ON THIS DAY

On this day: DECEMBER 22nd

2008-12-22T04:56:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1775	A Continental naval fleet was organized in the rebellious American colonies.
1894	French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggered worldwide charges of anti-Semitism. He was eventually vindicated.
1912	Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson, was born Claudio Alta Taylor in Karnack, Texas.
1941	British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington, D.C., for a wartime conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1944	During the Battle of the Bulge, Germany demanded the surrender of American troops at Bastogne, Belgium; Brigadier Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe reportedly replied: "Nuts!"
1984	New York City resident Bernhard Goetz shot four black youths on a Manhattan subway, claiming they were about to rob him.
1989	Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, the last of Eastern Europe's hard-line Communist rulers, was toppled from power in a popular uprising.
1989	Playwright Samuel Beckett died in Paris at age 83.
1990	Lech Walesa took the oath of office as Poland's first popularly elected president.
2000	Pop singer Madonna married film director Guy Ritchie in Scotland. (The couple announced in October 2008 that they were divorcing.)
2001	Richard C. Reid, a passenger on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, tried to ignite explosives in his shoes, but was subdued by flight attendants and fellow passengers.
2002	Rock musician Joe Strummer of The Clash died at age 50.
2005	New York transit workers ended their three-day strike without a new contract.
2005	Astronomers announced the discovery of two more rings encircling the planet Uranus.

Article of the day

First gorilla born in captivity

On this day in 1956, a baby gorilla named Colo enters the world at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, becoming the first-ever gorilla born in captivity. Weighing in at approximately 4 pounds, Colo, a western lowland gorilla whose name was a combination of Columbus and Ohio, was the daughter of Millie and Mac, two gorillas captured in French Cameroon, Africa, who were brought to the Columbus Zoo in 1951. Before Colo's birth, gorillas found at zoos were caught in the wild, often by brutal means. In order to capture a gorilla when it was young and therefore still small enough to handle, hunters frequently had to kill the gorilla's parents and other family members.

Gorillas are peaceful, intelligent animals, native to Africa, who live in small groups led by one adult male, known as a silverback. There are three subspecies of gorilla: western lowland, eastern lowland and mountain. The subspecies are similar and the majority of gorillas in captivity are western lowland. Gorillas are vegetarians whose only natural enemy is the humans who hunt them. On average, a gorilla lives to 35 years in the wild and 50 years in captivity.

At the time Colo was born, captive gorillas often never learned parenting skills from their own parents in the wild, so the Columbus Zoo built her a nursery and she was reared by zookeepers. In the years since Colo's arrival, zookeepers have developed habitats that simulate a gorilla's natural environment and many captive-born gorillas are now raised by their mothers. In situations where this doesn't work, zoos have created surrogacy programs, in which the infants are briefly cared for by humans and then handed over to other gorillas to raise.

Colo, who generated enormous public interest and is still alive today, went on to become a mother, grandmother, and in 1996, a great-grandmother to Timu, the first surviving infant gorilla conceived by artificial insemination. Timu gave birth to her first baby in 2003.

Today, there are approximately 750 gorillas in captivity around the world and an estimated 100,000 lowland gorillas (and far fewer mountain gorillas) remaining in the wild. Most zoos are active in captive breeding programs and have agreed not to buy gorillas born in the wild. Since Colo's birth, 30 gorillas have been born at the Columbus Zoo alone.

Today Birthdays

Ralph Fiennes turns 46 years old today.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini Actor Ralph Fiennes turns 46 years old today.

86	Jim Wright Former House speaker
72	Hector Elizondo Actor
70	Red Steagall Country singer
65	Paul Wolfowitz Former World Bank president
64	Steve Carlton Baseball Hall of Famer
63	Diane Sawyer Broadcast journalist ("Good Morning America")
62	Rick Nielsen Rock musician (Cheap Trick)
59	Robin Gibb Singer (The Bee Gees)
57	Jan Stephenson Golfer
55	BernNadette Stanis Actress
48	Luther Campbell Rapper (2 Live Crew)
48	Chuck Mead Country musician (BR549)
40	Lauralee Bell Actress ("The Young and the Restless")
40	Lori McKenna Country singer
40	Dina Meyer Actress
34	Heather Donahue Actress ("The Blair Witch Project")
28	Chris Carmack Actor

