December 26 in Military History

Washington's Continental Army attacked the Hessian garrison at Trenton following the Christmas night crossing of the Delaware, killing 22 Hessians including their commander Colonel Rall and capturing nearly 900, with zero American combat deaths.

Continental Army soldiers under General George Washington attacked and defeated the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey, in a 45-minute engagement that produced one of the most lopsided tactical victories of the Revolutionary War. Washington's force captured 918 prisoners, six artillery pieces, and the stores of a full Hessian brigade, at a cost of two dead and four wounded.

Thirty-eight Dakota Sioux men were hanged simultaneously at Mankato, Minnesota, in the largest mass execution in United States history. The men had been condemned by a military tribunal for their roles in the Dakota War of 1862. President Abraham Lincoln had personally reviewed the 303 death sentences initially handed down and commuted all but 39, one of whom received a last-minute reprieve.

The British Crown Colony of Hong Kong surrendered to Japanese forces after eighteen days of combat that killed approximately 2,000 defenders and wounded thousands more. The garrison of 14,000 British, Canadian, Indian, and Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Force troops had been overwhelmed by the Japanese 38th Division's assault across the harbor and through the New Territories. The loss of Hong Kong removed a key British base in East Asia for the remainder of the war.

The Royal Navy sank the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst off the coast of Norway after decoded signals revealed her mission to attack an Allied convoy to Russia. Of her crew of nearly 2,000, only 36 survived.

The 4th Armored Division broke through German lines to relieve the besieged 101st Airborne at Bastogne, culminating Patton's audacious 90-degree turn of the Third Army through winter conditions.

Ground forces of the Soviet 40th Army crossed the Amu Darya River at Termez, Uzbekistan, into Afghanistan, completing the invasion begun by airborne and special operations units two days earlier. Over the following week, Soviet motor rifle divisions and the 103rd Guards Airborne Division consolidated control of Kabul, Bagram, Herat, Kandahar, and the main highways of the country, beginning the nine-year war that would contribute to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet of the Republics formally dissolved the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, ending the existence of the superpower that had maintained the world's largest conventional military and a nuclear arsenal of over 10,000 warheads.

A magnitude 9.1 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra triggered a devastating tsunami that killed over 230,000 people across fourteen countries, sparking the largest international military humanitarian operation in history, Operation Unified Assistance.

A magnitude 9.1 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed approximately 228,000 people across fourteen countries and displaced 1.7 million more. The American military response, Operation Unified Assistance, deployed the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, the USS Bonhomme Richard expeditionary strike group, and more than 15,000 military personnel in the largest U.S. humanitarian assistance operation since the Berlin Airlift.