Monday, December 22, 2014

On This Day in History - December 22 Dreyfus Affair Begins in France

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 22, 1894: Dreyfus affair begins in France

French officer Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason by a military court-martial and sentenced to life in prison for his alleged crime of passing military secrets to the Germans. The Jewish artillery captain, convicted on flimsy evidence in a highly irregular trial, began his life sentence on the notorious Devil's Island Prison in French Guyana four months later.  

The Dreyfus case demonstrated the anti-Semitism permeating France's military and, because many praised the ruling, in France in general. Interest in the case lapsed until 1896, when evidence was disclosed that implicated French Major Ferdinand Esterhazy as the guilty party. The army attempted to suppress this information, but a national uproar ensued, and the military had no choice but to put Esterhazy on trial. A court-martial was held in January 1898, and Esterhazy was acquitted within an hour.  

In response, the French novelist Émile Zola published an open letter entitled "J'Accuse" on the front page of the Aurore, which accused the judges of being under the thumb of the military. By the evening, 200,000 copies had been sold. One month later, Zola was sentenced to jail for libel but managed to escape to England. Meanwhile, out of the scandal a perilous national division was born, in which nationalists and members of the Catholic Church supported the military, while republicans, socialists, and advocates of religious freedom lined up to defend Dreyfus.  

In 1898, Major Hubert Henry, discoverer of the original letter attributed to Dreyfus, admitted that he had forged much of the evidence against Dreyfus and then Henry committed suicide. Soon afterward, Esterhazy fled the country. The military was forced to order a new court-martial for Dreyfus. In 1899, he was found guilty in another show trial and sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, a new French administration pardoned him, and in 1906 the supreme court of appeals overturned his conviction. The debacle of the Dreyfus affair brought about greater liberalization in France, a reduction in the power of the military, and a formal separation of church and state.









Dec 22, 1990: Lech Walesa sworn in as president of Poland  

Lech Walesa, well-known Polish labor leader and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is sworn in as the first noncommunist president of Poland since the end of World War II. His victory was another sign of the Soviet Union's lessening power and communism's waning influence in Eastern Europe.  

Walesa first came into prominence in Poland in 1980 when he took over the leadership of a strike of shipyard workers. The action was a success, with Poland's communist government agreeing to the union's right to exist. This was the birth of the so-called "Solidarity" movement in Poland, a broad-based movement designed to remove communist control over labor organizations. Though forced to give in during the strike, the government plotted to eliminate this new threat to its power. Martial law was imposed in 1981 and shortly thereafter Walesa was arrested and put into solitary confinement for nearly a year. In 1983, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in organizing Polish labor and protesting communist oppression in his nation.  

Upon his release from prison, Walesa resumed his union efforts. The Solidarity movement rapidly gained in strength and popularity. In 1989, the Polish government allowed semi-free elections and Solidarity candidates won seats in the national parliament. In 1990, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the communist leader of Poland, agreed to step down and allow free elections. Walesa, though he initially shunned political office, ran for president as the Solidarity candidate and won. His election was another blow to Soviet power in East Europe and marked another defection from the communist Iron Curtain nations of Europe.  

Walesa's five years in office were marked by Poland's rapid transformation to a growing free-market economy, though Walesa himself was often criticized for his leadership style, which included replacing government staffers almost yearly. He lost the presidential election in 1995 and ostensibly retired from public life. He ran for president again in 2000, but received less than one percent of the vote.










Dec 22, 1989: Romanian government falls

The Romanian army defects to the cause of anti-communist demonstrators, and the government of Nicolae Ceausescu is overthrown. The end of 42 years of communist rule came three days after Ceausescu's security forces opened fire on demonstrators in Timisoara. After the army's defection, Ceausescu and his wife fled from Bucharest in a helicopter but were captured and convicted of mass murder in a hasty military trial. On December 25, they were executed by a firing squad.  

Ceausescu, ruler of Romania since 1965, had resisted the liberalization of the USSR and other Soviet bloc countries in the late 1980s. By the time of his government's downfall in 1989, Romania was the most repressive and economically backward country in Europe.