On this day: DECEMBER 21st

2008-12-21T05:38:00.001-08:00

On this date in:
1620	Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Mass.
1804	British statesman Benjamin Disraeli was born in London.
1879	Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was born Josef Dzhugashvili in Gori, Georgia.
1898	Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium.
1913	The first crossword puzzle was published, in the New York World.
1945	Gen. George S. Patton died in Germany of injuries suffered in a car accident.
1948	Ireland became an independent republic.
1958	Charles de Gaulle was elected the first president of France's Fifth Republic.
1968	Apollo 8 was launched on a mission to orbit the moon.
1970	Elvis Presley met with President Richard M. Nixon in the Oval Office to discuss fighting drugs.
1971	The U.N. Security Council chose Kurt Waldheim to succeed U Thant as secretary-general.
1978	Police in Des Plaines, Ill., arrested John W. Gacy Jr. and began unearthing the remains of 33 men and boys whom Gacy was later convicted of murdering.
1991	Eleven of the 12 former Soviet republics proclaimed the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
1995	The city of Bethlehem passed from Israeli to Palestinian control.
1996	After two years of denials, House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted violating House ethics rules.
2006	Four Marines were charged with murder in the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, and four Marine officers were accused of failures in investigating and reporting the deaths. (Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich has pleaded not guilty to voluntary manslaughter; one of the officers was acquitted and charges against the rest were dropped.)

Article of the day

Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland

On this day in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members aboard, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground. A bomb hidden inside an audio cassette player detonated in the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. The disaster, which became the subject of Britain's largest criminal investigation, was believed to be an attack against the United States. One hundred eighty nine of the victims were American.

Islamic terrorists were accused of planting the bomb on the plane while it was at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. Authorities suspected the attack was in retaliation for either the 1986 U.S. air strikes against Libya, in which leader Muammar al-Qaddafi's young daughter was killed along with dozens of other people, or a 1988 incident, in which the U.S. mistakenly shot down an Iran Air commercial flight over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people.

Sixteen days before the explosion over Lockerbie, the U.S. embassy in Helsinki, Finland, received a call warning that a bomb would be placed on a Pan Am flight out of Frankfurt. There is controversy over how seriously the U.S. took the threat and whether travelers should have been alerted, but officials later said that the connection between the call and the bomb was coincidental.

In 1991, following a joint investigation by the British authorities and the F.B.I., Libyan intelligence agents Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah were indicted for murder; however, Libya refused to hand over the suspects to the U.S. Finally, in 1999, in an effort to ease United Nations sanctions against his country, Qaddafi agreed to turn over the two men to Scotland for trial in the Netherlands using Scottish law and prosecutors. In early 2001, al-Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison and Fhimah was acquitted.

In 2003, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing, but didn't express remorse. The U.N. and U.S. lifted sanctions against Libya and Libya agreed to pay each victim's family approximately $8 million in restitution. In 2004, Libya's prime minister said that the deal was the "price for peace," implying that his country only took responsibility to get the sanctions lifted, a statement that infuriated the victims' families. Pan Am Airlines, which went bankrupt three years after the bombing, sued Libya and later received a $30 million settlement.

Today Birthdays

Jane Fonda turns 71 years old today.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini Actress Jane Fonda turns 71 years old today.

82	Freddie Hart Country singer
80	Ed Nelson Actor
73	Phil Donahue Talk show host
73	John Avildsen Director
70	Larry Bryggman Actor
66	Carla Thomas Singer
65	Albert Lee Rock musician
64	Michael Tilson Thomas Conductor
60	Samuel L. Jackson Actor
58	Jeffrey Katzenberg Movie producer
55	Betty Wright R&B singer
54	Chris Evert Tennis Hall of Famer
53	Jane Kaczmarek Actress ("Malcolm in the Middle")
52	Lee Roy Parnell Country singer
52	Jim Rose Entertainer (The Jim Rose Circus Sideshow)
51	Ray Romano Actor, comedian ("Everybody Loves Raymond")
46	Christy Forester Country singer (The Forester Sisters)
44	Murph Rock musician
43	Andy Dick Actor, comedian
43	Gabrielle Glaser Rock musician (Luscious Jackson)
42	Kiefer Sutherland Actor ("24")
42	Karri Turner Actress ("JAG")
40	Khrystyne Haje Actress
40	Brad Warren Country singer (The Warren Brothers
39	Julie Delpy Actress, director
38	Rhean Boyer Country musician
37	Glenn Fitzgerald Actor ("Dirty Sexy Money")
37	Brett Scallions Rock musician
34	Karrie Webb Golfer
32	Lukas Rossi Rock singer (Rock Star Supernova)
26	Luke Stricklin Country singer

