http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Dec 23, 1620: Construction of Plymouth settlement begins
One week after the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth harbor in present-day Massachusetts, construction of the first permanent European settlement in New England begins.
On September 16, the Mayflower departed Plymouth, England, bound for the New World with 102 passengers. The ship was headed for Virginia, where the colonists--half religious dissenters and half entrepreneurs--had been authorized to settle by the British crown. In a difficult Atlantic crossing, the 90-foot Mayflower encountered rough seas and storms and was blown more than 500 miles off course.
Along the way, the settlers formulated and signed the Mayflower Compact, an agreement that bound the signatories into a "civil body politic." Because it established constitutional law and the rule of the majority, the compact is regarded as an important precursor to American democracy. After a 66-day voyage, the ship landed on November 21 at the tip of Cape Cod at what is now Provincetown, Massachusetts.
After coming to anchor in Provincetown harbor, a party of armed men under the command of Captain Myles Standish was sent out to explore the area and find a location suitable for settlement. While they were gone, Susanna White gave birth to a son, Peregrine, aboard the Mayflower. He was the first English child born in New England. In mid-December, the explorers went ashore at a location across Cape Cod Bay where they found cleared fields and plentiful running water, and they named the site Plymouth. The expedition returned to Provincetown, and on December 21 the Mayflower came to anchor in Plymouth harbor. Two days later, the pilgrims began work on dwellings that would shelter them through their difficult first winter in America.
In the first year of settlement, half the colonists died of disease. In 1621, the health and economic condition of the colonists improved, and that autumn Governor William Bradford invited neighboring Indians to Plymouth to celebrate the bounty of that year's harvest season. Plymouth soon secured treaties with most local Indian tribes, and the economy steadily grew, and more colonists were attracted to the settlement. By the mid-1640s, Plymouth's population numbered 3,000 people, but by then the settlement had been overshadowed by the larger Massachusetts Bay Colony to the north, settled by Puritans in 1629.
The term "Pilgrim" was not used to describe the Plymouth colonists until the early 19th century and was derived from a manuscript in which Governor Bradford spoke of the "saints" who traveled to the New World as "pilgrimes." In 1820, the orator Daniel Webster spoke of "Pilgrim Fathers" at a bicentennial celebration of Plymouth's founding, and thereafter the term entered common usage.
Dec 23, 1948: Japanese war criminals hanged in Tokyo
In Tokyo, Japan, Hideki Tojo, former Japanese premier and chief of the Kwantung Army, is executed along with six other top Japanese leaders for their war crimes during World War II. Seven of the defendants were also found guilty of committing crimes against humanity, especially in regard to their systematic genocide of the Chinese people.
On November 12, death sentences were imposed on Tojo and the six other principals, such as Iwane Matsui, who organized the Rape of Nanking, and Heitaro Kimura, who brutalized Allied prisoners of war. Sixteen others were sentenced to life imprisonment, and the remaining two of the original 25 defendants were sentenced to lesser terms in prison.
Unlike the Nuremberg trial of German war criminals, where there were four chief prosecutors representing Great Britain, France, the United States, and the USSR, the Tokyo trial featured only one chief prosecutor--American Joseph B. Keenan, a former assistant to the U.S. attorney general. However, other nations, especially China, contributed to the proceedings, and Australian judge William Flood Webb presided. In addition to the central Tokyo trial, various tribunals sitting outside Japan judged some 5,000 Japanese guilty of war crimes, of whom more than 900 were executed.
Dec 23, 1944: The execution of Eddie Slovik is authorized
On this day, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower endorses the finding of a court-martial in the case of Eddie Slovik, who was tried for desertion, and authorizes his execution, the first such sentence against a U.S. Army soldier since the Civil War, and the only man so punished during World War II.
Private Eddie Slovik was a draftee. Originally classified 4-F because of a prison record (grand theft auto), he was bumped up to a 1-A classification when draft standards were lowered to meet growing personnel needs. In January 1944, he was trained to be a rifleman, which was not to his liking, as he hated guns.
