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| On this date in: | |
| 1737 | Violin maker Antonio Stradivari died in Cremona, Italy. |
| 1787 | New Jersey became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. |
| 1865 | Slavery ended in the United States as the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was declared in effect. |
| 1886 | Baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb was born in Narrows, Ga. |
| 1892 | Peter Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker Suite" premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia. |
| 1915 | President Woodrow Wilson, widowed the year before, married Edith Bolling Galt. |
| 1944 | The Supreme Court upheld the wartime relocation of Japanese-Americans. |
| 1956 | Japan was admitted to the United Nations. |
| 1958 | The world's first communications satellite, SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment) was launched by the United States aboard an Atlas rocket. |
| 1969 | Britain's Parliament abolished the death penalty for murder. |
| 1972 | The United States began the heaviest bombing of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. |
| 1987 | Ivan F. Boesky was sentenced to three years in prison for plotting Wall Street's biggest insider-trading scandal. |
| 1997 | Comedian and "Saturday Night Live" alum Chris Farley was found dead at age 33 of an accidental overdose of morphine and cocaine. |
| 1998 | The House of Representatives began debate on four articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton. |
| 1999 | Environmental activist Julia "Butterfly" Hill came down after spending two years living atop an ancient redwood in Humboldt County, Calif., to protest logging. |
| 2003 | A judge in Seattle sentenced confessed Green River killer Gary Ridgeway to 48 consecutive life terms. |
| 2003 | A jury in Chesapeake, Va., convicted teenager Lee Boyd Malvo of two counts of murder in the Washington-area sniper shootings. (He was later sentenced to life in prison without parole.) |
| 2006 | Robert Gates was sworn in as defense secretary. |
Article of the day
Mayflower passengers come ashore at Plymouth Harbor
On December 18, 1620, passengers on the British ship Mayflower come ashore at modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, to begin their new settlement, Plymouth Colony.
The famous Mayflower story began in 1606, when a group of reform-minded Puritans in Nottinghamshire, England, founded their own church, separate from the state-sanctioned Church of England. Accused of treason, they were forced to leave the country and settle in the more tolerant Netherlands. After 12 years of struggling to adapt and make a decent living, the group sought financial backing from some London merchants to set up a colony in America. On September 6, 1620, 102 passengers--dubbed Pilgrims by William Bradford, a passenger who would become the first governor of Plymouth Colony--crowded on the Mayflower to begin the long, hard journey to a new life in the New World.
On November 11, 1620, the Mayflower anchored at what is now Provincetown Harbor, Cape Cod. Before going ashore, 41 male passengers--heads of families, single men and three male servants--signed the famous Mayflower Compact, agreeing to submit to a government chosen by common consent and to obey all laws made for the good of the colony. Over the next month, several small scouting groups were sent ashore to collect firewood and scout out a good place to build a settlement. Around December 10, one of these groups found a harbor they liked on the western side of Cape Cod Bay. They returned to the Mayflower to tell the other passengers, but bad weather prevented them reaching the harbor until December 16. Two days later, the first group of Pilgrims went ashore.
After exploring the region, the settlers chose a cleared area previously occupied by members of a local Native American tribe, the Wampanoag. The tribe had abandoned the village several years earlier, after an outbreak of European disease. That winter of 1620-21 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. The remaining settlers made contact with returning members of the Wampanoag tribe and in March they signed a peace treaty with a tribal chief, Massasoit. Aided by the Wampanoag, especially the English-speaking Squanto, the Pilgrims were able to plant crops--especially corn and beans--that were vital to their survival. The Mayflower and its crew left Plymouth to return to England on April 5, 1621.
Over the next several decades, more and more settlers made the trek across the Atlantic to Plymouth, which gradually grew into a prosperous shipbuilding and fishing center. In 1691, Plymouth was incorporated into the new Massachusetts Bay Association, ending its history as an independent colony.
Today Birthdays
| Keith Richards turns 65 years old today. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 AP Photo/Evan Agostini Rock musician Keith Richards (Rolling Stones) turns 65 years old today.
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