Dec 22, 1971: Soviet Union attacks Chinese policy toward Vietnam

The Soviet Union accuses China of backing U.S. policies in Vietnam, an accusation that illustrates the growing rift between the two communist superpowers. China, which had previously taken a hard line toward negotiations between Hanoi and Washington, softened its position by endorsing a North Vietnamese peace plan for ending the war. Although the peace proposal was unacceptable to the United States, the fact that China advocated negotiations between Hanoi and Washington was significant. The Soviet Union, whose relations with China were already deteriorating, was highly suspicious of what they rightfully perceived as a "warming" in Sino-American relations. This suspicion only grew stronger in February 1972, when President Richard Nixon visited China.










Dec 22, 1971: Waldheim elected U.N. secretary-general

The United Nations General Assembly votes to ratify the U.N. Security Council's nomination of Austrian diplomat Kurt Waldheim to lead the U.N. Waldheim went on to serve two terms as head of the world body, leaving the post in 1982.  

In 1986, during a campaign for the Austrian presidency, documents were uncovered revealing that he had served as an intelligence officer in German army units that had committed war atrocities in the Balkans during World War II. Waldheim, who had previously claimed that he spent much of the war in Vienna, admitted that he had lied about his wartime record but denied any knowledge of atrocities. He went on to win the Austria presidency despite the allegations but became an international pariah.  

After the annexation of his country by Nazi Germany in 1938, Waldheim was conscripted into the German army and served on the Russian front until 1941, when he was wounded. Waldheim claimed that he spent the rest of the war studying law in Vienna, but it is now known that he was an interpreter and intelligence officer for German army units stationed in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia and Greece from 1943 and 1945. Waldheim's units engaged in brutal reprisals against Yugoslav partisans and civilians and deported most of the Jewish population of Salonika, Greece, to Nazi death camps. There is no evidence that he personally killed, tortured, or deported anyone, but he did provide the logistical and intelligence support that enabled others to do so. He won praise and promotion from his Nazi superiors, and evidence indicates that on one occasion he ordered a group of prisoners shot.  

After World War II, Waldheim returned to Austria and entered the diplomatic service. He led Austria's first delegation to the United Nations in 1955 and served as the Austrian ambassador to Canada in the late 1950s. He then worked in the Austrian Foreign Ministry and in 1964 became his country's permanent representative to the U.N. In 1968, he became minister of foreign affairs in the Austrian government and in 1970 returned to the U.N. as permanent representative. In 1971, he was an unsuccessful candidate to Austria's presidency, a largely ceremonial post, on the conservative People's Party ticket. In December 1971, he was chosen by the U.N. Security Council to be U.N. secretary-general, and on December 22 the General Assembly approved the nomination.  

As head of the United Nations, Waldheim was an efficient but not particularly dynamic world leader. He made visits to Cyprus and the Middle East to help resolve conflicts there and coordinated a massive relief effort to Bangladesh, devastated by war and natural disaster. In 1976, he was reelected. During his second tenure as head of the U.N., he attempted, with little success, to end the Iran-Iraq War and the Sino-Vietnam War and to gain the release of American hostages in Iran. In 1981, a third term was blocked by a Chinese veto.  

In 1986, Waldheim ran for Austria's presidency again, but the campaign was heavily tainted by reports of his possible participation in war crimes during World War II. Waldheim admitted that, contrary to earlier statements he had made about his past, he had indeed served in the Balkans during the war but denied any knowledge of atrocities. This denial, contradicted by the evidence, was evidently acceptable enough for the Austrian electorate, and in June 1986 they voted to make him Austrian president.  

Waldheim's tenure as Austrian head of state was marked by a period of international isolation for the country, and he chose not to run for reelection in 1992. In 1987, the United States barred him from entering the country as a private citizen because of his war record. Details of the investigative report that the U.S. Justice Department used in making this decision were first made public in 1994, implicating Waldheim with a far greater involvement in war-time atrocities than was previously suspected. 









Dec 22, 1775: Continental Congress creates a Continental Navy

On Friday, December 22, 1775, the Continental Congress creates a Continental Navy, naming Esek Hopkins, Esq., as commander in chief of the fleet.  