In August of the same year, Slovik was shipped to France to fight with the 28th Infantry Division, which had already suffered massive casualties in the fighting there and in Germany. Slovik was a replacement, a class of soldier not particular respected by officers. As he and a companion were on the way to the front lines, they became lost in the chaos of battle, only to stumble upon a Canadian unit that took them in.
Slovik stayed on with the Canadians until October 5, when they turned him and his buddy over to the American military police, who reunited them with the 28th Division, now in Elsenborn, Belgium. No charges were brought; replacements getting lost early on in their tours of duty were not unusual. But exactly one day after Slovik returned to his unit, he claimed he was "too scared and too nervous" to be a rifleman and threatened to run away if forced into combat. His admission was ignored-and Slovik took off. One day after that he returned, and Slovik signed a confession of desertion, claiming he would run away again if forced to fight, and submitted it to an officer of the 28th. The officer advised Slovik to take the confession back, as the consequences would be serious. Slovik refused, and he was confined to the stockade.
The 28th Division had seen many cases of soldiers wounding themselves or deserting in the hopes of a prison sentence that would at least protect them from the perils of combat. So a legal officer of the 28th offered Slovik a deal: Dive into combat immediately and avoid the court-martial. Slovik refused. He was tried on November 11 for desertion and was convicted in less than two hours. The nine-officer court-martial panel passed a unanimous sentence: execution-"to be shot to death with musketry."
Slovik's appeal failed. It was held that he "directly challenged the authority" of the United States and that "future discipline depends upon a resolute reply to this challenge." Slovik was to pay for his recalcitrant attitude-and he was to be made an example. One last appeal was made-to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander. The timing was bad for mercy. The Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes forest was issuing in literally thousands of American casualties, not to mention the second largest surrender of an American Army unit during the war. Eisenhower upheld the sentence.
Slovik would be shot to death by a 12-man firing squad in eastern France in January of 1945. None of the rifleman so much as flinched, believing Slovik had gotten what he deserved.
Dec 23, 1888: Van Gogh chops off ear
On this day in 1888, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, suffering from severe depression, cuts off the lower part of his left ear with a razor while staying in Arles, France. He later documented the event in a painting titled Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear. Today, Van Gogh is regarded as an artistic genius and his masterpieces sell for record-breaking prices; however, during his lifetime, he was a poster boy for tortured starving artists and sold only one painting.
Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in the Netherlands. He had a difficult, nervous personality and worked unsuccessfully at an art gallery and then as a preacher among poor miners in Belgium. In 1880, he decided to become an artist. His work from this period--the most famous of which is The Potato Eaters (1885)--is dark and somber and reflective of the experiences he had among peasants and impoverished miners.
In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris where his younger brother Theo, with whom he was close, lived. Theo, an art dealer, supported his brother financially and introduced him to a number of artists, including Paul Gauguin, Camille Pisarro and Georges Seurat. Influenced by these and other painters, Van Gogh's own artistic style lightened up and he began using more color.
In 1888, Van Gogh rented a house in Arles in the south of France, where he hoped to found an artists' colony and be less of a burden to his brother. In Arles, Van Gogh painted vivid scenes from the countryside as well as still-lifes, including his famous sunflower series. Gauguin came to stay with him in Arles and the two men worked together for almost two months. However, tensions developed and on December 23, in a fit of dementia, Van Gogh threatened his friend with a knife before turning it on himself and mutilating his ear lobe. Afterward, he allegedly wrapped up the ear and gave it to a prostitute at a nearby brothel. Following that incident, Van Gogh was hospitalized in Arles and then checked himself into a mental institution in Saint-Remy for a year. During his stay in Saint-Remy, he fluctuated between periods of madness and intense creativity, in which he produced some of his best and most well-known works, including Starry Night and Irises.
In May 1890, Van Gogh moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, where he continued to be plagued by despair and loneliness. On July 27, 1890, he shot himself and died two days later at age 37.
Dec 23, 1972: Harris makes Immaculate Reception
On December 23, 1972, in a controversial play that is known as the "Immaculate Reception," rookie running back Franco Harris of the Pittsburgh Steelers grabs a deflected pass from quarterback Terry Bradshaw to score a touchdown, winning the game for the Steelers 13-7 over the Oakland Raiders.
