1950 ~ President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight "Communist imperialism."

(how did I miss this before?)
 

What happened? Did they deport him to some backward southern nation?:confused:



Margaret Mead- Born 1901
She was twenty-three years old when she first traveled to the South Pacific, to conduct research for her doctoral dissertation. The resulting book, Coming of Age in Samoa, was - and remains - a best-seller.

Alexander Ross Clarke- Born 1828;
English geodesist whose calculations of the size and shape of the Earth (the Clarke ellipsoid) were the first to approximate accepted modern values with respect to both polar flattening and equatorial radius.

In 1884, the first U.S. patent was issued for an automatic liquid vending machine to William H. Fruen of Minneapolis, Minn. (No. 309,219).

Re: (how did I miss this before?)
 

LOL I KNOW! I was quite young when metric was introduced so it was just another part of school for me. I guess it caused some controversy!

December 17th
 

1855 ~ Jem Smith beat Jack Davies in the last official bare-knuckle British heavyweight championship fight.


1777 ~ France recognized American independence.


1903 ~ Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first flight in a heavier-than-air plane at Kitty Hawk, N.C.


1944 ~ The U.S. Army announced the end of its policy of holding Japanese-Americans in internment camps, allowing "evacuees" to return home.


1969 ~ The U.S. Air Force ended its "Project Blue Book" and concluded that there was no evidence of extraterrestrial activity behind UFO sightings.


1992 ~ North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed by U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

December 18th
 

1997 ~ Anthony DeCulit shoots three fellow postal workers in Milwaukee, before turning the gun on himself


1737 ~ Violin maker Antonio Stradivari died in Cremona, Italy.


1787 ~ New Jersey became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.


1865 ~ Slavery was abolished with the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.


1892 ~ Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker Suite" premiered at St. Petersburg's Maryinksy Theatre.


1956 ~ Japan was admitted to the United Nations


1957 ~ The Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania became the first civilian nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States.


1969 ~ The British Parliament abolished the death penalty for murder.


2000 ~ George W. Bush received 271 votes in the delayed Electoral College balloting.

1984: Britain and China signed an accord returning Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997

December 19th
 

1989 ~ ~U.S. troops invade Panama to overthrow President General Noriega


1732 ~ Benjamin Franklin began publishing Poor Richard's Almanac.


1776 ~ Thomas Paine published his first American Crisis essay, in which he wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls."


1843 ~ Charles Dickens published "A Christmas Carol."


1946 ~ War broke out in Indochina when Ho Chi Minh attacked the French.


1972 ~ Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, ending the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.


1998 ~ President Bill Clinton impeached on two counts by the House of Representatives.

December 20th
 

2001 ~ Scottish rock band Big Country's lead singer, Stuart Adamson, found dead in a hotel room. He had committed suicide.


1803 ~ The United States purchased the Louisiana territory from France for $15 million.


1860 ~ South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union.


1968 ~ Author John Steinbeck died at age 66.


1989 ~ The United States had invaded Panama and installed a new government but failed to capture General Manuel Antonio Noriega.


1996 ~ Astronomer Carl Sagan died at age 62.

(In a big country! Loved that song!)

1991 Argentia Newfoundland - US Navy announces plans to close Argentia base in 1994; 500 personnel will leave; once the largest US base on foreign soil.

1991 OTTAWA SENATORS COME BACK

NHL Governors grant permanent membership to the new Ottawa Senators and the Tampa Bay Lightning teams. The original Senators went out of business in 1932, due to the Depression.

Born 20 Dec 1868; died 7 Feb 1938.
Harvey S(amuel) Firestone was an American industrialist who introduced straight-side pneumatic tires for the Model T Ford.

In 1879, Thomas A. Edison privately demonstrated his incandescent light at Menlo Park, New Jersey. He had invented the lamp on 21 Oct 1879 after 13 months of experimentation to discover a suitable material for the filament.

December 21st
 

1988 ~ The bomb aboard a Pan AM Boeing 747 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.


1620 ~ The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts.


1891 ~ The first basketball game, invented at Springfield College in Massachusetts by James E. Naismith, was played.


1898 ~ Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium.


1913 ~ The first crossword puzzle was printed in the New York World.


1937 ~ Disney's Snow White, the first feature length color and sound cartoon, premiered.


1970 ~ Elvis Presley met with president Richard Nixon in the White House.


1991 ~ Eleven of the former Soviet republics form the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1904- Born (died 24 May 1992)
Francis Thomas Bacon was an English engineer who developed the first practical hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells, which convert air and fuel directly into electricity through electrochemical processes.

1933- Died (born 7 Jun 1879)
Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen, Danish-Eskimo explorer and ethnologist who, in the course of completing the longest dog-sledge journey to that time, across the American Arctic, made a scientific study of virtually every Eskimo tribe in that vast region.

1945- General George S. Patton, commander of the U.S. 3rd Army, dies from injuries suffered not in battle but in a freak car accident. He was 60 years old.

1958- Three months after a new French constitution was approved, Charles de Gaulle is elected the first president of the Fifth Republic by a sweeping majority of French voters.

1968- Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, is successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, Jr., and William Anders aboard.

December 22nd
 

1989 ~ Brandenburg Gate re-opens, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.

1870- Jules Janssen, flew in a balloon in order to study the solar eclipse.

1882- The first string of Christmas Tree lights was created by Thomas Edison's associate, Edward H. Johnson. He decorated a Christmas tree at his home. Previously, trees were decorated with wax candles from the early days of the Christmas tree tradition.

1911- Born (died 20 Dec 2002)
Grote Reber, U.S. astronomer and radio engineer who built the first radio telescope and was largely responsible for the early development of radio astronomy, an entirely study of the universe.

1937- The Lincoln Tunnel in New York opened to traffic.

1964- Comedian Lenny Bruce is sentenced to four months in a New York jail for violating obscenity laws during his nightclub act.

1968- The first U.S. live telecast from a manned spacecraft in outer space was transmitted from Apollo VIII.

On Dec. 22, 1864, during the Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman sent a message to President Lincoln from Georgia, saying, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah."