On This Day in History - December 19 Hitler Takes Control Of German Army (Wehrmacht)

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

Dec 19, 1941: Hitler takes command of the German army

On this day, in a major shake-up of the military high command, Adolf Hitler assumes the position of commander in chief of the German army.  

The German offensive against Moscow was proving to be a disaster. A perimeter had been established by the Soviets 200 miles from the city—and the Germans couldn't break through. The harsh winter weather—with temperatures often dropping to 31 degrees below zero—had virtually frozen German tanks in their tracks. Soviet General Georgi Zhukov had unleashed a ferocious counteroffensive of infantry, tanks, and planes that had forced the flailing Germans into retreat. In short, the Germans were being beaten for the first time in the war, and the toll to their collective psyche was great. "The myth of the invincibility of the German army was broken," German General Franz Halder would write later.  

ut Hitler refused to accept this notion. He began removing officers from their command. General Fedor von Bock, who had been suffering severe stomach pains and who on December 1 had complained to Halder that he was no longer able to "operate" with his debilitated troops, was replaced by General Hans von Kluge, whose own 4th Army had been pushed into permanent retreat from Moscow. General Karl von Runstedt was relieved of the southern armies because he had retreated from Rostov. Hitler clearly did not believe in giving back captured territory, so in the biggest shake-up of all, he declared himself commander in chief of the army. He would train it "in a National Socialist way"—that is, by personal fiat. He would compose the strategies and the officers would dance to his tune.







Dec 19, 1998: President Clinton impeached   

After nearly 14 hours of debate, the House of Representatives approves two articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, charging him with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton, the second president in American history to be impeached, vowed to finish his term.  

In November 1995, Clinton began an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old unpaid intern. Over the course of a year and a half, the president and Lewinsky had nearly a dozen sexual encounters in the White House. In April 1996, Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. That summer, she first confided in Pentagon co-worker Linda Tripp about her sexual relationship with the president. In 1997, with the relationship over, Tripp began secretly to record conversations with Lewinsky, in which Lewinsky gave Tripp details about the affair.  

In December, lawyers for Paula Jones, who was suing the president on sexual harassment charges, subpoenaed Lewinsky. In January 1998, allegedly under the recommendation of the president, Lewinsky filed an affidavit in which she denied ever having had a sexual relationship with him. Five days later, Tripp contacted the office of Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, to talk about Lewinsky and the tapes she made of their conversations. Tripp, wired by FBI agents working with Starr, met with Lewinsky again, and on January 16, Lewinsky was taken by FBI agents and U.S. attorneys to a hotel room where she was questioned and offered immunity if she cooperated with the prosecution. A few days later, the story broke, and Clinton publicly denied the allegations, saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."  

In late July, lawyers for Lewinsky and Starr worked out a full-immunity agreement covering both Lewinsky and her parents, all of whom Starr had threatened with prosecution. On August 6, Lewinsky appeared before the grand jury to begin her testimony, and on August 17 President Clinton testified. Contrary to his testimony in the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case, President Clinton acknowledged to prosecutors from the office of the independent counsel that he had had an extramarital affair with Ms. Lewinsky.  

In four hours of closed-door testimony, conducted in the Map Room of the White House, Clinton spoke live via closed-circuit television to a grand jury in a nearby federal courthouse. He was the first sitting president ever to testify before a grand jury investigating his conduct. That evening, President Clinton also gave a four-minute televised address to the nation in which he admitted he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky. In the brief speech, which was wrought with legalisms, the word "sex" was never spoken, and the word "regret" was used only in reference to his admission that he misled the public and his family.  

Less than a month later, on September 9, Kenneth Starr submitted his report and 18 boxes of supporting documents to the House of Representatives. Released to the public two days later, the Starr Report outlined a case for impeaching Clinton on 11 grounds, including perjury, obstruction of justice, witness-tampering, and abuse of power, and also provided explicit details of the sexual relationship between the president and Ms. Lewinsky. On October 8, the House authorized a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry, and on December 11, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment. On December 19, the House impeached Clinton.  

On January 7, 1999, in a congressional procedure not seen since the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, the trial of President Clinton got underway in the Senate. As instructed in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (William Rehnquist at this time) was sworn in to preside, and the senators were sworn in as jurors.  

Five weeks later, on February 12, the Senate voted on whether to remove Clinton from office. The president was acquitted on both articles of impeachment. The prosecution needed a two-thirds majority to convict but failed to achieve even a bare majority. Rejecting the first charge of perjury, 45 Democrats and 10 Republicans voted "not guilty," and on the charge of obstruction of justice the Senate was split 50-50. After the trial concluded, President Clinton said he was "profoundly sorry" for the burden his behavior imposed on Congress and the American people. 










