This Week in History: Dec. 18th-31st

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, outlawing the manufacture and sale of “intoxicating liquors,” sending it to the states for ratification. 1940: Adolf Hitler signs a secret order preparing for a Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union (Russia). 1957: The Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania is started up and begins producing electricity five days later. The first nuclear plant in the US would continue operating until 1982. 1958: The US launches the world’s first communications satellite into orbit. The Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment (SCORE), nicknamed “Chatterbox,” would deliver President Eisenhower’s Christmas message to a worldwide radio audience the next day.

Dec 19- 1777: General George Washington leads his 11,000-man army to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to camp for the winter. 1843: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is published in London; the first printing of 6,000 copies would be soldout by Christmas Eve. 1917: The first National Hockey League (NHL) game is won by the Montreal Wanderers 10-9 over the visiting Toronto Arenas. 1922: A tearful 24-year-old Theresa Vaughn confesses in a Sheffield, England courtroom that she had been married 61 TIMES in the preceding FIVE YEARS, in 50 CITIES spanning THREE CONTINENTS. (The poor woman was probably EXHAUSTED!). 1972: Apollo 17 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the Apollo program and the last planned manned mission to the moon.

Dec 20- 1803: The Louisiana Purchase is finalized and control of the territory transferred from France to the United States. 1820: The territory of Missouri imposes a $1 “bachelor tax” on unmarried men between the ages of 21 and 50. It remains on the books to this day! 1860: South Carolina is the first state to secede from the Union when 169 delegates to a special convention in Charleston unanimously support severing ties with the federal government. 1957: Singer/songwriter Elvis Presley receives his Army draft notice at Graceland, his newly purchased home. 1999: The Vermont Supreme Court rules that gay couples are entitled to the same benefits and protections as married heterosexual couples.

Dec 21- 1864: Union troops led by Major General William Sherman end their destructive “March to the Sea” with the capture of Savannah, Georgia. 1913: The first newspaper crossword puzzle, called “Word-Cross Puzzle” and containing 32 clues, is published in the New York World. 1914: The US government begins requiring passport applicants to provide their own photograph. 1937: Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the first full-length animated feature film, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles, CA. 1988: A terrorist bomb aboard a Pan American 747 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members on the plane as well as 11 people on the ground, when large sections of the jet crash on a quiet residential street. The 270 fatalities make it the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.K.’s history.

Dec 22- 1894: The United States Golf Association (USGA) is formed in New York City. 1944: During the World War II “Battle of the Bulge,” a German demand for surrender receives a short and sweet official response from US Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe: “Nuts!” 1956: The first gorilla to be bred in captivity, “Colo,” is born at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Columbus, OH. 1989: The last Eastern-European Communist dictator, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, attempts to flee in the face of a popular uprising but is captured when the armed forces join the uprising. After being found guilty of economic sabotage and genocide, he and his wife were executed by firing squad on Christmas Day. 2010: President Barack Obama signs legislation repealing the US Department of Defense’s controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on military service of non-heterosexual people.

Dec 23- 1783: In a brief speech to Congress, meeting in Annapolis, MD, the temporary capital after the Treaty of Paris was signed, General George Washington resigns his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and returns to his home in Mount Vernon, VA. 1888: Artist Vincent van Gogh inexplicably slices off his left ear with a razor. 1951: The NFL Championship game, the forerunner to the modern-day Super Bowl, is televised nationally for the first time. The Los Angeles Rams defeat the Cleveland Browns 24-17 at the Coliseum in Los Angeles, CA. 1958: Dr. Joseph Murray performs the first human kidney transplant at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, MA.

Dec 24- 1814: The Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812 between the US and Great Britain, is signed in Belgium. 1818: The popular Christmas carol “Silent Night,” composed by Franz Xaver Gruber with lyrics by Joseph Mohr, is sung for the first time at St. Nicholas Parish Church in Oberndorf, Austria. 1851: A chimney fire destroys the Library of Congress, reducing some 35,000 catalogued items to ashes. Congress appropriates funds to rebuild what has become the largest library in the world. 1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints General Dwight D. Eisenhower Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in World War II. 1982: Tiny Chaminade University (850 students) beats top-ranked University of Virginia (20,000-plus students) 77-72 in a holiday basketball tournament in Honolulu.

Dec 25- 1868: President Andrew Johnson grants blanket pardons for all persons involved in the “Southern rebellion” in the face of bitter opposition. 1896: John Philip Sousa, widely known as “America’s March King,” composes “The Stars and Stripes Forever” while sailing back to the US. In 1987 it was made the national march by an act of Congress. 1914: An informal “Christmas truce” is created by German and British troops emerging from their trenches to exchange gifts and supplies, as well as play football. 1989: Japanese scientists achieve a temperature of -271.8°C (-457.24°F) in a laboratory, the coldest temperature ever recorded. 1991: In a speech carried across the country, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announces his resignation and the dissolution of the USSR.