On this day: DECEMBER 20th

2008-12-21T05:36:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1790	The first successful cotton mill in the United States began operating at Pawtucket, R.I.
1803	The Louisiana Purchase was completed as the territory was formally transferred from France to the United States during ceremonies in New Orleans.
1864	Confederate forces evacuated Savannah, Ga., as Union Gen. William T. Sherman continued his "March to the Sea."
1879	Thomas Edison privately demonstrated his incandescent light at Menlo Park, N.J.
1946	The Frank Capra film "It's A Wonderful Life" had a preview showing for charity at New York City's Globe Theatre, a day before its official premiere.
1963	The Berlin Wall was opened for the first time to West Berliners, who were allowed one-day visits to relatives in the Eastern sector for the holidays.
1968	Author John Steinbeck died at age 66.
1976	Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley died at age 74.
1860	South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union.
1994	Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk died at age 85.
1996	Astronomer Carl Sagan died at age 62.
1999	The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that homosexual couples are entitled to the same benefits and protections as wedded couples.
2002	Trent Lott resigned as Senate Republican leader two weeks after igniting a political firestorm with racially charged remarks.
2005	New York City transit workers began a three-day strike.

Article of the day

Elvis Presley is drafted

On this day in 1957, while spending the Christmas holidays at Graceland, his newly purchased Tennessee mansion, rock-and-roll star Elvis Presley receives his draft notice for the United States Army.

With a suggestive style--one writer called him "Elvis the Pelvis"--a hit movie, Love Me Tender, and a string of gold records including "Heartbreak Hotel," "Blue Suede Shoes," "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel," Presley had become a national icon, and the world's first bona fide rock-and-roll star, by the end of 1956. As the Beatles' John Lennon once famously remarked: "Before Elvis, there was nothing." The following year, at the peak of his career, Presley received his draft notice for a two-year stint in the army. Fans sent tens of thousands of letters to the army asking for him to be spared, but Elvis would have none of it. He received one deferment--during which he finished working on his movie King Creole--before being sworn in as an army private in Memphis on March 24, 1958.

After six months of basic training--including an emergency leave to see his beloved mother, Gladys, before she died in August 1958--Presley sailed to Europe on the USS General Randall. For the next 18 months, he served in Company D, 32nd Tank Battalion, 3rd Armor Corps in Friedberg, Germany, where he attained the rank of sergeant. For the rest of his service, he shared an off-base residence with his father, grandmother and some Memphis friends. After working during the day, Presley returned home at night to host frequent parties and impromptu jam sessions. At one of these, an army buddy of Presley's introduced him to 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, whom Elvis would marry some years later. Meanwhile, Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, continued to release singles recorded before his departure, keeping the money rolling in and his most famous client fresh in the public's mind. Widely praised for not seeking to avoid the draft or serve domestically, Presley was seen as a model for all young Americans. After he got his polio shot from an army doctor on national TV, vaccine rates among the American population shot from 2 percent to 85 percent by the time of his discharge on March 2, 1960.

Today Birthdays

David Cook turns 26 years old today.

AP Photo/Chris Pizzello Singer David Cook ("American Idol") turns 26 years old today.

91	Audrey Totter Actress
81	Charlie Callas Comedian, actor
77	Ike Skelton House Armed Services Committee chairman, D-Mo.
76	John Hillerman Actor ("Magnum P.I.")
75	Jean Carnahan Former U.S. senator, D-Mo.
69	Kathryn Joosten Actress
64	Bobby Colomby Rock musician (Blood, Sweat and Tears)
63	Peter Criss Rock musician (Kiss)
62	Uri Geller Illusionist
62	Sonny Perdue Governor of Georgia
62	Dick Wolf TV producer ("Law and Order" shows)
60	Alan Parsons Rock musician
56	Jenny Agutter Actress
54	Michael Badalucco Actor
52	Blanche Baker Actress
51	Billy Bragg Rock singer
51	Mike Watt Rock musician
44	Kris Tyler Country singer
42	Chris Robinson Rock singer (The Black Crowes)
38	Nicole deBoer Actress
27	Roy Williams Football player
26	David Wright Baseball player
18	JoJo Singer