Dec 19, 1964: Another bloodless coup topples the government in Saigon

Another bloodless coup occurs when Maj. Gen. Nguyen Khanh and a group of generals led by Air Commodore Nguyen Cao Ky and Army Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu arrest three dozen high officers and civilian officials. The coup was part of the continuing political instability that erupted after the November 1963 coup that resulted in the murder of President Ngo Dinh Diem. The period following the overthrow of Diem was marked by a series of coups and "revolving door" governments. The coup on this day was engineered by a faction of younger military officers known as the "Young Turks," who were fed up with what they believed was the ineffective government headed by a group of older generals known as the Military Revolutionary Council. Khanh and the newly formed Armed Forces Council, made up of the generals who had participated in the coup, restored civilian control on January 7, 1965, under Tran Van Huong. Hunon proved unable to put together a viable government and the Armed Forces Council ousted him on January 27 and installed Gen. Khanh in power. Khanh was ousted by yet another coup on February 18 led by Ky and Thieu. Khanh then went to the United States and settled in Palm Beach, Florida. A short-lived civilian government under Dr. Phan Huy Quat was installed, but it lasted only until June 12, 1965. At that time, Thieu and Ky formed a new government with Thieu as the chief of state and Ky as the prime minister. Thieu and Ky were elected as president and vice-president in general elections held in 1967.










Dec 19, 1917: National Hockey League (NHL) opens its first season

On this day in 1917, four teams of the National Hockey League (NHL) play in the fledgling league’s first two games. At the time of its inception, the NHL was made up of five franchises: the Canadiens and the Wanderers (both of Montreal), the Ottawa Senators, the Quebec Bulldogs and the Toronto Arenas. The Montreal teams won two victories that first day, as the Canadiens beat Ottawa 7-4 and the Wanderers triumphed over Toronto 10-9.  

The first professional ice hockey league was the International Pro Hockey League, founded in 1904 in Michigan. After it folded, two bigger leagues emerged in Canada: the National Hockey Association (NHA) and the Pacific Coast League (PCL). In 1914, the two leagues played a championship series, and the winner was awarded the famous silver bowl donated for Canada’s amateur hockey leagues by Lord Stanley, the English governor general of Canada, in 1892. The NHA stopped operating during World War II, and after the war the five elite teams from Canada formed the NHL in its place. Despite that early defeat, Toronto went on to win the inaugural season. In March 1918, they defeated the PCL champions, the Vancouver Millionaires, three games to two for the Stanley Cup.  

By 1926, the PCL had folded, and the 10 teams of the NHL divided into two divisions. The champions of each those two divisions--the Eastern and the Western Conference--now face each other at the end of each season in the Stanley Cup Championship.


Today

Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:

324 - Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor.

401 - St Anastasius I ends his reign as Catholic Pope

1055 - Seldjuken under Toghril Beg occupy Baghdad

1154 - King Henry II of England crowned

1551 - Dutch west coast hit by hurricane

1562 - Battle at Dreux: Anne de Montmorency & huguenots under Condé captured

1686 - Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Daniel Defoe)

1688 - King James II's wife & son flee to France

1696 - Jean-Francois Regnard's "Le Joueur," premieres in Paris

1732 - Benjamin Franklin under the name Richard Saunders begins publication of "Poor Richard's Almanack"

1776 - Thomas Paine published his 1st "American Crisis" essay, in which he wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls"

1777 - Washington settles his troops at Valley Forge, Pa for winter

1783 - British government of William Pitt the Younger forms

1788 - Chinese troops occupy capital Thang Long Vietnam

1795 - 1st state appropriation of money for road building, Kentucky

1823 - Georgia passes 1st US state birth registration law in US

1828 - South Carolina declares right of states to nullify federal laws

1835 - HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin approaches NZ

1842 - US recognizes independence of Hawaii

Novelist Charles DickensNovelist Charles Dickens 1843 - Charles Dickens publishes "A Christmas Carol," in England

1854 - Allen Wilson of Conn patents sewing machine to sew curving seams

1859 - Grading started for Market Street RR

1861 - Battle of Black Water

1862 - Skirmish at Jackson/Salem Church, Tenn (80 casualties)

1867 - Victims of "Angola Horror" burned to death (Angola NY)

1871 - Albert L Jones (NYC), patents corrugated paper

1881 - Opera "Hérodiade" is produced (Brussels)

