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TOP TEN LISTS

World's Most Dangerous Animals

Deadliest animals in the world ranked by estimated number of human fatalities per year

Best Selling Musicians

Top selling musicians of all time ranked by estimated number of albums sold

Best Selling Books of All-Time

Best selling novels worldwide ranked by estimated number of copies sold

Fastest Manned Aircraft in the World

Fastest manned aircraft (excluding spacecraft) ranked by top speed

World's Most Practiced Religions

Major religions of the world ranked by estimated number of followers

Worst Genocides of the Twentieth Century

The ten worst genocides of the 20th century listed by dictators responsible; ranked by number of deaths

World's Fastest Land Animals

The fastest land animals in the world ranked by maximum speed

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Today in History

Thursday, 18 December 2025

2002

2003 California recall: Then Governor of California Gray Davis announces that the state would face a record budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier.

1999

NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.

1997

HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium.

1996

The Oakland, California school board passes a resolution officially declaring "Ebonics" a language or dialect.

1989

The European Community and the Soviet Union sign an agreement on trade and commercial and economic cooperation.

1987

Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language.

1978

Dominica joins the United Nations.

1973

Soviet Soyuz Programme: ''Soyuz 13'', crewed by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk, is launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.

1972

Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will engage North Vietnam in Operation Linebacker II, a series of Christmas bombings, after peace talks collapsed with North Vietnam on the 13th.

1971

Capitol Reef National Park is established in Utah.

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