed ilkhan of Persia, besieges the stronghold of the Assassins (militant branch of the Islamic Ismaili sect) at Alamut in the Elburz Mountains. Their grand master, Rukn-ad-Din Kurshah, surrenders and is put to death. The Mongols now annihilate the Assassins in Persia. |
| 19 December 1689 | UK, United Netherlands, Holy Roman Empire [diplomacy] | Britain accedes to the Grand Alliance, joining the Dutch and the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I in a coalition against France. |
| 19 December 1783 | UK [political events] | The British Tory politician William Pitt the Younger forms a government and, as chancellor of the Exchequer, is the only member of the cabinet in the House of Commons. |
| 19 December 1848 | England [births and deaths] | Emily Brontë, English novelist known for Wuthering Heights (1847), dies in Haworth, Yorkshire (now West Yorkshire), England (30). |
| 19 December 1851 | England [births and deaths] | J(oseph) M(allord) W(illiam) Turner, English Romantic landscape painter, dies in London, England (76). |
| 19 December 1885 | France [elections] | The conservative Republican François-Paul-Jules Grévy is re-elected president of France. |
| 19 December 1906 | [births and deaths] | Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet statesman, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party 1964–82, born in Kamenskoye, Russia (–1982). |
| 19 December 1946 | France, Vietnam, French Indochina [decolonization] | The French Indochina War (for Vietnamese independence) begins, and Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Vietminh (Vietnam Independence League), seeks refuge in a remote area of North Vietnam. |
| 19 December 1982 | Poland [law and government] | Poland's Council of State announces the suspension of martial law, effective from 31 December. |
| 19 December 1989 | Panama [political events] | US troops invade Panama to overthrow the regime of General Manuel Noriega. |
| 19 December 2003 | Libya [weapons] | Libya's leader, Moamer al-Khaddhafi, confirms that his regime has sought to develop weapons of mass destruction but, following negotiations with the USA and UK, plans to dismantle all covert programmes and open the country's sites to international inspection. |
