History Thread...

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December 13

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Vice President Al Gore concedes defeat to George W. Bush in his bid for the presidency, following weeks of legal battles over the recounting of votes in Florida, on December 13, 2000.

In a televised speech from his ceremonial office next to the White House, Gore said that while he was deeply disappointed and sharply disagreed with the Supreme Court verdict that ended his campaign, ”partisan rancor must now be put aside.”

“I accept the finality of the outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College” he said. “And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.”

Gore had won the national popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, but narrowly lost Florida, giving the Electoral College to Bush 271 to 266.

Gore said he had telephoned Bush to offer his congratulations, honoring him, for the first time, with the title ”president-elect.”

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After spending nine months on the run, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is captured on December 13, 2003. Saddam’s downfall began on March 20, 2003, when the United States led an invasion force into Iraq to topple his government, which had controlled the country for more than 20 years.

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1942 Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels records in his journal his contempt for the Italians’ treatment of Jews in Italian-occupied territories. “The Italians are extremely lax in their treatment of Jews. They protect Italian Jews both in Tunis and in occupied France and won’t permit their being drafted for work or compelled to wear the Star of David.”

Joseph Goebbels had made the persecution, and ultimately the extermination, of Jews a personal priority from the earliest days of the war, often recording in his diary such statements as: “They are no longer people but beasts.” “Their destruction will go hand in hand with the destruction of our enemies.” “[T]he Jews…are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is pretty barbaric and is not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews.” It was on his recommendation that all Jews in occupied Paris be forced to wear a yellow star on the left side of their coats or jackets in order to identify and humiliate them.

 

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December 14

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-14?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2025-1213-12132025

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On December 14, 1911, Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes the first explorer to reach the South Pole, beating his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott.

Amundsen, born in Borge, near Oslo, in 1872, was one of the great figures in polar exploration. In 1897, he was first mate on a Belgian expedition that was the first ever to winter in the Antarctic. In 1903, he guided the 47-ton sloop Gjöathrough the Northwest Passage and around the Canadian coast, the first navigator to accomplish the treacherous journey. Amundsen planned to be the first man to the North Pole, and he was about to embark in 1909 when he learned that the American Robert Peary had achieved the feat.

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1799 George Washington, the American revolutionary leader and first president of the United States, diesat his estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia. He was 67 years old.

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1863 President Abraham Lincoln announces a grant of amnesty for Emilie Todd Helm, his wife Mary Lincoln’s half sister and the widow of a Confederate general. The pardon was one of the first under Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which he had announced less than a week before. The plan, the president’s blueprint for the reintegration of the South into the Union, allowed for former Confederates to be granted amnesty if they took an oath to the United States. The option was open to all but the highest officials of the Confederacy. Lincoln's sister-in-law received the pardon, but never took the required oath.

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On December 14, 1909, four months after tragedy struck at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, race car drivers test out its newly resurfaced—and presumably safer—track. Workers had just finished laying down 3.2 million 10-pound brick pavers over the 2.5-mile oval, which had previously been covered in a messy and dangerous mix of crushed limestone, gravel and tar.

The distinctive "Indy brickyard" surface remained until 1961, when almost all the pavers were buried under asphalt. One yard of the original bricks remain exposed at the start-finish line; kissing them after a successful race remains a tradition among Indy drivers.

 

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December 16

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-16?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2025-1216-12162025

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1773 

In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

The midnight raid, popularly known as the “Boston Tea Party,” was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny.

When three tea ships, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver, arrived in Boston Harbor, the colonists demanded that the tea be returned to England. After Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused, Patriot leader Samuel Adams organized the “tea party” with about 60 members of the Sons of Liberty, his underground resistance group. The British tea dumped in Boston Harbor on the night of December 16 was worth nearly $2 million in today's money.

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On December 16, 1938, Adolf Hitler institutes the Mother’s Cross, to encourage women of "pure" German origin to increase the size of their families and grow the population of the Third Reich. A blue cross decorated with a swastika and Hitler’s engraved signature, the medal was given to women for birthing and raising children in three classes: Bronze (four to five children), Silver (six or seven children) and Gold (eight children or more).