The historic play took place during the semifinal playoff game of the American Football Conference (AFC), in Pittsburgh. Ken Stabler of the Raiders scored a touchdown with 73 seconds left in the game, putting Oakland up 7-6. Things looked dark for the Steelers, a struggling franchise that had finished 31 of the previous 39 seasons with a losing record. Bradshaw’s pass, launched from the Steelers’ 40-yard-line, was intended for halfback Frenchy Fuqua. When the Raiders safety Jack Tatum collided with Fuqua at Oakland’s 35-yard-line, the ball bounced backwards in a huge arc for a total of seven yards, where Harris scooped it up before it hit the ground and ran 42 yards into the end zone.
Though one official, Adrian Burk, immediately ruled the play a touchdown, there were no other signals. Tatum swore he didn’t touch the ball and that it had bounced off Fuqua and ricocheted towards Harris; this would have made Harris’ play illegal, according to a rule at the time stating no two receivers can touch the ball consecutively on the same play. From a dugout on the sidelines, referee Fred Swearingen got on the phone with Art McNally, the NFL’s supervisor of officials. McNally had access to the instant replay on television from his seat in the press box, and confirmed Swearingen’s ruling that Tatum had touched the football, making Harris’ play a touchdown. In his post-game comments, Raiders coach John Madden indicated that he believed Tatum had made contact with the ball.
The following week, also in Pittsburgh, the Steelers lost the AFC championship game to the undefeated Miami Dolphins, who went on to win Super Bowl VII. The Immaculate Reception marked the end of Pittsburgh’s years of futility, however, as the Steelers became a dominant force in the NFL over the next decade, winning four Super Bowls by 1980.
Today
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
619 - Boniface V begins his reign as Catholic Pope
962 - Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city of Aleppo, recovering the tattered tunic of John the Baptist.
1482 - Peace of Atrecht
1493 - Georg Alt's German translation of Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle is published.
1620 - French huguenots declare war on King Louis XIII
1672 - Giovanni Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn
1688 - English king Jacob II flees to France
1690 - John Flamsteed observes Uranus without realizing it's undiscovered
1715 - Russian/Prussian troops occupy Stralsund
1724 - Emperor Charles VI names Maria Elisabeth land guardian of Aust Neth
1728 - Prussian Emperor Karel VI sign Treaty of Berlin
1751 - France sets plan to tax clergymen
1776 - Continental Congress negotiates a war loan of $181,500 from France
1776 - Thomas Paine writes "These are the times that try men's souls"
1779 - Benedict Arnold court-martialed for improper conduct
1783 - General George Washington resigns his military commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Army to Congress
1788 - Maryland votes to cede a 10 sqaure mile area for Dist of Columbia
1793 - Thomas Jefferson warned of slave revolts in West Indies
1823 - "Visit from St Nicholas" by C Moore published in Troy (NY) Sentinel
US President Thomas JeffersonUS President Thomas Jefferson 1832 - Dutch troops in Antwerp surrender
1834 - Joseph Hansom of London receives patent for Hansom cabs
1852 - 1st Chinese theater in US, Celestial John, opens in San Francisco
1862 - Union General Ben "Beast" Butler is proclaimed a "felon, outlaw & common enemy of mankind" by Jefferson Davis
1867 - 1st self-made millionairess (Sarah Breedlove-hair straightner)
1876 - Turkey's 1st constitution proclaimed
1888 - Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cuts off his left ear
1893 - Opera "Hansel und Gretel" is produced (Weimar)
1894 - Debussy's ballet "L'aprés-midi d'un faune" premieres in Paris
1899 - British Field Marshall Lord Roberts departs Southampton to South Africa for the 2nd Boer War
1899 - Tentative Turkish & German treaty on construction of Baghdad railway
1907 - 1st all-steel passengar railroad coach completed, Altoona, Pa
1909 - Albert becomes king of Belgians
1911 - Frank Wedekind's "Oaha, die Satire der Satire" premieres in Munich
1911 - Opera "I Giojelli Della Madonna" is produced (Berlin)
1912 - 1st "Keystone Kops" film, titled "Hoffmeyer's Legacy"
1912 - Aswan Dam in Nile begins operation
US President Woodrow WilsonUS President Woodrow Wilson 1913 - President Woodrow Wilson signs Federal Reserve Act into law
1914 - World War I: Australian and New Zealand troops arrive in Cairo, Egypt.
