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Today in History ~ December 17
Events1538 - Pope Paul III excommunicates England's King Henry VIII
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's army retreats to Scotland
1777 - France recognized American independence.
1790 - Aztec calendar stone discovered in Mexico City by workmen repairing Mexico City’s Central Plaza.
1791 - NYC traffic regulation creates 1st 1-way street
1798 - 1st impeachment trial against a US senator (Wm Blount, TN) begins
1821 - Kentucky abolishes debtors prisons
1830 - South American patriot Simon Bolivar died in Colombia.
1875 - Violent bread riots in Montreal
1895 - Anti-Saloon League of America formed, Washington, DC
1900 - New Ellis Island Immigration station completed costing $1.5 million
1903 - At 10:35 AM, Orville and Wilbur Wright made history's first successful airplane flight...soaring over the sand dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. [H]
1914 - Jews are expelled from Tel Aviv by Turkish authorities
1925 - Army General William "Billy" Mitchell -- an outspoken advocate of a separate U-S Air Force - was found guilty of conduct prejudicial to the good of the armed services. He was awarded the Medal of Honor 20 years after his death.
1939 - The German pocket battleship Graf Spee pursued by British ships Exeter, Ajax, and Achilles was scuttled by its crew, ending the World War II Battle of the River Plate off Uruguay.
1941 - German troops led by Rommel begin retreat in North Africa
1944 - US Army announces end of excluding Japanese-Americans from West Coast
1953 - FCC approves RCA's black & white-compatible color TV specifications
1957 - US successfully test-fires Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile
1967 - The Clean Air Act was passed by Congress.
1969 - The U.S. Air Force closed its Project Blue Book by concluding there was no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.
1970 - Gdansk, Poland shipworkers strike
1971 - Cease fire between India & Pakistan in Kashmir
1975 - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a one-time protegee of Charlie Manson, was sentenced in federal court in Sacramento, Calif., to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Ford.
1977 - Elvis Costello, making a rare TV appearance, agreed to perform on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" when Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols failed to show up for the gig.
1981 - American Brig. Gen. James Dozier was kidnapped in Rome by Italy's Red Brigades. He was freed 42 days later in a raid by Italian anti-terrorist forces.
1986 - A federal jury in Detroit cleared automaker John DeLorean of all 15 charges in his fraud and racketeering trial.
1986 - A Las Vegas federal jury awarded entertainer Wayne Newton $19.3 million in his defamation suit against NBC. A judge later reduced the award to $5.3 million.
1986 - Eugene Hasenfus, the American convicted by Nicaragua for his part in running guns to the Contras, was pardoned, then released.
1986 - A federal jury in Detroit cleared automaker John DeLorean of all 15 charges in his fraud and racketeering trial.
1990 - Secretary of State Baker told NATO that Iraq might withdraw from Kuwait around the Jan. 15 deadline. NATO rejected the partial solution.
1991 - In an about-face, the White House used the word "recession" to characterize the state of the economy, although spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the administration did not believe there was a recession in a technical sense.
1991 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union by the new year.
1991 - 15 people were killed and 20 wounded in clashes between Soviet troops and guerrillas in a disputed Armenian enclave.
1992 - Israel tried to deport hundreds of Palestinians to Lebanon but Beirut closed the border, trapping them in the Israeli-controlled "security zone."
1992 - President Bush formally signed the North American Free Trade Treaty simultaneously with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.
1993 - President Clinton acknowledged the $500 million gift of philanthropist Walter Annenberg to public-education reform.
1994 - North Korea said it shot down a U.S. Army helicopter in North Korean airspace, killing one pilot. The second pilot was reportedly uninjured but was held in North Korea.
1996 - Peruvian guerrillas took hundreds of people hostage at the Japanese embassy in Lima; all but 72 of the hostages were later released by the rebels; the siege ended April 22, 1997, with a commando raid that resulted in the deaths of all the rebels, two commandos and one hostage.
1996 - Six Red Cross workers were slain by gunmen in Chechnya. Kofi Annan of Ghana was appointed United Nations secretary-general.
1996 -The United Nations elected Kofi Annan of Ghana the new secretary-general.
1997 - New Jersey became the first state in the United States to permit homosexual couples to adopt children.
1998 - The U.N. World Meteorological Organization said 1998 was the warmest year ever recorded.
2000 - President Bush named Stanford professor Condoleezza Rice his national security adviser and Texas Supreme Court Justice Alberto Gonzales to the White House counsel's job.
Birthdays Today
1750 - Deborah Sampson, who fought in the American Revolution as a man under the alias Robert Shurtleff,
1770 - Johann Friedrich Schubert, composer
1797 - Joseph Henry (scientist; father of the American weather service, pioneer of electromagnetism)
1807 - John Greenleaf Whittier (Quaker: devoted to the abolitionist cause; poet: Barbara Frietchie, Maud Miller, Snowbound)
1894 - Arthur Fiedler, Boston Mass, conductor (Boston Pops)
1903 - Erskine Caldwell (novelist: Tobacco Road, God's Little Acre)
1908 - Willard Frank Libby, inventor (carbon-14 "atomic clock" (Nobel 1960))
1910 - Sy (Melvin) Oliver (trumpeter, singer, arranger, bandleader composer: Easy Does It, Swing High, Well, Git It, Opus No. 1)
1915 - Joan Woodbury (actress)
1928 - Julia Meade (Kunza) (actress)
1936 - Tommy Steele (Hicks) (singer: Rock with the Caveman; actor: The Happiest Millionaire, Half a Sixpence)
1938 - Leo Cardenas (baseball)
1938 - Nat Stuckey (country singer: Young Love [w/Connie Smith], Got Leaving on Her Mind; songwriter: Sweet Thang, Oh Woman)
1938 - Peter Snell (Olympic Gold Medalist from New Zealand: 800-meter run [1960,1964] and 1500-meter run [1964])
1938 - Susan Watson (actress, singer)
1939 - Eddie Kendricks (singer: group: The Temptations; solo: Keep on Truckin', Boogie Down, Shoeshine Boy)
1942 - Paul Butterfield (musician: group: Paul Butterfield Blues Band: East-West)
1946 - Russ Washington (football)
1950 - Joe Rizzo (football: Denver Bronco's LB: Super Bowl XII)
1953 - Barry Livingston (actor: My Three Sons)
Famous deaths
1679 - Don Juan, ruler of Spain, dies
1962 - Thomas Mitchell, US, actor (Outlaw), dies of cancer at 70
1996 - Irving Caesar, songwriter, dies at 101
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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