On this day: DECEMBER 19th

2008-12-21T05:35:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1732	Benjamin Franklin began publishing "Poor Richard's Almanac."
1776	Thomas Paine published his first "American Crisis" essay, writing: "These are the times that try men's souls."
1777	Gen. George Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, Pa., to camp for the winter.
1843	Charles Dickens' Yuletide tale, "A Christmas Carol," was first published in England.
1907	A coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pa., killed 239 workers.
1946	War broke out in Indochina as troops under Ho Chi Minh launched widespread attacks against the French.
1972	Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, ending the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.
1974	Nelson A. Rockefeller was sworn in as vice president, replacing Gerald R. Ford, who became president when Richard M. Nixon resigned.
1986	The Soviet Union announced it had freed dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile and pardoned his wife, Yelena Bonner.
1996	The school board of Oakland, Calif., voted to recognize Black English, also known as "ebonics."
1997	"Titanic," the highest-grossing movie of all-time, opened in American theaters.
1998	Two days after his confession of marital infidelity, Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., told the House he wouldn't serve as its next speaker.
1998	President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for perjury and obstruction of justice. (He was later acquitted by the Senate.
2000	The U.N. Security Council voted to impose broad sanctions on Afghanistan's Taliban rulers unless they closed terrorist training camps and surrendered U.S. embassy bombing suspect Osama bin Laden.
2002	After a prosecutor cited new DNA evidence, a judge in New York threw out the convictions of five young men in a 1989 attack on a Central Park jogger who had been raped and left for dead.
2003	Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi agreed to halt his nation's drive to develop nuclear and chemical weapons.
2005	Afghanistan's first democratically elected parliament in more than three decades convened.

Article of the day

President Clinton impeached

After nearly 14 hours of debate, the House of Representatives approves two articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, charging him with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton, the second president in American history to be impeached, vowed to finish his term.

In November 1995, Clinton began an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old unpaid intern. Over the course of a year and a half, the president and Lewinsky had nearly a dozen sexual encounters in the White House. In April 1996, Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. That summer, she first confided in Pentagon co-worker Linda Tripp about her sexual relationship with the president. In 1997, with the relationship over, Tripp began secretly to record conversations with Lewinsky, in which Lewinsky gave Tripp details about the affair.

In December, lawyers for Paula Jones, who was suing the president on sexual harassment charges, subpoenaed Lewinsky. In January 1998, allegedly under the recommendation of the president, Lewinsky filed an affidavit in which she denied ever having had a sexual relationship with him. Five days later, Tripp contacted the office of Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, to talk about Lewinsky and the tapes she made of their conversations. Tripp, wired by FBI agents working with Starr, met with Lewinsky again, and on January 16, Lewinsky was taken by FBI agents and U.S. attorneys to a hotel room where she was questioned and offered immunity if she cooperated with the prosecution. A few days later, the story broke, and Clinton publicly denied the allegations, saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."

In late July, lawyers for Lewinsky and Starr worked out a full-immunity agreement covering both Lewinsky and her parents, all of whom Starr had threatened with prosecution. On August 6, Lewinsky appeared before the grand jury to begin her testimony, and on August 17 President Clinton testified. Contrary to his testimony in the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case, President Clinton acknowledged to prosecutors from the office of the independent counsel that he had had an extramarital affair with Ms. Lewinsky.

In four hours of closed-door testimony, conducted in the Map Room of the White House, Clinton spoke live via closed-circuit television to a grand jury in a nearby federal courthouse. He was the first sitting president ever to testify before a grand jury investigating his conduct. That evening, President Clinton also gave a four-minute televised address to the nation in which he admitted he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky. In the brief speech, which was wrought with legalisms, the word "sex" was never spoken, and the word "regret" was used only in reference to his admission that he misled the public and his family.

Less than a month later, on September 9, Kenneth Starr submitted his report and 18 boxes of supporting documents to the House of Representatives. Released to the public two days later, the Starr Report outlined a case for impeaching Clinton on 11 grounds, including perjury, obstruction of justice, witness-tampering, and abuse of power, and also provided explicit details of the sexual relationship between the president and Ms. Lewinsky. On October 8, the House authorized a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry, and on December 11, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment. On December 19, the House impeached Clinton.

On January 7, 1999, in a congressional procedure not seen since the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, the trial of President Clinton got underway in the Senate. As instructed in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (William Rehnquist at this time) was sworn in to preside, and the senators were sworn in as jurors.