Congress also named four captains to the new service: Dudley Saltonstall, Abraham Whipple, Nicholas Biddle and John Burrows Hopkins. Their respective vessels, the Alfred, Columbus, Andrew Doria and Cabot, became the first ships of the Navy's fleet. Five first lieutenants, including future American hero John Paul Jones, five second lieutenants, and three third lieutenants also received their commissions.  

The new Admiral Hopkins, as he was dubbed by George Washington, was a Rhode Islander of some standing. His brother was Stephen Hopkins, the state's governor. Esek Hopkins had married well and used his wife's fortune to buy a ship. It proved a wise investment. He added to his wealth working as a privateer during the Seven Years' War. In his new position, Congress promised to pay him 125 dollars per calendar month; they also informed that he could look forward to some share of the prizes allotted to the captors. Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina designed Hopkins' personal standard, which flew from the first navy fleet. The yellow flag bore the image of a coiled snake and the Patriot motto, Don't Tread on Me.  

Hopkins' first assignment was to assess the feasibility of an attack on British naval forces in the Chesapeake Bay. After sailing south with his meager force of eight ships, Hopkins decided that victory in such an encounter was impossible. He sailed to the Bahamas instead, where he attacked the British port of Nassau, a decision for which he was relieved of his command upon returning to the continent.

