After 253 days without an operational government, a second round of investiture votes produced Spain's first coalition government since the Second Republic.
A hot air balloon flight from Carterton, New Zealand, collided with a power line while landing, causing it to crash and killing all eleven people on board.
In Nag Hammadi, Egypt, Muslim gunmen opened fire on a crowd of Coptic Christians leaving church after attending Christmas Liturgy, killing eight of them, as well as one Muslim bystander.
Representatives of Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini delivered a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev, inviting him to consider Islam as an alternative to communism, and predicting the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc.
In one of the most famous upsets in FA Cup history, Sutton United, a team in the fifth tier of English league football, defeated top-tier Coventry City.