The Nazis started such encouragement early. When members of the League of German Girls (a wing of the Hitler Youth movement) turned 18, they became eligible for a branch called Faith and Beauty, which trained these girls in the art of becoming ideal mothers. One component of that ideal was fecundity.

Using strict eligibility guidelines, officials awarded the Cross of Honor of the German Mother only to women fulfilling Nazi party ideals of racial purity. Requirements included proof of a pure German bloodline, clean health records and a mother’s “worthiness,” such as instilling their children with Nazi principles. Between 1938 and 1944, more than 3 million German mothers were gifted the merit.  

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At approximately 8 o’clock in the morning on December 16, 1914, German battle cruisers from Franz von Hipper’s Scouting Squadron catch the British navy by surprise as they begin heavy bombardment of Hartlepool and Scarborough, English port cities on the North Sea.

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On December 16, 1944, the Germans launch the last major offensive of the war, Operation Autumn Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans created a “bulge” around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, was the largest fought on the Western front.

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On December 16, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary releases a 265-page reportrecommending the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for high crimes and misdemeanors.

The subsequent impeachment proceedings were the culmination of a slew of specious scandals involving the president and first lady Hillary Clinton. The Clintons were suspected of arranging improper real-estate deals, fundraising violations and cronyism in involving the firing of White House travel agents. Added to the mix were stories of Clinton’s extra-marital affairs and a sexual harassment claim filed against him.

 

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wrong thrread

Edited Tuesday at 02:58 PM by CMRivdogs

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wrong thread...

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“A neutrality being utterly Absurd and inconsistent with the duty of Subjects, who are always bound by the Laws to take Arms in defence of Government,” the petition will be dismissed out of hand, says Richard Bulkeley, the chief aide to Gov. Francis Legge. 2/2

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December 17

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-17?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2025-1217-12172025

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Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft on December 17, 1903. Orville piloted the gasoline-powered, propeller-driven biplane, which stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet on its inaugural flight.

Orville and Wilbur Wright grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and developed an interest in aviation after learning of the glider flights of the German engineer Otto Lilienthal in the 1890s. Unlike their older brothers, Orville and Wilbur did not attend college, but they possessed extraordinary technical ability and a sophisticated approach to solving problems in mechanical design. They built printing presses and in 1892 opened a bicycle sales and repair shop. Soon, they were building their own bicycles, and this experience, combined with profits from their various businesses, allowed them to pursue actively their dream of building the world’s first airplane.

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On December 17, 1777, the French foreign minister, Charles Gravier, count of Vergennes, officially acknowledges the United States as an independent nation. News of the Continental Army’s overwhelming victory against the British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga gave Benjamin Franklin new leverage in his efforts to rally French support for the American rebels. Although the victory occurred in October, news did not reach France until December 4th.

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On December 17, 1862, Union General Ulysses S. Grant lashes out at Jewish cotton speculators, who he believed were the driving force behind the black market for cotton. Grant issued an order expelling all Jewish people from his military district, which encompassed parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky.

At the time, Grant was trying to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. Grant’s army now effectively controlled much territory in western Tennessee, northern Mississippi, and parts of Kentucky and Arkansas. Grant had to deal with numerous speculators who followed his army in search of cotton. Cotton supplies were very short in the North, and these speculators could buy bales in the captured territories and sell it quickly for a good profit. In December 1862, Grant’s father came to visit him along with friends from Ohio. Grant soon realized that the friends, who were Jewish, were speculators hoping to gain access to captured cotton. Grant was furious and fired off his notorious Order No. 11: “The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from receipt of this order.”

The fallout from his action was swift. Among 30 Jewish families expelled from Paducah, Kentucky was Cesar Kaskel, who rallied support in Congress against the order. Shortly after the uproar, President Abraham Lincolnordered Grant to rescind the order. Grant later admitted to his wife that the criticism of his hasty action was well deserved. As Julia Grantput it, the general had “no right to make an order against any special sect.”