Five weeks later, on February 12, the Senate voted on whether to remove Clinton from office. The president was acquitted on both articles of impeachment. The prosecution needed a two-thirds majority to convict but failed to achieve even a bare majority. Rejecting the first charge of perjury, 45 Democrats and 10 Republicans voted "not guilty," and on the charge of obstruction of justice the Senate was split 50-50. After the trial concluded, President Clinton said he was "profoundly sorry" for the burden his behavior imposed on Congress and the American people.

Today Birthdays

Cicely Tyson turns 75 years old today.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini Actress Cicely Tyson turns 75 years old today.

88	Little Jimmy Dickens Country singer
83	Robert Sherman Composer
67	Maurice White R&B musician (Earth, Wind and Fire)
64	Richard E. Leakey Palaeontologist
64	Alvin Lee Rock singer (Ten Years After)
64	Tim Reid Actor ("WKRP in Cincinnati")
63	Elaine Joyce Actress
63	John McEuen Country musician (The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
61	Janie Fricke Country singer
53	Rob Portman Former White House budget director
51	Kevin McHale Basketball Hall of Famer
48	Mike Lookinland Actor ("The Brady Bunch")
45	Jennifer Beals Actress
44	Scott Cohen Actor
42	Robert MacNaughton Actor
41	Criss Angel Magician
40	Kevin Shepard Rock musician
39	Kristy Swanson Actress
37	Amy Locane Actress
36	Rosa Blasi Actress
36	Alyssa Milano Actress ("Charmed," "Who's the Boss?")
36	Warren Sapp Football player
34	Jake Plummer Football player
28	Jake Gyllenhaal Actor
28	Marla Sokoloff Actress
23	Lady Sovereign Rapper

On this day: DECEMBER 18th

2008-12-18T03:20:00.000-08:00

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.

90	Hal Kanter TV writer, producer
81	Ramsey Clark Former U.S. attorney general
76	Roger Smith Actor
75	Lonnie Brooks Blues musician
65	Alan Rudolph Writer, director
62	Steven Spielberg Director, producer
61	Rod Piazza Blues musician
58	Gillian Armstrong Director
58	Leonard Maltin Movie critic
55	Elliot Easton Rock musician (The Cars)
53	Ray Liotta Actor
52	Ron White Comedian
45	Brad Pitt Actor
40	Rachel Griffiths Actress
40	Alejandro Sanz Singer
38	Cowboy Troy Country singer, rapper ("Nashville Star")
38	DMX Rapper
37	Arantxa Sanchez Vicario Tennis Hall of Famer
36	DJ Lethal DJ (Limp Bizkit)
30	Katie Holmes Actress

On this day: DECEMBER 17th

2008-12-17T06:46:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1777	France recognized America's independence.
1830	South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar died in Colombia.
1933	In the first NFL championship game, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants 23-21 at Wrigley Field.
1944	The U.S. Army announced the end of its policy of excluding Japanese-Americans from the West Coast.
1957	The United States successfully test-fired the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time.
1969	The U.S. Air Force closed its Project "Blue Book" by concluding there was no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.
1969	An estimated 50 million viewers watched singer Tiny Tim marry Miss Vicky on NBC's "Tonight Show."
1975	Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Gerald R. Ford.
1986	Eugene Hasenfus, an American convicted by Nicaragua for his part in running guns to the Contras, was pardoned and released.
1992	President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in separate ceremonies.
1996	Peruvian guerrillas took hundreds of people hostage at the Japanese embassy in Lima.
1996	Kofi Annan of Ghana became United Nations secretary-general.
2002	Congo's government, rebels and opposition parties signed a peace agreement to end four years of civil war.
2004	President George W. Bush signed into law the largest overhaul of U.S. intelligence-gathering in 50 years.
2005	President George W. Bush acknowledged he'd personally authorized a secret eavesdropping program in the U.S. following Sept. 11, calling it "crucial to our national security."
2007	Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed a measure making New Jersey the first state to abolish the death penalty in more than 40 years.

Article of the day

First airplane flies

Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Orville piloted the gasoline-powered, propeller-driven biplane, which stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet on its inaugural flight.

