This Week in History

Dec 18- 1865: The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude, was officially declared to be in effect by Secretary of State William Seward. 1917: Congress passes the 18th Amendment,

Dec 11- 1913: Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is recovered by Italian authorities in Florence, two years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris. 1972: Apollo 17’s

Dec 4- 1783: General George Washington bids farewell to his Continental Army officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York City. 1791: Great Britain’s The Observer, the world’s first Sunday newspaper,

Nov 20- 1923: African American inventor Garrett Morgan patents the well-known three position traffic light. 1942: Future US President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is born in Scranton, PA. Happy 82nd

Nov 13- 1789: In a letter to French scientist Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, Benjamin Franklin pens one of his more memorable quotations: “…in this world nothing can be said to be

Nov 6- 1860: Republican Abraham Lincoln is elected as the 16th president. South Carolina would secede from the Union in December and the Civil War would begin barely a month

Oct 30- 1938: A dramatization of H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds,” narrated by Mercury Theater host Orson Welles and broadcast on the CBS Radio Network, causes widespread panic

Oct 23- 1915: Women’s Suffrage March on Fifth Avenue in New York City draws more than 25,000 marchers. 1941: Walt Disney’s “Dumbo” is released in American theaters. 1977: Paleontologist Dr.

Oct 16- 1813: Napoleon is defeated in the Battle of Leipzig by the combined armies of Prussia, Russia, and Austria. It is the largest military battle in Europe prior to

Oct 9- 1919: The Cincinnati Reds defeat the Chicago White Sox 10-5, winning the baseball World Series. A year later, eight Chicago players were indicted by a grand jury for