TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: DEC 21
1620 The Pilgrims land at or near Plymouth Rock
1708 French forces seize control of the eastern shore of Newfoundland after winning a victory at St. John’s.
1829 1st stone arch railroad bridge in US dedicated, Baltimore
1862 The U.S. Congress authorizes the Medal of Honor to be awarded to Navy personnel who have distinguished themselves by their gallantry in action.
1866 Indians, led by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, kill Captain William J. Fetterman and 79 other men who had ventured out from Fort Phil Kearny to cut wood.
1872 Phileas Fogg wins his wager. The fictional character created by French writer Jules Verne for his book, Around the World in Eighty Days, finished circumnavigating the world and reached London to win the wager he had set with his friends. The date also coincides with the publication of the last of the series that ended up becoming the now popular science fiction novel.
1891 The first basketball game, invented at Springfield College in Massachusetts by James E. Naismith, was played.
1898 French Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium
1910 Over 2.5 million plague victims are reported in the An-Hul province of China.
1913 Arthur Wynne published a new “word-cross” puzzle in the “New York World” in England. The name was later changed to “crossword.”
1919 J Edgar Hoover deports anarchists/feminist Emma Goldman to Russia
1921 Supreme Court rules labor injunctions & picketing unconstitutional
1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs released
1948 State of Eire (formerly Irish Free State) declares its independence
1963 The Turk minority riots in Cyprus to protest anti-Turkish revisions in the constitution.
1965 Four pacifists are indicted in New York for burning draft cards — Thomas C. Cornell, 31, co-secretary of the Catholic Peace Fellowship; Roy Lisker, 27, a volunteer of the Catholic Worker Movement; James E. Wilson, 21, a volunteer at the Catholic Worker Movement and a member of the Fellowship for Reconciliation; and M P, Edelman, a full-time worker for the War Resisters League.
1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination adopted
1969 American draft evaders gather for a holiday dinner in Montreal, Canada.
1978 Police in Des Plaines, IL, arrested John W. Gacy Jr. and began unearthing the remains of 33 men and boys that Gacy was later convicted of killing.
1986 500,000 Chinese students gather in Shanghai’s People’s Square calling for democratic reforms, including freedom of the press.
1988 Lockerbie disaster: Pan Am Flight 103 destroyed mid air by a terrorist bomb killing all 258 on board over Scotland
1989 Vice-President Quayle sends out 30,000 Xmas cards with word beacon spelled beakon
1991 Soviet Union formally dissolves as 11 of 12 republics sign treaty forming Commonwealth of Independent States
1994 Bomb goes off on #4 train on Fulton Street NYC
1995 The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.
1996 After two years of denials, U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted violating House ethics rules.
2001 The Islamic militant group Hamas released a statement that said it was suspending suicide bombings and mortar attacks in Israel.
2004 A suicide bomber attacks the forward operating base next to the US military airfield at Mosul, Iraq, killing 22 people; it is the deadliest suicide attack on US soldiers during the Iraq War.
REFERENCES: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeoplehistory.com, timeandate.com, factmonster.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