Orville and Wilbur Wright grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and developed an interest in aviation after learning of the glider flights of the German engineer Otto Lilienthal in the 1890s. Unlike their older brothers, Orville and Wilbur did not attend college, but they possessed extraordinary technical ability and a sophisticated approach to solving problems in mechanical design. They built printing presses and in 1892 opened a bicycle sales and repair shop. Soon, they were building their own bicycles, and this experience, combined with profits from their various businesses, allowed them to pursue actively their dream of building the world's first airplane.

After exhaustively researching other engineers' efforts to build a heavier-than-air, controlled aircraft, the Wright brothers wrote the U.S. Weather Bureau inquiring about a suitable place to conduct glider tests. They settled on Kitty Hawk, an isolated village on North Carolina's Outer Banks, which offered steady winds and sand dunes from which to glide and land softly. Their first glider, tested in 1900, performed poorly, but a new design, tested in 1901, was more successful. Later that year, they built a wind tunnel where they tested nearly 200 wings and airframes of different shapes and designs. The brothers' systematic experimentations paid off--they flew hundreds of successful flights in their 1902 glider at Kill Devils Hills near Kitty Hawk. Their biplane glider featured a steering system, based on a movable rudder, that solved the problem of controlled flight. They were now ready for powered flight.

In Dayton, they designed a 12-horsepower internal combustion engine with the assistance of machinist Charles Taylor and built a new aircraft to house it. They transported their aircraft in pieces to Kitty Hawk in the autumn of 1903, assembled it, made a few further tests, and on December 14 Orville made the first attempt at powered flight. The engine stalled during take-off and the plane was damaged, and they spent three days repairing it. Then at 10:35 a.m. on December 17, in front of five witnesses, the aircraft ran down a monorail track and into the air, staying aloft for 12 seconds and flying 120 feet. The modern aviation age was born. Three more tests were made that day, with Wilbur and Orville alternately flying the airplane. Wilbur flew the last flight, covering 852 feet in 59 seconds.

During the next few years, the Wright brothers further developed their airplanes but kept a low profile about their successes in order to secure patents and contracts for their flying machines. By 1905, their aircraft could perform complex maneuvers and remain aloft for up to 39 minutes at a time. In 1908, they traveled to France and made their first public flights, arousing widespread public excitement. In 1909, the U.S. Army's Signal Corps purchased a specially constructed plane, and the brothers founded the Wright Company to build and market their aircraft. Wilbur Wright died of typhoid fever in 1912; Orville lived until 1948.

The historic Wright brothers' aircraft of 1903 is on permanent display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Today Birthdays

Chase Utley turns 30 years old today.

AP Photo/Jack Dempsey Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Chase Utley turns 30 years old today.

79	William Safire Newspaper columnist
78	Bob Guccione Magazine publisher ("Penthouse")
78	Armin Mueller-Stahl Actor
73	George Lindsey Actor
72	Tommy Steele Singer, actor
71	Art Neville Rock musician, singer (The Neville Brothers)
64	Bernard Hill Actor
63	Christopher Cazenove Actor
63	Ernie Hudson Actor
62	Eugene Levy Actor ("American Pie" movies, "SCTV")
61	Wes Studi Actor
60	Jim Bonfanti Rock musician (The Raspberries)
59	Paul Rodgers Rock singer (Bad Company)
57	Wanda Hutchinson R&B singer (The Emotions)
55	Barry Livingston Actor ("My Three Sons")
55	Bill Pullman Actor
55	Sharon White Country singer
52	Peter Farrelly Director, producer
50	Mike Mills Rock musician (R.E.M.)
47	Sarah Dallin Singer (Bananarama)
46	Tim Chewning Country musician
42	Tracy Byrd Country singer
42	Duane Propes Country musician
38	DJ Homicide DJ (Sugar Ray)
38	Sean Patrick Thomas Actor
35	Eddie Fisher Rock musician (OneRepublic)
34	Sarah Paulson Actress
34	Giovanni Ribisi Actor
34	Marissa Ribisi Actress
33	Milla Jovovich Actress
33	Bree Sharp Rock singer
29	Jennifer Carpenter Actress
22	Vanessa Zima Actress

