In 1783 | General George Washington bids farewell to his officers at Francis Tavern in New York. |
In 1816 | James Monroe of Virginia is elected the 5th U.S. president defeating Federalist Rufus King. |
In 1839 | The Whig party holds its first National Convention in Harrisburg, PA, and nominates William Henry Harrison for president. |
In 1875 | William Marcy Tweed, the "Boss" of New York City's Tammany Hall political organization, escaped from jail and fled the country. |
In 1918 | President Wilson is the first chief executive to travel outside the U.S. while in office, when he attends the Versailles Peace Conference in France. |
In 1942 | President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, created during the depression to generate and provide jobs. |
In 1942 | U.S. bombers strike the Italian mainland for the first time in World War II. |
In 1945 | The Senate approves U.S. participation in the United Nations. |
In 1958 | Two pilots in a single-engine Cessna 172 begin the world's longest flight, staying aloft over Las Vegas for 64 days, 22.3 hours. |
In 1965 | Gemini VII is launched with Air Force Lt. Colonel Frank Borman and Navy Commander James A. Lovell. |
In 1978 | Dianne Feinstein becomes San Francisco's first female mayor. |
In 1979 | The U.N. Security Council unanimously approves a resolution demanding that Iran free its American hostages. |
In 1979 | President Carter announces his candidacy for re-election. |
In 1980 | The bodies of four American churchwomen slain in El Salvador two days earlier are unearthed. (Five national guardsmen are later convicted of murdering the nuns.) |
In 1980 | A United Nation's report estimates one third of the world's population is illiterate and India is the most uneducated. |
In 1982 | New York City set a December high temperature record at 72 degrees. |
In 1982 | President Reagan returns home from a 4-nation Latin American tour. |
In 1984 | Four armed men seize a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and force it to land in Tehran. American passenger Charles Hegna is killed. |
In 1985 | President Reagan names Admiral John Poindexter to replace National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane. |
In 1986 | Both the House and Senate appoint committees to look into the Iran-Contra affair. |
In 1989 | President Bush briefs NATO leaders in Brussels, Belgium, on the just-concluded Malta summit with Soviet President Gorbachev. |
In 1990 | Iraq promises to release 3,300 Soviet citizens it was holding. |
In 1991 | Journalist Terry Anderson, the longest held of the Western hostages in Lebanon, is released after nearly seven years in captivity. |
In 1991 | Patricia Bowman testifies at William Kennedy Smith's trial in West Palm Beach that Smith had raped her the previous Easter weekend. |
In 1991 | Pan American World Airways ceases operations. |
In 1994 | U.S. House Speaker-to-be Newt Gingrich charged in an NBC interview that as many as one-quarter of the White House staff had used illegal drugs. |
In 1994 | Bosnian Serbs release 53 of some 400 UN peacekeepers held as insurance against further NATO air strikes. |
In 1995 | The first NATO troops land in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission that will involved 20,000 American soldiers. |
In 1996 | The Mars Pathfinder lifts off and speeds toward Mars on a 310 million mile trip to explore the planet's surface. |
In 1997 | The UN Security Council agrees to a six-month extension of Iraq's oil-for-food program. |
In 1998 | The Space shuttle Endeavour and a crew of six blast off on a mission to begin assembling the first international space station. |
In 1999 | NASA scientists continue to wait in vain for a signal from the Mars Polar Lander. (It's believed the $165 million NASA probe was destroyed after it plunged toward the Red Planet.) |
In 2000 | PepsiCo agrees to pay $13.4 billion to acquire Quaker Oats, maker of Gatorade, and Cap'n Crunch & Life cereals. |
In 2000 | A Florida state judge refuses to overturn George W. Bush's certified victory in Florida and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling that had allowed manual recounts. |
In 2001 | Israel fires three missiles which hit near Yasser Arafat's office as the Palestinian leader worked inside. |
In 2001 | The Olympic flame begins a 46-state, 2-month journey from Atlanta, host city of the 1996 Summer Games, to the opening ceremony of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. |
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