December 23
Today in America's Present Past
1745 | SCOTUS: Chief Justice John Jay was born.
1776 | Congress: Negotiated a war loan of $181,500 from France.
1779 | War of Independence: General Benedict Arnold was court-martialed.
1788 | Maryland voted to cede a ten square mile area for District of Columbia.
1805 | Cleric Joseph Smith was born.
1808 | Admiral Thomas Turner was born.
1815 | Abolitionist and cleric Henry Highland Garnet was born.
1823 | “Visit from St Nicholas” by C. Moore published in Troy Sentinel, shifting to the modern version of “Santa.”
1860 | Poet Harriet Monroe was born.
1867 | Entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker was born (America’s first female self-made millionaire).
1902 | Author Norman Maclean was born.
1912 | Film: The silent “Keystone Kops” debuted.
1913 | POTUS: Democrat President Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law.
1919 | WWII aviation ace Kenneth M. Taylor was born.
1919 | Alice H. Parker patented a gas heating furnace.
1921 | POTUS: Republican President Harding commuted sentences of 24 “political prisoners,” including Eugene Debs.
1923 | Admiral and politician James Stockdale was born.
1928 | Radio: The first coast-to-coast network was established by NBC.
1929 | Musician Chet Baker was born.
1938 | Author Robert Herrick died.
1941 | WWII: U.S forces surrender to Japanese on Wake Island.
1944 | General Wesley Clark was born.
1945 | Historian Donald A. Ritchie was born.
1952 | Journalist and commentator William Kristol was born.
1964 | Musician Eddie Vedder was born.
1968 | Cold War: The 82 members of the US intelligence ship Pueblo are released by North Korea.
1971 | POTUS: Republican President Nixon commutes the prison sentence of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa.
1975 | POTUS: Republican President Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act.
1986 | Experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, complete 1st nonstop, round-the-world flight without refueling.
1987 | POTUS: Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, serving a life sentence for attempted assassination of President Ford, escaped from Alderson Prison, West Virginia.
2020 | Author James E. Gunn died.
2021 | Journalist Joan Didion died.