| 143791 | December 22 | Event | 1988 – Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber tapper, unionist and environmental activist, is assassinated. |
| 143792 | December 22 | Event | 1989 – Communist President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu is overthrown by Ion Iliescu after days of bloody confrontations. The deposed dictator and his wife flee Bucharest with a helicopter as protesters erupt in cheers. |
| 143793 | December 22 | Event | 1989 – Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany. |
| 143794 | December 22 | Event | 1990 – Final independence of Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia after termination of trusteeship. |
| 143795 | December 22 | Event | 1990 – The Croatian Parliament adopts the current Constitution of Croatia. |
| 143796 | December 22 | Event | 1991 – Armed opposition groups launch a military coup against President of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia. |
| 143797 | December 22 | Event | 1992 – The Archives of Terror are discovered. |
| 143798 | December 22 | Event | 1997 – Acteal massacre: Attendees at a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic activists for indigenous causes in the small village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas are massacred by paramilitary forces. |
| 143799 | December 22 | Event | 1997 – Hussein Farrah Aidid relinquishes the disputed title of President of Somalia by signing the Cairo Declaration, in Cairo, Egypt. It is the first major step towards reconciliation in Somalia since 1991. |
| 143800 | December 22 | Event | 1999 – Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509, a Boeing 747-200F crashes shortly after take-off from London Stansted Airport due to pilot error. All 4 crew members are killed. |
| 143801 | December 22 | Event | 2001 – Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Northern Alliance, hands over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by President Hamid Karzai. |
| 143802 | December 22 | Event | 2001 – Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63. |
| 143803 | December 22 | Event | 2008 – An ash dike ruptured at a solid waste containment area in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion US gallons (4,200,000 m3) of coal fly ash slurry. |
| 143804 | December 22 | Event | 2010 – The repeal of the Don't ask, don't tell policy, the 17-year-old policy banning homosexuals serving openly in the United States military, is signed into law by President Barack Obama. |
| 143805 | December 22 | Birth | 244 – Diocletian, Roman emperor (d. 311) |
| 143806 | December 22 | Birth | 1095 – Roger II of Sicily (d. 1154) |
| 143807 | December 22 | Birth | 1178 – Emperor Antoku of Japan (d. 1185) |
| 143808 | December 22 | Birth | 1546 – Kuroda Yoshitaka, Japanese daimyo (d. 1604) |
| 143809 | December 22 | Birth | 1550 – Cesare Cremonini, Italian philosopher and author (d. 1631) |
| 143810 | December 22 | Birth | 1639 – Jean Racine, French poet and playwright (d. 1699) |
| 143811 | December 22 | Birth | 1666 – Guru Gobind Singh, Indian guru and poet (d. 1708) |
| 143812 | December 22 | Birth | 1694 – Hermann Samuel Reimarus, German philosopher and academic (d. 1768) |
| 143813 | December 22 | Birth | 1696 – James Oglethorpe, English general and politician, 1st Colonial Governor of Georgia (d. 1785) |
| 143814 | December 22 | Birth | 1723 – Carl Friedrich Abel, German viol player and composer (d. 1787) |
| 143815 | December 22 | Birth | 1765 – Johann Friedrich Pfaff, German mathematician and academic (d. 1825) |
| 143816 | December 22 | Birth | 1805 – John Obadiah Westwood, English entomologist and archaeologist (d. 1893) |
| 143817 | December 22 | Birth | 1807 – Johan Sebastian Welhaven, Norwegian author, poet, and critic (d. 1873) |
| 143818 | December 22 | Birth | 1819 – Franz Abt, German composer and conductor (d. 1870) |
| 143819 | December 22 | Birth | 1819 – Pierre Ossian Bonnet, French mathematician and academic (d. 1892) |
| 143820 | December 22 | Birth | 1839 – John Nevil Maskelyne, English stage magician (d. 1917) |