1884 - Italy recognizes King Leopold II's Congo Free State

1887 - Jake Kilrain & Jem Smith fight 106 round bare knuckle draw

1888 - Stanley's expedition reaches Fort Bodo, East-Africa

1889 - Bishop Museum founded in Hawaii

1890 - Start of Sherlock Holmes "Adventure of Beryl Coronet" (BG)

1891 - 1st Negro Catholic priest ordained in US, Charles Uncles, Baltimore

1891 - Canadian Rugby Union forms

Naturalist Charles DarwinNaturalist Charles Darwin 1894 - Cricket day 5 1T Aus v Eng Eng 437 all out, Aus need 177 are 2-113

1903 - Williamsburg suspension bridge opens between Brooklyn & Manhattan

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

1907 - 239 workers died in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania

1910 - 1st city ordinace requiring white & black residential areas (Balt)

1910 - Rayon 1st commercially produced, Marcus Hook, Penn

1913 - Jack Johnson fights Jim Johnson to a draw in 10 for hw boxing title

1916 - Suriname Bauxite Company forms in Paramaribo

1917 - 1st NHL game played on artificial ice (Toronto)

1917 - Quebec Bulldogs play their 1st professional hockey game

1918 - Robert Ripley began his "Believe It or Not" column (NY Globe)

1919 - American Meteorological Society found

1920 - 1st US indoor curling rink opens (Brookline, Mass)

1920 - King Constantine I is restored as King of the Hellenes after the death of his son Alexander I of Greece and a plebiscite.

1922 - Mrs Theres Vaughn, 24, confessed in court to being married 62 times

1924 - Test Cricket debut of Bill Ponsford, who scored 110 in 1st innings

1924 - The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.

1928 - 1st autogiro (predecessor of helicopter) flight in US

1930 - James Weldon Johnson resigns as executive secretary of NAACP

1931 - Bradman scores 112 Australia v South Africa at cricket SCG

1931 - Joseph A Lyons (C) becomes premier of Australia

1932 - British Broadcasting Corp begins transmitting overseas

1933 - Electric Home & Farm Authority Inc, authorized

1934 - Japan agress to fleet treaty of 1922 & 1930

1939 - Russian air & ground attack against Finnish positions near Summa

1941 - German submarine U-574 sinks

Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler 1941 - Hitler takes complete command of German Army

1941 - US Office of Censorship created to control info pertaining to WW II

1943 - Military coup in Bolivia

1945 - Austrian Republic re-establishes

1945 - Jean Giraudoux' "La Folle de Chaillot," premieres in Paris

1946 - Noel Cowards musical "Pacific 1860" premieres in London

1946 - War breaks out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi

1948 - 2nd political action of Java/Sumatra

1948 - 8th largest snowfall in NYC history (15.3")

1948 - Cleveland Browns beats Buffalo Bills 49-7 in AAFC championship game

1948 - Philadelphia Eagles shutout Chicago Cards 7-0 in NFL championship game

1949 - Luxury passenger ship Aquitania demolished in Garelock Scotland

1949 - WJW TV channel 8 in Cleveland, OH (CBS) begins broadcasting

1950 - Gen Eisenhower named NATO commander

1950 - Tibet's Dalai Lama flees Chinese invasion

Vietnamese Communist Revolutionary Ho Chi MinhVietnamese Communist Revolutionary Ho Chi Minh 1951 - Nazi General Christiansen leaves Nethe

1952 - Queen Juliana unveals statue "Docker"

1953 - KFYR TV channel 5 in Bismarck, ND (NBC/ABC) begins broadcasting

1955 - Carl Perkins records "Blue Suede Shoes"

1957 - "Music Man" opens at Majestic Theater NYC for 1375 performances

1958 - 1st radio broadcast from space (Pres Eisenhower voice "To all mankind, America's wish for Peace on Earth & Good Will to Men Everywhere")

1959 - 1st Liberty Bowl game-Penn State beats Alabama 7-0

1960 - Fire aboard USS Constellation, under construction at Brooklyn (50 die)

1960 - Frank Sinatra's 1st session with Reprise Records (Ring-A-Ding-Ding)

1960 - Mercury-Redstone 1A reaches 210 km in test flight

1961 - UK begins using decimal currency

1961 - Indonesian President Sukarno proclaims general mobilization

1962 - Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia & Nyasaland

1962 - Street signs in Golden Gate Park approved by Park Commission

1962 - Transit 5A1, 1st operational navigational satellite, launched

Singer/Actor Frank SinatraSinger/Actor Frank Sinatra 1963 - Zanzibar becomes independent from UK

1965 - French president De Gaulle re-elected (Mitterrand gets 45%)

1967 - Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt is officially presumed dead.