1915 - J Kern/S Greene's musical "Very Good Eddie" premieres in NYC
1916 - World War I: Battle of Magdhaba - Allied forces defeat Turkish forces in Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
1917 - 3 British warships come close to Holland
1919 - 1st hospital ship built to move wounded naval personnel launched
1919 - Alice H Parker patents gas heating furnace
1920 - Ireland divided into 2 parts, each with its own parliament
1920 - King George V signs Home Rule Act
1921 - Visva-Bharati University is inaugurated.
1922 - BBC Radio began daily newscasts
1922 - Pope Pius XI pleas for peace: encyclical Ubi arcano
1923 - Yankees pitcher Carl Mays sold to Reds for $85,000
1925 - Sultan Ibn Saud of Nedzjed conquers Djeddah
1926 - KEX-AM in Portland OR begins radio transmissions
1928 - NBC sets up a permanent, coast-to-coast radio network
Actress Bette DavisActress Bette Davis 1930 - Bette Davis arrives in Hollywood under contract to Universal Studios
1930 - Police Bureau of Criminal Alien Investigation started in NYC
1933 - Howie Morenz takes over NHL career goal lead at 251
1933 - Marinus van der Lubbe sentenced to death
1933 - Train crash in Eastern Paris; 230 die
1936 - Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1937 - First flight of the Vickers Wellington bomber.
1938 - Margaret Hamilton's costume catches fire in filming of "Wizard of Oz"
1938 - Discovery of the first modern coelacanth in South Africa.
1939 - Finnish counter offensive at Summa
1939 - South Australia score 7-821 against Queensland
1940 - John Van Druten's "Old Acquaintance" premieres in NYC
1941 - American forces on Wake Island surrender to Japanese
1941 - British troops overrun Benghazi Libya
1941 - Japan begins assault on Rangoon Burma
1942 - Allies air attack on Den Helder
1943 - 1st telecast of a complete opera (Hansel & Gretel), Schenectady, NY
1943 - Gen Montgomery told he is appointed commandant for D-day
1944 - Beginning of harsh winter
1945 - Frederick Astons "Cinderella" premieres in London
1945 - Pope Pius XII encyclical Orientals omnes, about Rutheense church
1946 - Belgian Council of State forms
1946 - Highest ridership in NYC subway history (8.8 million passengers)
1946 - U of Tenn refuses to play Duquesne U, because they may use a black player in their basketball game
1947 - Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain & Shockley in Bell Labs
1951 - Last Belgian communities get electricity
1951 - 1st coast-to-coast televised football game (Dumont paid $75,000) LA Rams beat Cleveland Browns 24-17 in NFL championship game
1953 - Dodgers 2nd baseman Jim "Junior" Gilliam wins NL Rookie of Year
1954 - The first human kidney transplant is performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
1957 - Test Cricket debut for Wally Grout & Bobby Simpson v South Africa
1958 - "Party with Comden & Green" opens at John Golden NYC for 38 perfs
1958 - Abdallah Ibrahim forms government of Morocco
1960 - De Quay's Dutch government falls
1960 - King Saudi of Saudi Arabia takes power
1961 - KICU TV channel 43 in Visalia-Fresno, CA (IND) begins broadcasting
1961 - Train accident in Italy, 70 die
Cuban President Fidel CastroCuban President Fidel Castro 1961 - Fidel Castro announces Cuba will release 1,113 prisoners from failed 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion for $62M worth of food & medical supplies
1962 - Cuba starts returning US prisoners from Bay of Pigs invasion
1962 - Dallas Texans beat Houston Oilers 20-17 in AFL championship game
1963 - Beach Boys 1st appearance on "Shindig"
1963 - Fire on Greek ship Laconia, 128 die
1964 - India & Ceylon hit by cyclone, about 4,850 killed
1966 - Britain's rock TV show "Ready Steady Go" last program