Today

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

401 - St Innocent I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
795 - Leo III succeeds pope Adrianus I
1135 - Norman nobles recognize Stefanus van Blois as English king
1216 - Pope Honorius III delegates degree "Religiosam vitam eligentibus"
1465 - Peace of St Truiden: Louis van Bourbon becomes bishop of Luik
1536 - English scholar Reginald Pole appointed cardinal
1596 - Ferryboat Meuniers crashes in Paris, 150 die
1642 - Pope Urbanus VIII publishes degree In eminente
1688 - Pro-James II, Earl of Danby occupies York
1689 - Heavy earthquake strikes Innsbruck
1715 - English pretender to the throne James III lands at Peterhead
1731 - Dutch people revolt against meat tax
1772 - Moravian missionary constructs 1st schoolhouse west of Allegheny
1775 - Continental navy organized with 7 ships
1790 - The Turkish fortress of Izmail is stormed and captured by Suvorov and his Russian armies.
1807 - Congress passes Embargo Act, to force peace between Britain & France
1810 - British frigate Minotaur sinks killing 480
1832 - HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin reaches Barnevelts Islands
1849 - The execution of Fyodor Dostoevsky is called off at the last second.
Naturalist Charles DarwinNaturalist Charles Darwin 1851 - The first freight train is operated in Roorkee, India.
1862 - -Jan 2nd) Raid on Morgan's: Bardstown to Elizabethtown, KY
1870 - Jules Janssen, flys in a balloon in order to study a solar eclipse
1877 - "American Bicycling Journal" begins publishing (Boston, Mass)
1882 - 1st string of Christmas tree lights created by Thomas Edison
1883 - August Strindberg's "Lycko-Pers Reja" premieres
1885 - Pope Leo XIII proclaims extraordinary jubilee
1885 - Ito Hirobumi, a samurai, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.
1886 - 1st national accountants' society in US formed (NYC)
1888 - Heavyweight boxing champ John L Sullivan challenges Jake Kilrain
1890 - Cornwallis Valley Railway begins operation between Kingsport and Kentville, Nova Scotia.
1894 - -23] Dutch coast hit by hurricane
1894 - Claude Debussy's "Prélude à l'apres-midi d'un faune" premieres
1894 - United States Golf Association forms (NYC)
1894 - French officer Alfred Dreyfus court-martialed for treason, triggers worldwide charges of anti-Semitism (Dreyfus later vindicated)
Inventor Thomas EdisonInventor Thomas Edison 1907 - Saint-Saëns/Fokines ballet "Le Cygne" premieres in St Petersburg
1910 - US postal savings stamps 1st issued
1915 - Federal Baseball League disolved
1915 - Organized baseball & Federal League sign a peace treaty at Cincinnati
1917 - Flanders declares it's independence, under Pieter Tack
1919 - Government of Ireland Act of Power (Home Rule for Ireland)
1919 - US deports 250 alien radicals, including anarchist Emma Goldman
1922 - Belgian parliament rejects Dutch university in Ghent
1923 - Bill Ponsford & Edgar Mayne make 456 opening stand for Vict
1924 - Babe Dye of NHL's Toronto St Patricks scores 5 goals beat Bruins 10-2
1924 - Philip Barry's "Youngest" premieres in NYC
1930 - 6 West europe lands signs Convention of Oslo
1934 - 1st flight from Netherland to Curacao (Christmas flight 1934)
1934 - Miss Theo Trowbridge sets female bowling record 702 pins in games
1935 - Yaeko Iwasaki, student of D S Harada Roshi, 1st awakening in Kamakura
1936 - 1st common carrier license issued by ICC, Scranton, Pa
1937 - Lincoln Tunnel (NYC) opens to traffic
1939 - 125 die in train wreck at Magdeburg Germany
1939 - Bradman scores 138 in South Australia's 7-821 v Queensland
1939 - Finnish counter offensive at Petsamo
1939 - 99 die in 2nd wreck at Friedrichshafen Germany
1940 - World War II: Himarë is captured by the Greek army.
1941 - Japans invasion leader lands on Luzon, Philippines
1941 - Tito establishes 1st Proletarian Brigade in Yugoslavia
Soldier, author, journalist, politician Winston ChurchillSoldier, author, journalist, politician Winston Churchill 1941 - Winston Churchill arrives in Washington, DC for a wartime conference
1942 - World War II: Adolf Hitler signs the order to develop the V-2 rocket as a weapon.
1943 - Manufacturers get permission to use synthetic rubber for baseball core
1943 - WEB Du Bois elected 1st black member, Natl Inst of Arts & Letters
1944 - Germans demand surrender of American troops at Bastogne, Belgium
1944 - Sub Swordfish departs Pearl Harbor for Japan
1945 - Utrecht: Catholic People's party (KVP) established
1946 - "Bal Negre" closes at Belasco Theater NYC after 54 performances
1946 - Cleveland Browns beat NY Yankees 14-9 in AAFC championship game
1947 - Italian constituent assembly adopts new constitution
1948 - KPIX TV channel 5 in San Francisco, CA (CBS) begins broadcasting
1950 - 2 self-propelled trains of Long Island RR collide, killing 77
1951 - Australia cricket all out 82 v West Indies at Adelaide
1952 - French government of Pinay, resigns
1952 - WSBA (now WPMT) TV channel 43 in York, PA (IND) begins broadcasting
Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler 1953 - Jack Dunn III, owner of Balt Orioles in Intl League, turns name over to newly relocated St Louis Browns
1956 - "New Faces of 1956" closes at Barrymore Theater NYC after 221 perfs
1956 - Last British/French troops leave Egypt
1956 - Colo is born, the first gorilla to be bred in captivity.
1957 - KWRB (now KFNE) TV channel 10 in Lander-Riverton, WY (ABC) begins
1958 - "Chipmunk Song" reaches #1
1958 - "Whoop-Up" opens at Shubert Theater NYC for 56 performances
1958 - 2nd Dutch Beel government forms
1959 - Continental League awards its last franchise to Dallas-Fort Worth
1959 - NY Ranger goalie Marcel Paille wears a customized mask
