On Dec. 27, 1831, naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a round-the-world voyage aboard the HMS Beagle.

In 1904, James Barrie’s play “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” opened at the Duke of York’s Theater in London.

In 1932, New York City’s Radio City Music Hall opened to the public.

In 1945, the International Monetary Fund was formally established.

In 1968, the Apollo 8 capsule splashed down in the Pacific, completing the first crewed mission to orbit the moon.

In 1979, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin was overthrown and executed.

In 1985, American naturalist Dian Fossey, 53, who had studied mountain gorillas in Africa for nearly 20 years, was found murdered in her cabin in Rwanda.