DECEMBER 16th

2008-12-16T03:49:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1653	Oliver Cromwell became lord protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.
1773	The Boston Tea Party took place as American colonists boarded a British ship and dumped more than 300 chests of tea overboard to protest tea taxes.
1809	Napoleon Bonaparte was divorced from the Empress Josephine by an act of the French Senate.
1899	Playwright Noel Coward was born in London.
1916	Gregory Rasputin, the monk who had wielded powerful influence over the Russian court, was murdered by a group of noblemen.
1917	Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke was born in Minehead, England.
1944	The Battle of the Bulge during World War II began as German forces launched a surprise counterattack against Allied forces in Belgium.
1960	A United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation collided over New York City, killing 134 people.
1985	Reputed organized-crime chief Paul Castellano was shot to death outside a New York City restaurant.
1990	Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president of Haiti in the country's first democratic elections.
1991	The U.N. General Assembly rescinded its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism.
1998	President Bill Clinton ordered a sustained series of airstrikes against Iraq by American and British forces in response to Saddam Hussein's continued defiance of UN weapons inspectors.
2000	President-elect George W. Bush selected Colin Powell to become the first African-American secretary of state.
2007	British forces formally handed over to Iraq responsibility for Basra, the last Iraqi region under their control.

Article of the day

The Boston Tea Party

In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

The midnight raid, popularly known as the "Boston Tea Party," was in protest of the British Parliament's Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny.

When three tea ships, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver, arrived in Boston Harbor, the colonists demanded that the tea be returned to England. After Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused, Patriot leader Samuel Adams organized the "tea party" with about 60 members of the Sons of Liberty, his underground resistance group. The British tea dumped in Boston Harbor on the night of December 16 was valued at some $18,000.

Parliament, outraged by the blatant destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.

Today Birthdays

Benjamin Bratt turns 45 years old today.

AP Photo/Chris Pizzello Actor Benjamin Bratt turns 45 years old today.

72	Morris Dees Civil rights attorney
71	Joyce Bulifant Actress
70	Liv Ullmann Actress
67	Lesley Stahl Broadcast journalist ("60 Minutes")
66	Don Carcieri Governor of Rhode Island
65	Steven Bochco TV producer ("NYPD Blue," "Hill Street Blues")
64	Jim Gibbons Governor of Nevada
63	Tony Hicks Rock musician (The Hollies)
62	Benny Andersson Singer (ABBA)
61	Ben Cross Actor
57	Bill Bateman Rock musician (The Blasters)
49	Alison LaPlaca Actress
47	Sam Robards Actor
47	Jon Tenney Actor ("The Closer")
45	Jeff Carson Country singer, songwriter
37	Michael McCary R&B singer (Boyz II Men)
26	Chris Scruggs Country musician
21	Hallee Hirsh Actress ("JAG")
20	Anna Popplewell Actress ("The Chronicles of Narnia" films)

DECEMBER 15th

2008-12-15T05:04:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1791	The Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, took effect following ratification by Virginia.
1890	Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull and 11 other tribe members were killed in Grand River, S.D., during a clash with Indian police.
1938	Ground was broken for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.
1939	The movie "Gone With the Wind" had its world premiere in Atlanta.
1944	Bandleader Glenn Miller was killed when his U.S. Army plane disappeared over the English Channel.
1961	Former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death by an Israeli court.
1965	Two U.S. manned spacecraft, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7, maneuvered to within 10 feet of each other while in orbit.
1966	Movie producer Walt Disney died at age 65.
1978	President Jimmy Carter announced he would grant diplomatic recognition to Communist China on New Year's Day and sever official relations with Taiwan.
1989	A popular uprising began in Romania; it led to the downfall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
2003	The late Sen. Strom Thurmond's family acknowledged Essie Mae Washington-Williams' claim that she was Thurmond's illegitimate mixed-race daughter.
2004	American telecommunications giants Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications Inc. announced they would merge in a $35 billion deal.
2005	Millions of Iraqis turned out to choose a parliament in a mostly peaceful election.
2005	Former Sen. William Proxmire, the Wisconsin Democrat who had fought government waste with his "Golden Fleece" awards, died at age 90.

Article of the day

Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens

On this day in 2001, Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after a team of experts spent 11 years and $27 million to fortify the tower without eliminating its famous lean.

In the 12th century, construction began on the bell tower for the cathedral of Pisa, a busy trade center on the Arno River in western Italy, some 50 miles from Florence. While construction was still in progress, the tower's foundation began to sink into the soft, marshy ground, causing it to lean to one side. Its builders tried to compensate for the lean by making the top stories slightly taller on one side, but the extra masonry required only made the tower sink further. By the time it was completed in 1360, modern-day engineers say it was a miracle it didn't fall down completely.