1968 - WCWB (now WMGT) TV channel 41 in Macon, GA (NBC) begins broadcasting

1969 - Beatle's 7th Christmas album is released

1971 - "Inner City" opens at Barrymore Theater NYC for 97 performances

1971 - CBS airs "Homecoming A Christmas Story," (introducing the Waltons)

1971 - NASA launches Intelsat 4 F-3 for COMSAT Corp

1971 - Stanley Kubrick's X-rated "A Clockwork Orange" premieres

1972 - Apollo 17 (last of Apollo Moon landing series) returns to Earth

1973 - "Molly" closes at Alvin Theater NYC after 68 performances

1973 - Grenada adopts constitution

1974 - "Man With Golden Gun" premieres in US

1974 - Dave Kryskow scores Washington Capitals 1st NHL shorthanded goal

1974 - Nelson A Rockefeller sworn-in as 41st VP

Film Director Stanley KubrickFilm Director Stanley Kubrick 1975 - John Paul Stevens becomes a US Supreme Court Justice

1975 - Ron Wood joined the Rolling Stones

1976 - Jo Ann Washam/Chi Chi Rodriguez wins Pepsi-Cola Mixed Team Golf Champ

1976 - John Lever takes 7-46 in 1st Test Cricket innings, v India Delhi

1976 - Pres Brezhnev receives his 5th Order of Lenin

1976 - Piper Cherokee crashes into Balt Memorial Stadium upper stands, 10 minutes after Colts lose 40-14 to Steelers. No one seriously hurt

1977 - Dutch government of Van Agt/Wiegel forms

1978 - France performs nuclear test

1978 - Indira Gandhi ambushed in India

1980 - Anguilla becomes a British dependency separate from St Kitts

1980 - Iran requests $24 billion in US guarantees to free hostages

1980 - Mutual Broadcasting cancels Sears Radio Theater

1981 - Sixteen lives are lost when the Penlee, Cornwall, lifeboat goes to the aid of the stricken coaster Union Star in heavy seas.

1983 - The original FIFA World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro.

1984 - China PR Premier Zhao Ziyang & British PM Margaret Thatcher sign Hong Kong Treaty

British Prime Minister Margaret ThatcherBritish Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher 1984 - China PR performs nuclear test at Lop Nor PRC

1984 - Fire at Wilberg Mine in central Utah killed 27 people

1984 - Scotty Bowman becomes NHL's all time winningest coach

1984 - UK signs agreement with China to return Hong Kong to China in 1997

1984 - Wayne Gretzky, 23, is 18th & youngest NHL-er to score 1,000 points

1985 - "Wind in the Willows" opens at Nederlander Theater NYC for 4 perfs

1985 - Mary Lund is 1st woman to receive a Jarvik VII artificial heart

1985 - STS 61-C scrubbed at T -13s because of SRB auxiliary power problem

1986 - USSR frees dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile

1986 - Jack Morris agrees to salary arbitration with former team Tigers & accuses owners of collusion against free agency

1986 - Michael Sergio, who parachuted into Shea Stadium during game 6 of the World Series, sentenced to 100 hrs of community service & fined $500

1987 - Bruins' Linseman & Blues' Doug Gilmore score goals, 2 seconds apart

1987 - Gari Kasparov becomes world chess champ

1988 - NASA unviels plans for lunar colony & manned missions to Mars

1988 - Oklahoma's College football team gets 3 year probation

NHL all-time top scorer Wayne GretzkyNHL all-time top scorer Wayne Gretzky 1988 - Unexploded WW II bomb found in Frankfurt, Germany-5,000 evacuated

1989 - American Airlines purchases Eastern Airline's Latin American route

1989 - Larry Bird (Celtics) begins NBA free throw streak of 71 games

1991 - "Christmas Carol" opens at Eugene O'Neill Theater NYC for 14 perfs

1991 - 6,000th episode of One Life To Live

1991 - Boris Yeltsin takes control of Kremlin

1991 - NY Yankee pitcher Steve Howe arrested for cocaine possession

1993 - "Red Shoes" closes at Gershwin Theater NYC after 5 performances

1993 - Guinee general Lansana re-elected president

1994 - Rolls-Royce announces its future cars will feature V12 engine which will be produced by BMW.

1995 - Queen Elizabeth asks Prince Charles & Diana to divorce

1996 - "Once Upon a Matress" opens at Broadhurst NYC for 187 performances

1997 - MTV drops video "Smack My Bitch Up" by Prodigy

1998 - Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives forwards articles I and III of impeachment against President Bill Clinton to the Senate.