1967 - Brussels: NATO-Council accept "Flexible Response"-strategy
1968 - 1st US case of space motion sickness
1968 - 82 members of US intelligence ship 'Pueblo' released by North Korea
1968 - Borman, Lovell & Anders become 1st men to orbit Moon
1970 - 7,511th performance of Agatha Christie's "Mousetrap" (record)
1970 - French author Régis Debray freed in Bolivia
1970 - NY World Trade Center reaches highest point (411 m)
1970 - USSR performs nuclear test
Novelist Agatha ChristieNovelist Agatha Christie 1972 - 16 plane crash survivors rescued after 70d, survived by cannabalism
1972 - 6.25 Earthquake destroys central Managua Nicaragua, 10,000 die
1972 - Chandrasekhar takes 8-79 India v England at Delhi
1972 - Islanders end 15 games winless streak
1972 - "Immaculate Reception" Steelers turns around a 7-6 defeat with a last second touchdown reception against Raiders to win 13-7
1973 - "Young & Restless" premieres on TV
1973 - 6 Persian Gulf nations double their oil prices
1973 - French Caravelle crashes in Morocco, 106 killed
1974 - "Good News" opens at St James Theater NYC for 16 performances
1974 - Leningrad: premier of Dmitri Sjotakovitsj' Michelangelo-liederen
1975 - Congress passes Metric Conversion Act
1975 - Peter Seitz makes Andy Messersmith & Dave McNally free agents
1978 - Islanders scored 7 goals in 1 period against NY Rangers, Trottier scores 8 points vs Rangers, 5 goals-NHL record 6 pts in 1 period
1979 - NY Islanders greatest shutout lose (8-0) vs Chicago Black Hawks
1979 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1980 - Sam Shepard's "True West" premieres in NYC
1981 - Geoff Boycott becomes leading run-scorer in Test Crickets with 8033
1982 - The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces it has identified dangerous levels of dioxin in the soil of Times Beach, Missouri.
1983 - Journal Science publishes 1st report on nuclear winter
1984 - Viv Richards scores 208 in Test Cricket at MCG
1986 - Experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan & Jeana Yeager, complete 1st nonstop, round-the-world flight without refueling lands
1986 - Rutan & Yeager make 1st around-the-world flight without refueling
38th US President Gerald Ford38th US President Gerald Ford 1987 - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, serving a life sentence for attempted assassination of Pres Gerald R Ford escapes from Alderson Prison
1990 - "Lettice & Lovage" closes at Barrymore Theater NYC after 284 perfs
1990 - Slovenians vote to secede from Yugoslavia
1991 - NY Daily News publisher Kevin Maxwell resigns
1994 - Baseball owners impose salary cap, fiercely opposed by players
1996 - 4 women ordained priests in Jamaica, 1st in 330-year Anglican history
1997 - Chic Bull coach Phil Jackson is quickest to reach 500 wins (682 games)
1997 - Colo Avalanche Jari Kurri is 8th NHLer to score 600 career goals
1997 - Terry Nichols found guilty of manslaughter in Oklahoma bombing
1997 - US Agriculture Dept estimates it costs $149,820 to raise a child to 18
2002 - A MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25, making it the first time in history that an aircraft and an unmanned drone had engaged in combat.
2003 - PetroChina Chuandongbei natural gas field explosion, Guoqiao, Kai, Chongqing, China, killing at least 234.
2004 - Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean is hit by an 8.1 magnitude earthquake.
2005 - Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 217 from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Aktau, Kazakhstan crashes shortly after takeoff killing 23 people.
2005 - Chad declares a state of war against Sudan following a December 18 attack on Adré, which left about 100 people dead.
