On this day — December 20

Croatia, in which a 7-year-old pupil is killed and six more are injured by a knife-wielding 19-year-old male.

Colombia, killing five people.

surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years and 243 days.

by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, and O Lavrador de Café by Brazilian modernist painter Cândido Portinari, are stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil. Both will be recovered a few weeks later.

a Boeing 757, crashes into a mountain 50 km north of Cali, Colombia, killing 159 of the 163 people on board.

The United Nations agrees upon and promulgates the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, one of three major drug control treaties currently in force.

the passenger ferry Doña Paz sinks after colliding with the oil tanker MT Vector in the Tablas Strait of the Philippines, killing an estimated 4,000 people (1,749 official).