1961 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1962 - 1,000,000th NBA point scored
1962 - Harris County voters approve all-weather stadium for Houston Colt .45s
1962 - Kinderman Place in the Bronx named
1962 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1963 - Oakland Raider Tom Flores passes for 6 touchdowns vs Houston (52-49)
1963 - Official 30-day mourning period for President John F Kennedy ends
1963 - Cruise ship Lakonia burns 180 miles north of Madeira with the loss of 128 lives.
1964 - Lockheed SR-71 spy aircraft reaches 3,530 kph (record for a jet)
1964 - Comedian Lenny Bruce is convicted of obscenity.
1964 - First flight of the SR-71 (Blackbird).
1965 - Belgian government shuts 6 coal mines
1965 - Director David Lean's "Dr Zhivago" premieres
1965 - Great Britain sets national maximum road speed at 70 miles per hour
1965 - Radio Mil (Domincan Republic) transmitter blown up
1966 - WCVW TV channel 57 in Richmond, VA (PBS) begins broadcasting
1969 - Pete Marovich sets NCAA record of hitting 30 of 31 foul shots
1970 - Treblinka SS commander Franz Stangl sentenced to life imprisonment
1971 - KUAC TV channel 9 in Fairbanks/College, AK (PBS) begins broadcasting
1971 - UN General Assembly ratifies former Austrian President Kurt Waldheim as secretary-General
1971 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1972 - 6.25 earthquake strikes Managua Nicaragua, 12,000+ killed
1974 - 2nd cease-fire between IRA & British; lasts until approx April 1975
1974 - Phil Esposito, Boston, became 6th NHLer to score 500 goals
1974 - Referenda in Comoros-3 islands for independence, 1 stays French
1974 - Ted Heath's house is attacked by members of the Provisional IRA.
1976 - "Your Arm's Too Short..." opens at Lyceum NYC for 429 perfs
1976 - 35 Unification church couples wed in NYC
1976 - German DR banishes singer Nina Hagen
1977 - 36 die as grain elevator at Continental Grain Company plant explodes
1978 - Kenny Jones becomes The Who's new drummer
1978 - Thailand adopts constitution
1980 - Cardinals release outfielder Bobby Bonds
US President & Actor Ronald ReaganUS President & Actor Ronald Reagan 1980 - US President-elect Ronald Reagan appoints J Kirkpatrick (UN) & James Watt (Interior)
1981 - Argentine general Leopoldo Galtieri sworn in as president
1981 - Belgium's 5th government of Martens forms
1982 - William Mastrosimones "Extremities" premieres in NYC
1983 - Egyptian president Mubarak meets with PLO leader Yasser Arafat
1983 - Islanders score 3 shorthanded goals against Caps
1984 - Bernhard Goetz shoots 4 black muggers on NYC subway train
1984 - Madonna's "Like a Virgin" single goes #1 for 6 weeks
1984 - Test Cricket debut of Craig McDermott, v WI at the MCG
1985 - "Wind in the Willows" closes at Nederlander Theater NYC after 4 perfs
1985 - 74th Davis Cup: Sweden beats Germany in Munich (3-2)
1985 - STS 51-L vehicle moves to Launch Pad 39B
1986 - India score 7-676 v Sri Lanka at Kanpur in Cricket
1987 - Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx overdoses from Heroin
1988 - 2 robbers wearing police uniforms rob armored truck of $3 M in NJ
Pop Star MadonnaPop Star Madonna 1988 - South Africa signs accord granting independence to South West Africa
1988 - Tug hits oil barge, spreads 231,000 gal on 300 mi of WA & BC coast
1988 - Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber tapper, unionist and environmental activist, is assassinated.
1989 - After 23 years of dictatorial rule, Romania ousts Nicolae Ceausescu
1989 - Chad adopts its Constitution
1989 - Cold wave: -4°F in Oklahoma City, -6°F in Tulsa, -12°F in Pitts
1989 - -18°F in Denver, -23°F in KC Mo, -42°F in Scottsbluff Nebraska -47°F in Hardin Mont & -60°F in Black Hills South Dakota
1990 - Iraq announces it will never give up Kuwait
1990 - Israeli ferry capsizes killing 21 US servicemen
1990 - Lech Walesa sworn in as Poland's 1st popularly elected president
1992 - Libyan MIG-23UB attacks Boeing 727 at Souk al-Sabt, 158 die
1994 - "Christmas Carol" opens at Richard Rodgers Theater NYC for 18 perfs
1994 - Italian government of Berlusconi resigns
1995 - David Cone signs $19.5 million 3 year contract with NY Yankees
1996 - Steelers' Kordell Stewart runs quarterback record 80 yds for TD
1996 - Wendy's Three Tour Golf Challenge
1996 - Zimbabwe & England draw Bulawayo Test Cricket with Eng need 1 to win
1997 - Hunter Tylo awarded $4 million in Melrose Place breach of contract
1997 - Merck baldness pill for men approved by FDA
1997 - Nancy Kerrigan & Tonya Harding pre-record a show to air on FOX on Feb 5
1997 - Acteal massacre: Attendees at a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic activists for indigenous causes in the small village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas are massacred by paramilitary forces.
1999 - The Spanish Civil Guard finds near Calatayud (Zaragoza) another van loaded by ETA with 750 kg of explosives (see related event on December 21, 1999).
2001 - Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, hands over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by President Hamid Karzai.
2001 - Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.
2002 - Joe Strummer, lead singer of the British punk band The Clash, dies at age 50
2003 - A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits near San Simeon, California.
44th US President Barack Obama44th US President Barack Obama 2010 - The repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, the 17-year-old policy banning on homosexuals serving openly in the United States military, was signed into law by President Barack Obama.
2012 - 6 people are killed by a car bomb in Damascus
2012 - 8 people are killed by a suicide bomber in Peshawar, Pakistan

