DECEMBER 13th

On this date in:
1577	Sir Francis Drake of England set out with five ships on a nearly three-year journey that would take him around the world.
1642	Dutch navigator Abel Tasman arrived in present-day New Zealand.
1769	Dartmouth College in New Hampshire received its charter.
1862	Confederate forces dealt Union troops a major defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia.
1918	President Woodrow Wilson arrived in France to attend the post-World War I peace conference at Versailles, becoming the first chief executive to visit Europe while in office.
1988	PLO chairman Yasser Arafat addressed the U.N. General Assembly in Geneva, where it had reconvened after the United States refused to grant Arafat a visa to visit New York.
1989	South African President F.W. de Klerk met for the first time with imprisoned African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, at de Klerk's office in Cape Town.
1996	The U.N. Security Council chose Kofi Annan of Ghana to be the world body's seventh secretary-general.
2000	Republican George W. Bush claimed the presidency 36 days after Election Day.
2001	The Pentagon released a captured videotape of Osama bin Laden in which the al-Qaida leader said the deaths and destruction achieved by the Sept. 11 attacks exceeded his "most optimistic" expectations.
2001	Five suspected Islamic militants killed nine people in an attack on India's parliament before being killed themselves.
2001	President George W. Bush served formal notice that the United States was pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.
2002	Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as Boston archbishop because of the priest sex abuse scandal.
2003	Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole under a farmhouse in Adwar, near his hometown of Tikrit.
2007	Shareholders of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, approved a takeover by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Article of the day

Al Gore concedes presidential election

Vice President Al Gore reluctantly concedes defeat to Texas Governor George W. Bush in his bid for the presidency, following weeks of legal battles over the recounting of votes in Florida, on this day in 2000.

In a televised speech from his ceremonial office next to the White House, Gore said that while he was deeply disappointed and sharply disagreed with the Supreme Court verdict that ended his campaign, ''partisan rancor must now be put aside.''

“I accept the finality of the outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College'' he said. “And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.''

Gore had won the national popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, but narrowly lost Florida, giving the Electoral College to Bush 271 to 266.

Gore said he had telephoned Bush to offer his congratulations, honoring him, for the first time, with the title ''president-elect.''

''I promised that I wouldn't call him back this time'' Gore said, referring to the moment on election night when he had called Bush to tell him he was going to concede, then called back a half hour later to retract that concession.

Gore only hinted at what he might do in the future. ''I've seen America in this campaign and I like what I see. It's worth fighting for -- and that's a fight I'll never stop.''

Among the friends and family beside Gore were his wife, Tipper, and his running mate, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, and his wife, Hadassah.

A little more than an hour later, Bush addressed the nation for the first time as president-elect, declaring that the “nation must rise above a house divided.” Speaking from the podium of the Texas House of Representatives, Bush devoted his speech to themes of reconciliation following one of the closest and most disputed presidential elections in U.S. history. ''I was not elected to serve one party, but to serve one nation,'' Bush said.

Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney, took office on January 20, 2001. They were re-elected in 2004 over Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards.

Today Birthdays

Taylor Swift turns 19 years old today.

AP Photo/Peter Kramer Country singer Taylor Swift turns 19 years old today.

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