2012 - 200 civilians are killed by Syrian government warplanes in Helfaya, Syria
2012 - The Seleka rebel coalition takes over Bambari, the third largest town in the Central African Republic
1783 - George Washington returned home to Mount Vernon, after the disbanding of his army following the Revolutionary War. 1788 - Maryland voted to cede a 100-square-mile area for the seat of the national government. About two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia. 1823 - The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement C. Moore (" 'Twas the night before Christmas...") was published. 1834 - English architect Joseph Hansom patented his 'safety cab', better known as the Hansom cab. 1852 - The Theatre of Celestial John opened on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, CA. It was the first Chinese theatre in the U.S. 1880 - Thomas Edison incorporated the Edison Electric Light Company of Europe. 1888 - Following a quarrel with Paul Gauguin, Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh cut off part of his own earlobe. 1893 - The Engelbert Humperdinck opera "Hansel und Gretel" was first performed, in Weimar, Germany. 1913 - The Federal Reserve Bill was signed into law by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. The act established 12 Federal Reserve Banks. 1919 - The first ship designed to be used as an ambulance for the transport patients was launched. The hospital ship was named USS Relief and had 515 beds. 1922 - The British Broadcasting Corporation began daily news broadcasts. 1930 - Ruth Elizabeth Davis, an unknown actress, arrived in Hollywood, under contract to Universal Studios. Universal changed her name to Bette Davis for the movies. 1938 - "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" was heard for the final time on the radio. 1941 - During World War II, American forces on Wake Island surrendered to the Japanese. 1942 - Bob Hope agreed to entertain U.S. airmen in Alaska. It was the first of the traditional Christmas shows. 1943 - "Hansel and Gretel," the opera, was televised on New York's WRBG. It was the first complete opera to be televised. 1947 - John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William Shockley invented the transistor. 1948 - Former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese war leaders were executed in Tokyo. They had been found guilty of crimes against humanity. 1951 - A National Football League (NFL) championship game was televised nationally for the first time. The Los Angeles Rams beat the Cleveland Browns 24-17. The DuMont Network had paid $75,000 for the rights to the game. 1953 - Soviet secret police chief Lavrenti Beria and six of his associates were shot for treason following a secret trial. 1954 - The Walt Disney movie "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" was released. Disney movies, music and books 1957 - Dan Blocker made his acting debut on television in the "Restless Gun." 1965 - A 70-mph speed limit was introduced in Britain. 1968 - Eighty-two crewmembers of the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo were released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been captured. 1972 - The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Oakland Raiders 13-7 in an NFL playoff game on a last-second play that was dubbed the "Immaculate Reception." Pittsburgh's Franco Harris caught a deflected pass and ran it in for the winning touchdown. 1981 - NASA approved a plan to continue the Voyager II spacecraft on a trajectory that would take it within 66,000 miles of Uranus on July 24, 1986. 1986 - The experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, around-the-world flight without refueling as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California. 1987 - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ford in 1975, escaped from the Alderson Federal Prison for Women in West Virginia. She was recaptured two days later. 1989 - Ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were captured as they were attempting to flee their country. 1990 - Elections in Yugoslavia ended, leaving four of its six republics with non-Communist governments. 1995 - A fire in Dabwali, India, killed 540 people, including 170 children, during a year-end party being held near the children's school. 1995 - The bodies of 16 members of the Solar Temple religious sect were found in a clearing near Grenoble, France. 14 were presumed shot by two people who then committed suicide. 1997 - Terry Nichols was convicted by a Denver jury on charges of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the 1995 federal building bombing in Oklahoma City. The bomb killed 168 people. 1998 - Guerrillas in south Lebanon fired dozens of rockets at northern Israel.
1783 George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Army. 1788 Maryland voted to cede a 100-square-mile area for the District of Columbia. 1823 The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ("'Twas the night before Christmas"), written by either Clement C. Moore or Maj. Henry Livingston, Jr., was published in the Troy Sentinel of New York. 1913 President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the Federal Reserve System. 1947 The transistor was unveiled by American physicists John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William Shockley. 1948 Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese war leaders were executed. 1986 Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager completed the first non-stop, around-the-world flight without refueling aboard the experimental airplane Voyager.
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/dec23.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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