2012 - Tomasz Adamek outpoints Steve Cunningham in a split decision in the IBF heavyweight title eliminator at the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, Pennsylvania





1715 - James Stuart, the "Old Pretender", landed at Petershead after his exile in France.   1775 - A Continental naval fleet was organized in the rebellious American colonies under the command of Ezek Hopkins.   1807 - The U.S. Congress passed the Embargo Act, designed to force peace between Britain and France by cutting off all trade with Europe.  1864 - During the American Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman sent a message to U.S. President Lincoln from Georgia. The message read, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah."   1877 - The "American Bicycling Journal" went on sale for the first time.   1894 - The United States Golf Association was formed in New York City.   1894 - French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggered worldwide charges of anti-Semitism. Dreyfus was eventually vindicated.   1895 - German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen made the first X-ray, of his wife's hand.   1910 - U.S. Postal savings stamps were issued for the first time. They were discontinued in 1914.   1939 - Gloria Jacobs became the first girl to hold a world pistol record when she shot 299 out of a possible 300 points. She was 17 years old at the time.   1943 - Sporting goods manufacturers received permission to use synthetic rubber for the core of baseballs.   1941 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington for a wartime conference with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.   1956 - Colo, the first gorilla to be born in captivity, was born at the Columbus, Ohio zoo.   1956 - The last British and French forces evacuated Egypt.   1961 - James Davis became the first U.S. soldier to die in Vietnam, while U.S. involvement was still limited to the provision of military advisers.   1976 - The last show of "Let’s Make A Deal" was aired.   1984 - New York City resident Bernhard Goetz shot four black youths on a Manhattan subway. Goetz claimed they were about to rob him.   1989 - Romania's hard-line Communist ruler, Nicolae Ceausescu, was overthrown in a popular uprising.   1990 - Lech Walesa was sworn in as Poland's first popularly elected president.   1991 - The body of Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, an American hostage murdered by his captors, was found along a highway in Lebanon.   1996 - A car bomb exploded in Belfast, injuring a known IRA supporter. Police suspected that Protestant loyalists were responsible for the attack.   1998 - A unit of RJR Nabsico pled guilty to attempting to smuggle cigarettes into Canada.   2001 - Thirty Afghans, including two women, were sworn in as part of the new interim government in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai was the head of the post-Taliban government.



1772 Construction of the first schoolhouse west of the Allegheny Mountains was started in Schoenbrunn, Ohio, by Moravian missionaries. 1807 The U.S. Congress passed the Embargo Act. 1864 During the Civil War, Union general William T. Sherman sent a message to President Lincoln saying, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah." 1894 French army officer Capt. Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial. 1989 Playwright Samuel Beckett died at age 83. 1989 Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown. 2001 Hamid Karzai sworn in as president of Afghanistan. 2010 President Obama officially repealed the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military policy.

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/dec22.htm

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

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory

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