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During World War II, U.S. Major General Henry C. Pratt issues Public Proclamation No. 21, declaring that, effective January 2, 1945, Japanese American “evacuees” from the West Coast could return to their homes.

On February 19, 1942, 10 weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D. Rooseveltsigned Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable.” The military in turn defined the entire West Coast, home to the majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry or citizenship, as a military area.

By June, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly moved to remote prison camps built by the U.S. military in scattered locations around the country. For the next two and a half years, many of these Japanese Americans endured extremely difficult living conditions and poor treatment by their military guards.

 

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December 18

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-18?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2025-1218-12182025

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On December 18, 1620, with the English ship Mayflower anchored in Plymouth Harbor, Massachusetts, a small party of sailors from the vessel go ashore, as its passengers prepare to begin their new settlement, Plymouth Colony.

The famous Mayflower story began in 1606, when a group of reform-minded Separatists in Nottinghamshire, England, founded their own church, separate from the state-sanctioned Church of England. Accused of treason, they were forced to leave the country and settle in the more tolerant Netherlands. After 12 years of struggling to adapt and make a decent living, the group sought financial backing from some London merchants to set up a colony in America. On September 6, 1620, 102 passengers—dubbed Pilgrims by William Bradford, a passenger who would become the first governor of Plymouth Colony—crowded on the Mayflower to begin the long, hard journey to a new life in the New World.

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1865 Following its ratification by the requisite three-quarters of the states earlier in the month, the 13th Amendmentis formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution, ensuring that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude… shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

On December 2, 1865, Georgia became the 27th state to ratify the 13th Amendment, thus giving it the requisite three-fourths majority of states’ approval necessary to make it the law of the land. Congress required former Confederate state to ratify the amendment as a condition for re-admission into the Union. On December 18, the 13th Amendment was officially adopted into the Constitution—246 years after the first shipload of captive Africans landed at Jamestown, Virginia, and were bought as enslaved workers.

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On December 18, 1932, the Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans, 9-0, in the NFL's first playoff game—and first game played indoors. The victory gives the Bears the championship and leads to a playoff system for the first time. Because of frigid weather and waist-deep snow, the game was moved from Wrigley Field to Chicago Stadium, home of the city's NHL team.

Chicago Stadium could not accommodate a regulation-sized football field, so the game was played on a field 60 yards long, 40 yards less than regulation, and with constricted end zones. The field was covered with 400 tons of dirt from a recent circus.

In 1932, the eight-team NFL did not have a formal playoff system. The champion was the team with the best winning percentage. In the regular season, Portsmouth and Chicago each finished with 6-1 records. (The Bears had six ties, the Spartans four.) To determine a champion, the Bears and Spartans agreed to play a winner-take-all game in Chicago.

 

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December 19

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-19

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1776. These are the times that try men’s souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

 

When these phrases appeared in the pages of the Pennsylvania Journal for the first time, General George Washington’s troops were encamped at McKonkey’s Ferry on the Delaware River opposite Trenton, New Jersey. In August, they had suffered humiliating defeats and lost New York City to British troops. Between September and December, 11,000 American volunteers gave up the fight and returned to their families. General Washington could foresee the destiny of a rebellion without an army if the rest of his men returned home when their service contracts expired on December 31. He knew that without an upswing in morale and a significant victory, the American Revolution would come to a swift and humiliating end.

Thomas Paine was similarly astute. His Common Sense was the clarion call that began the revolution. As Washington’s troops retreated from New York through New Jersey, Paine again rose to the challenge of literary warfare. With American Crisis, he delivered the words that would salvage the revolution.

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On December 19, 1732, Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia first published Poor Richard’s Almanack. The book, filled with proverbs preaching industry and prudence, was published continuously for 25 years and became one of the most popular publications in colonial America, selling an average of 10,000 copies a year.

