TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – DEC 19
324 Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor
1154 Henry II is crowned king of England.
1562 The French Wars of Religion between the Huguenots and the Catholics begins with the Battle of Dreux.
1686 Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Daniel Defoe)
1732 Benjamin Franklin (under the name Richard Saunders) begins publication of “Poor Richard’s Almanack”
1795 1st state appropriation of money for road building, Kentucky
1843 The ghosts of Christmas. Charles Dickens published “A Christmas Carol.”
1862 Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest begins tearing up the railroads in Union generals Grant and Rosecrans rear, causing considerable delays in the movement of Union supplies.
1904 Dawson City hockey team begins 9 day walk to get a boat to Seattle to catch a train to Ottawa to play in Stanley Cup on Jan 13 1905
1909 American socialist women denounce suffrage as a movement of the middle class.
1910 1st US city ordinance requiring white & black residential areas in Baltimore
1941 Adolf Hitler assumes the position of commander in chief of the German army.
1945 Congress confirms Eleanor Roosevelt as U.S. delegate to the United Nations.
1972 Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, ending the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.
1975 The Red Hand Commandos, a very secretive Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, explode a no-warning car bomb in Dundalk, killing 2 civilians and wounding 20
1975 John Paul Stevens becomes a Supreme Court Justice
1980 Iran requests $24 billion in US guarantees to free hostages
1982 Four bombs explode at South Africa’s only nuclear power station in Johannesburg.
1984 UK signs agreement with China to return Hong Kong to China in 1997
1996 The school board of Oakland, CA, voted to recognize Black English, also known as “ebonics.” The board later reversed its stance.
1998 President Bill Clinton is impeached. The House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against President Clinton, charging him with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton was the second president in American history to be impeached.
2000 The U.N. Security Council voted to impose sanctions on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers unless they closed all terrorist training camps and surrender U.S. embassy bombing suspect Osama bin Laden.
2003 Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya announced that his country would discontinue development of weapons of mass destruction.
2008 U.S. President George W. Bush signed a $17.4 billion rescue package of loans for ailing auto makers General Motors and Chrysler.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