Dec 26- 1799: President George Washington is famously eulogized by his friend Col. Henry “Light-Horse” Lee as “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” 1941: Winston Churchill addresses a joint session of Congress during World War II, the first British prime minister accorded such an honor. 1982: TIME magazine’s “Man of the Year” is awarded to the “Machine of the Year:” the PC, or personal computer! 1996: Six-year-old beauty queen contestant Jon-Benet Ramsey is found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, CO. Her slaying remains unsolved nearly 30 years later. 2004: A 9.3 magnitude earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean and the resulting tsunami devastates the island nations of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, killing an estimated 230,000 people and leaving millions more homeless.

Dec 27- 1831: Naturalist Charles Darwin, sets out for a round-the-world voyage aboard the HMS Beagle from Plymouth, England. 1904: Playwright J. M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” debuts at the Duke of York’s Theater in London. 1932: Radio City Music Hall opens in New York City. 1947: “The Howdy Doody Show” premieres on the NBC television network. 1968: Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean with astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell Jr., and William Anders aboard. The men were the first to reach the moon, orbiting Earth’s satellite ten times, and the first to observe the “dark side.”

Dec 28- 1732: Benjamin Franklin publishes the first edition of “Poor Richard’s Almanac(k).” 1849: Jean Baptiste Jolly opens “Tientureier Jolly Belin” in Paris, the first modern dry-cleaning shop. 1860: Harriett Tubman arrives at her home in Auburn, NY from her 13th and final Underground Railroad mission, having successfully evaded capture for eight years while helping dozens of slaves gain their freedom in the north. 1912: San Francisco’s iconic Municpal Railway begins operations with Mayor James Rolph Jr. at the controls of Streetcar No. 1, as 50,000 spectators looked on. 1981: Elizabeth Jordan Carr, America’s first “test-tube baby” (conceived using IVF), is born in Norfolk, VA.

Dec 29- 1845: Texas is admitted as the 28th US state. 1851: America’s first Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in Boston, MA by Thomas Valentine Sullivan. 1852: 17-year-old Emma Snodgrass is arrested in Boston on a charge of vagrancy. Her real crime? Wearing “trousers” in violation of an anti-cross-dressing ordinance! 1940: The worst night of Germany’s “Blitzkrieg” campaign against England comes when the Luftwaffe drop incendiary bombs across London, setting off what became known as “The Second Great Fire of London.” 2006: President George W. Bush announces that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been executed in Baghdad (early morning on December 30 local time). He calls the execution “an important milestone on Iraq’s road to democracy.”

Dec 30- 1906: The All-India Muslim League is founded in Dhaka, laying the foundation for the creation of Pakistan in 1947. 1916: Grigori Rasputin, a Russian peasant from Siberia who rose to prominence as a friend and advisor to Czar Nicholas II, is assassinated by a group of Russian noblemen. They originally tried to poison the “Mad Monk,” though he was barely sickened, and then shot him twice at close range without killing him. They finally tied him inside a rolled rug and deposited him in the freezing Neva River, where his battered body was discovered several days later. 1936: Workers at the General Motors plant in Flint, MI begin the first sit-down strike, which would last 44 days and result in recognition of the United Auto Workers (UAW) as the workers’ bargaining agent and a $25 million wage increase. 1953: The first color television sets, made by RCA, are offered for sale and priced around $1,175! 1978: Ohio State University football coach Woody Hayes is fired after punching Clemson University player Charlie Bauman in the throat at the end of the schools’ Gator Bowl game. (Talk about setting a bad example!).

Dec 31- 1775: The Continental Army is soundly defeated by the British in the Revolutionary War’s “Battle of Quebec.” American General Richard Montgomery is killed, and Col. Benedict Arnold is wounded in the American army’s first major loss of the war. 1879: Inventor Thomas Edison publicly demonstrates the incandescent light bulb at his laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ. (One assumes that spectators were impressed). 1904: The first New Years Eve celebration is held in Times Square; the iconic Waterford Crystal ball would make its first descent down the flagpole atop One Times Square in 1907. 1947: Roy Rogers marries singing partner Dale Evans at the Flying L Ranch in Davis, OK. 1972: Major League Baseball star Roberto Clemente is killed in a plane crash off the coast of Puerto Rico, en route to Nicaragua to deliver relief supplies. The Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder had gotten his 3,000th career hit in the last game of the 1972 season.

Special thank you to Mr. Rudin for sharing your vast knowledge of history with us this past year!