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On December 19, 1777, commander of the Continental Army George Washington, the future first president of the United States, leads his beleaguered troops into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Things could hardly have looked bleaker for Washington and the Continental Army as 1777 came to a close. The British had successfully occupied Philadelphia, leading some members of Congress to question Washington’s leadership abilities. No one knew better than Washington that the army was on the brink of collapse—in fact, he had defied Congress’ demand that he launch a mid-winter attack against the British at Philadelphia and instead fell back to Valley Forge to rest and refit his troops.

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On December 19, 1843, Charles Dickens’ classic story “A Christmas Carol” is published.

Dickens was born in 1812 and attended school in Portsmouth. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was thrown into debtors’ prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory. The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the debtors’ jail became topics of several of Dickens’ novels.

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On December 19, 1917, Montreal teams win the first two NHL games played. In a 7-4 win over the Ottawa Senators, the Canadiens' Joe Malone scores five goals. In his team's 10-9 win over the Toronto Arenas, the Montreal Wanderers' Harry Hyland also scores five goals.

For nearly a century, it was unknown which of the two games started first. The Senators-Canadiens game was long known to have started at 8:30 p.m.. But nobody knew when the Wanderers-Arenas game began until 2017, when an old newspaper ad was discovered that showed a start time of 8:15 p.m.

A prior hockey league, the National Hockey Association, had been running since 1909. But disagreements among the league's owners were so strong that, in 1917, the league's operations were suspended, and the NHL was formed. All four NHL teams were in Canada.

The first NHL president was Frank Calder, whose league played its first two games only 23 days after its formation.

 

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December 20

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-20

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1963 More than two years after the Berlin Wall was constructed by East Germany to prevent its citizens from fleeing its communist regime, nearly 4,000 West Berliners are allowed to cross into East Berlin to visit relatives. Under an agreement reached between East and West Berlin, more than 170,000 passes were eventually issued to West Berlin citizens, each pass allowing a one-day visit to communist East Berlin.

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1941 

In one of his first acts as the new commander in chief of the German army, Adolf Hitler informs General Franz Halder that there will be no retreating from the Russian front near Moscow. “The will to hold out must be brought home to every unit!”

Halder was also informed that he could stay on as chief of the general army staff if he so chose, but only with the understanding that Hitler alone was in charge of the army’s movements and strategies.

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On December 20, 1957, while spending the Christmas holidays at Graceland, his newly purchased Tennesseemansion, rock-and-roll star Elvis Presley receives his draft notice for the United States Army.

With a suggestive style—one writer called him “Elvis the Pelvis”—a hit movie, Love Me Tender, and a string of gold records including “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Hound Dog” and “Don’t Be Cruel,” Presley had become a national icon, and the world’s first bona fide rock-and-roll star, by the end of 1956. As the Beatles’ John Lennon once famously remarked: “Before Elvis, there was nothing.” The following year, at the peak of his career, Presley received his draft notice for a two-year stint in the army. Fans sent tens of thousands of letters to the army asking for him to be spared, but Elvis would have none of it. He received one deferment–during which he finished working on his movie King Creole–before being sworn in as an army private in Memphis on March 24, 1958.

 

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Gadsden left no record of why he chose the rattlesnake, although it was already established in his home city of Charleston as a symbol of defense and vigilance. One patriot there called it a “noble and useful” animal, and it was drawn there and elsewhere on militia flags and drums. 

Benjamin Franklin made the snake an icon of America in his 1754 cartoon “Join, or Die,” depicting the colonies as severed segments of a serpent. This illustration was much reproduced in the years since and is elaborated upon by Franklin in the Pennsylvania Journal on Dec. 27, 1775: 

”She has no eye-lids. She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders…The Rattle-Snake is solitary, and associates with her kind only when it is necessary for their preservation. 

“Tis curious and amazing to observe how distinct and independent of each other the rattles of this animal are, and yet how firmly they are united together, so as never to be separated but by breaking them to pieces. 

“The power of fascination attributed to her, by a generous construction, may be understood to mean, that those who consider the liberty and blessings which America affords, and once come over to her, never afterwards leave her, but spend their lives with her.”