Today in History: Dec. 16

UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1754: Boston Tea Party, 26 December 1773. Inhabitants of Boston, Massachusetts, dressed as American Indians, throwing tea from vessels in the harbour into the water as a protest against British taxation. No taxation without representation. Wood engraving, late 19th century. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
In 1773, the Boston Tea Party took place as American colonists boarded a British ship and dumped more than 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest tea taxes.  (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
US soldier aiming his rifle at captured Nazi prisoners, who have hands on top of heads in surrender in snowy landscape, during Battle of Bulge.  (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Office Of War Information/National Archives/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
In 1944, the World War II Battle of the Bulge began as German forces launched a surprise attack against Allied forces through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxembourg (the Allies were eventually able to turn the Germans back). (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Office Of War Information/National Archives/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) (The LIFE Picture Collection/Gett/Time Life Pictures)
President Truman declaring a state of emergency on the radio, December 1950, United States, Korean War, Washington, National Archives. (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)
In 1950, President Harry S. Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight “world conquest by Communist imperialism.”  (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)
In 1980, Harland Sanders, founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain, died in Shelbyville, Kentucky, at age 90. FILE – This April 18, 2011, file photo shows a KFC restaurant in Mountain View, Calif. The KFC Twitter account follows just 11 users; five of them are former members of the Spice Girls and the other six are men named Herb, including Green Bay Packers cornerback Herb Waters and music legend Herb Alpert. It adds up to 11 herbs and spices, part of the famous secret recipe KFC founder Colonel Harland Sanders touted for his fried chicken. The tweet of a user who discovered the connection has been shared hundreds of thousands of times. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
In 2000, President-elect George W. Bush selected Colin Powell to become the first African-American secretary of state. In this photo taken Sept. 3, 2014, former Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks at the State Department in Washington. Powell, in newly leaked emails, criticized both major presidential candidates, calling Donald Trump “a national disgrace” and lamenting Hillary Clinton’s attempt to equate her email practices with his. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
In 2012, President Barack Obama visited Newtown, Connecticut, the scene of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre; after meeting privately with victims’ families, the president told an evening vigil he would use “whatever power” he had to prevent future shootings. An emotional President Barack Obama pauses to wipe away tears as he recalled the 20 first-graders killed in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School, while speaking in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016, about steps his administration is taking to reduce gun violence. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
america's most wanted
In 2008, police in Hollywood, Fla., closed their investigation into the 1981 abduction-slaying of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, saying a serial killer who’d died more than a decade earlier in prison, Ottis Toole, was responsible. ‘America’s Most Wanted’ host John Walsh’s son, Adam, was murdered in 1981. (File)
(1/7)
UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1754: Boston Tea Party, 26 December 1773. Inhabitants of Boston, Massachusetts, dressed as American Indians, throwing tea from vessels in the harbour into the water as a protest against British taxation. No taxation without representation. Wood engraving, late 19th century. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
US soldier aiming his rifle at captured Nazi prisoners, who have hands on top of heads in surrender in snowy landscape, during Battle of Bulge.  (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Office Of War Information/National Archives/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
President Truman declaring a state of emergency on the radio, December 1950, United States, Korean War, Washington, National Archives. (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)
america's most wanted

Today is Sunday, Dec. 16, the 350th day of 2018.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Dec. 16, 1944, the World War II Battle of the Bulge began as German forces launched a surprise attack against Allied forces through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxembourg (the Allies were eventually able to turn the Germans back).

On this date:

In 1773, the Boston Tea Party took place as American colonists boarded a British ship and dumped more than 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest tea taxes.

In 1905, the entertainment trade publication Variety came out with its first weekly issue.

In 1950, President Harry S. Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight “world conquest by Communist imperialism.”

In 1960, 134 people were killed when a United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation collided over New York City.

In 1976, the government halted its swine flu vaccination program following reports of paralysis apparently linked to the vaccine.

In 1980, Harland Sanders, founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain, died in Shelbyville, Kentucky, at age 90.

In 1982, Environmental Protection Agency head Anne M. Gorsuch became the first Cabinet-level officer to be cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to submit documents requested by a congressional committee.

In 1985, at services in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, offered condolences to families of 248 soldiers killed in the crash of a chartered plane in Newfoundland.

In 1991, the U.N. General Assembly rescinded its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism by a vote of 111-25.

In 2000, President-elect George W. Bush selected Colin Powell to become the first African-American secretary of state.

In 2001, after nine weeks of fighting, Afghan militia leaders claimed control of the last mountain bastion of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida fighters, but bin Laden himself was nowhere to be seen.

In 2012, President Barack Obama visited Newtown, Connecticut, the scene of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre; after meeting privately with victims’ families, the president told an evening vigil he would use “whatever power” he had to prevent future shootings.

Ten years ago: President-elect Barack Obama announced his choice of Arne Duncan, the head of the Chicago school system, to be his education secretary. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to authorize nations to conduct land and air attacks on pirate bases on the coast of Somalia. The Cleveland Clinic announced its surgeons had performed the nation’s first near-total face transplant on a severely disfigured woman. (The woman, Connie Culp, went public with her identity in May 2009.) Police in Hollywood, Fla., closed their investigation into the 1981 abduction-slaying of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, saying a serial killer who’d died more than a decade earlier in prison, Ottis Toole, was responsible.

Five years ago: In the first ruling of its kind, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon declared that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records likely violated the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable search. Ray Price, 87, one of country music’s most popular and influential singers and bandleaders, died in Mount Pleasant, Texas.

One year ago: Two female couples tied the knot in Australia’s first same-sex weddings under new legislation allowing gay marriages.

Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

Federal News Network Logo
Log in to your WTOP account for notifications and alerts customized for you.

Sign up