2000 - The Leninist Guerrilla Units wing of the Communist Labour Party of Turkey/Leninist attack a Nationalist Movement Party office in Istanbul, killing one person and injuring three.

42nd US President Bill Clinton42nd US President Bill Clinton 2001 - A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Khövsgöl Province, Mongolia.

2001 - Argentine economic crisis: December 2001 riots - Riots erupt in Buenos Aires after Domingo Cavallo's corralito measures restrict the withdrawal of cash from bank deposits.

2007 - The Lakotah people, a Native American tribe, proclaim independence and withdraw all their treaties with the United States. They then proceed to establish the Republic of Lakotah, with an ongoing process of international recognition as a separate country.

2012 - UBS bank is fined $1.5 billion for its role in manipulating the Libor rate

2012 - Park Geun-hye wins the South Korean presidential election to become the nation’s first female president

1154 - Henry II became King of England.   1562 - The Battle of Dreux was fought between the Huguenots and the Catholics, beginning the French Wars of Religion.   1732 - Benjamin Franklin began publishing "Poor Richard's Almanac."   1776 - Thomas Paine published his first "American Crisis" essay.   1777 - General George Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, PA, to camp for the winter.   1842 - Hawaii's independence was recognized by the U.S.   1843 - Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" was first published in England.   1871 - Corrugated paper was patented by Albert L. Jones.   1887 - Jake Kilrain and Jim Smith fought in a bare knuckles fight which lasted 106 rounds and 2 hours and 30 minutes. The fight was ruled a draw and was halted due to darkness.   1903 - The Williamsburg Bridge opened in New York City. It opened as the largest suspension bridge on Earth and remained the largest until 1924. It was also the first major suspension bridge to use steel towers to support the main cable.   1907 - A coalmine explosion in Jacobs Creek, PA, killed 239 workers.   1917 - The first games of the new National Hockey League (NHL) were played. Five teams made up the league: Toronto Arenas, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, the Montreal Canadiens and the Montreal Wanderers.   1918 - Robert Ripley began his "Believe It or Not" column in "The New York Globe".   1932 - The British Broadcasting Corp. began transmitting overseas with its "Empire Service" to Australia.   1957 - Meredith Wilson’s "The Music Man" opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York City. It ran for 1,375 shows.   1957 - Air service between London and Moscow was inaugurated.   1959 - Penn State’s Nittany Lions beat Alabama, 7-0, in the first Liberty Bowl football game.   1959 - Walter Williams died in Houston, TX, at the age of 117. He was said to be the last surviving veteran of the U.S. Civil War.   1961 - "Judgment At Nuremberg" opened in New York City.   1972 - Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, ending the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.   1973 - Johnny Carson started a fake toilet-paper scare on the "Tonight Show."   1978 - Indira Gandhi was expelled from the Lok Sabha for contempt and imprisoned.   1979 - ESPN televised its first NHL game. The teams were the Washington Capitals and the Hartford Whales.   1984 - Wayne Gretsky, 23, of the Edmonton Oilers, became only the 18th player in the National Hockey League (NHL) to score more than 1,000 points.   1984 - Ted Hughes was appointed England's poet laureate.   1984 - Britain and China signed an accord returning Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997.   1985 - Jan Stenerud announced his retirement from the NFL. The football kicker held the record for the most career field goals with 373.   1985 - ABC Sports announced that it was severing ties with Howard Cosell and released ‘The Mouth’ from all TV commitments. Cosell continued on ABC Radio for another five years.   1986 - The Soviet Union announced it had freed dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile, and pardoned his wife, Yelena Bonner.   1986 - Independent counsel Lawrence Walsh was appointed to investigate the Iran-Contra issue.   1989 - U.S. troops invaded Panama to overthrow the regime of General Noriega.   1990 - Bo Jackson (Los Angeles Raiders) became the first athlete to be chosen for All Star Games in two sports.   1996 - The school board of Oakland, CA, voted to recognize Black English, also known as "ebonics." The board later reversed its stance.   1997 - "Titanic" opened in American movie theaters.   1998 - U.S. President Bill Clinton was impeached on two charges of perjury and obstruction of justice by the U.S. House of Representatives.   1998 - A four-day bombing of Iraq by British and American forces ended.   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 - Images for the new design for the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site were released. The building slopes into a spire that reaches 1,776 feet.   2008 - U.S. President George W. Bush signed a $17.4 billion rescue package of loans for ailing auto makers General Motors and Chrysler.



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. 1984 Britain and China signed an accord returning Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997. 1998 President Bill Clinton impeached on two counts by the House of Representatives. 2003 Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya announced that his country would discontinue development of weapons of mass destruction.



The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/dec19.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory