December 18th History Lesson
1620 – The British ship Mayflower docked at modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, and its passengers prepared to begin their new settlement, Plymouth Colony. That winter of 1620-1621 was brutal, as the Pilgrims struggled to build their settlement, find food and ward off sickness. By spring, 50 of the original 102 Mayflower passengers were dead.
1787 – New Jersey became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1865 – The U.S. House of Representatives passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in America. The amendment read, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” With the passage of the amendment, the institution that had indelibly shaped American history was eradicated.
1878 – John Kehoe, the last of the “Molly Maguires,” was executed in Pennsylvania. The Molly Maguires, an Irish secret society that had allegedly been responsible for some incidences of vigilante justice in the coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania, defended their actions as attempts to protect exploited Irish-American workers. In fact, they are often regarded as one of the first organized labor groups.
Kehoe was arrested and hanged for the 1862 murder of Frank W.S. Langdon, a mine foreman, despite the fact that it was widely believed he was wrongly accused and not actually responsible for anyone’s death. Although the governor of Pennsylvania believed Kehoe’s innocence, he signed the death warrant anyway.
1956 – To Tell The Truth, with host Bud Collyer, premiered on CBS.
1957 – The first nuclear facility in the United States to generate electricity, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, went online.
1968 – The musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang opened in New York City. The movie featured Dick Van Dyke, who had made a splash four years before in the Disney musical Mary Poppins and whose TV show had been a hit since 1961. Its real star, however, was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang herself: a magical flying car that always knew how to save the day.
1969 – Britain’s Parliament abolished the death penalty for murder.
1972 – Following the breakdown of peace talks with North Vietnam just a few days earlier, President Richard Nixon announced the beginning of a massive bombing campaign to break the stalemate. For nearly two weeks, American B-52s and fighter-bombers dropped over 20,000 tons of bombs on the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. The United States lost 15 of its giant B-52s and 11 other aircraft during the attacks. North Vietnam claimed that over 1,600 civilians were killed.
The bombings continued until December 29, at which time the North Vietnamese agreed to resume the talks. A few weeks later, the final Paris Peace Treaty was signed and the Vietnam War came to a close.
1997 – Comedian/actor Chris Farley (Saturday Night Live, Tommy Boy, Beverly Hills Ninja) died of a cocaine and morphine overdose. Advanced atherosclerosis was cited as a “significant contributing factor.” He was only 33.
2003 – A jury in Chesapeake, Va., convicted teenager Lee Boyd Malvo of two counts of murder in the Washington-area Beltway Sniper shootings. He was later sentenced to life in prison without parole.
2008 – Former FBI Associate Director Mark Felt, who, after denying his involvement for 30 years, admitted to being the Watergate scandal’s mysterious whistleblower “Deep Throat,” died of natural causes at the age of 95.
2008 – A U.N. court in Tanzania convicted former Rwandan army Col. Theoneste Bagosora of genocide and crimes against humanity for masterminding the killings of more than half a million people in a 100-day slaughter in 1994.
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