Though the cathedral itself and the adjoining baptistery also leaned slightly, it was the Torre Pendente di Pisa, or Leaning Tower of Pisa, that became the city's most famous tourist attraction. By the 20th century, the 190-foot-high white marble tower leaned a dramatic 15 feet off the perpendicular. In the year before its closing in 1990, 1 million people visited the old tower, climbing its 293 weathered steps to the top and gazing out over the green Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles) outside. Fearing it was about to collapse, officials appointed a group of 14 archeologists, architects and soil experts to figure out how to take some--but not all--of the famous tilt away.

Though an initial attempt in 1994 almost toppled the tower, engineers were eventually able to reduce the lean by between 16 and 17 inches by removing earth from underneath the foundations. When the tower reopened on December 15, 2001, engineers predicted it would take 300 years to return to its 1990 position. Though entrance to the tower is now limited to guided tours, hordes of tourists can still be found outside, striking the classic pose--standing next to the tower pretending to hold it up--as cameras flash.

Today Birthdays

Mark Warner turns 54 years old today.

AP Photo/Ron Edmonds Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner turns 54 years old today.

80	Ernest Ashworth Country singer
75	Tim Conway Comedian ("The Carol Burnett Show")
69	Cindy Birdsong Singer (The Supremes)
68	Nick Buoniconti Football Hall of Famer
66	Dave Clark Rock musician, producer (The Dave Clark Five)
62	Carmine Appice Rock musician (Vanilla Fudge)
59	Don Johnson Actor ("Miami Vice")
56	Julie Taymor Director
54	Alex Cox Director ("Repo Man," "Sid and Nancy")
54	Justin Ross Actor
53	Paul Simonon Rock musician (The Clash)
48	Doug Phelps Country singer
47	Reginald Hudlin Movie producer
45	Helen Slater Actress
43	Molly Price Actress
38	Michael Shanks Actor ("Stargate SG-1," "Stargate: Atlantis")
36	Stuart Townsend Actor
31	Kito Trawick Crowd hyper (Ghostown DJs)
29	Adam Brody Actor ("The O.C.")
27	George O. Gore II Actor ("My Wife and Kids")

DECEMBER 14th

2008-12-14T06:56:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1799	George Washington, the first president of the United States, died at his Mount Vernon, Va., home at age 67.
1819	Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state.
1861	Prince Albert, husband of Britain's Queen Victoria, died in London.
1911	Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole.
1946	The United Nations General Assembly voted to establish the U.N. headquarters in New York City.
1979	The album "London Calling" by the Clash was released.
1985	Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
1989	Nobel Peace laureate Andrei D. Sakharov died in Moscow at age 68.
1993	A Colorado judge struck down as unconstitutional the state's voter-approved ban on gay rights laws.
1997	Cuban President Fidel Castro declared Christmas 1997 an official holiday to ensure the success of Pope John Paul II's upcoming visit to the communist country.
1998	President Bill Clinton stood witness as hundreds of Palestinian leaders renounced a call for the destruction of Israel.
1999	U.S. and German negotiators agreed to establish a $5.2 billion fund for Nazi-era slaves and forced laborers.
1999	Charles M. Schulz announced he was retiring the "Peanuts" comic strip.
2000	The Federal Trade Commission unanimously approved the $111 billion merger of America Online and Time Warner.
2006	South Korea's Ban Ki-moon was sworn in as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations.

Article of the day

Amundsen reaches South Pole

Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes the first explorer to reach the South Pole, beating his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott.

Amundsen, born in Borge, near Oslo, in 1872, was one of the great figures in polar exploration. In 1897, he was first mate on a Belgian expedition that was the first ever to winter in the Antarctic. In 1903, he guided the 47-ton sloop Gjöa through the Northwest Passage and around the Canadian coast, the first navigator to accomplish the treacherous journey. Amundsen planned to be the first man to the North Pole, and he was about to embark in 1909 when he learned that the American Robert Peary had achieved the feat.

Amundsen completed his preparations and in June 1910 sailed instead for Antarctica, where the English explorer Robert F. Scott was also headed with the aim of reaching the South Pole. In early 1911, Amundsen sailed his ship into Antarctica's Bay of Whales and set up base camp 60 miles closer to the pole than Scott. In October, both explorers set off--Amundsen using sleigh dogs, and Scott employing Siberian motor sledges, Siberian ponies, and dogs. On December 14, 1911, Amundsen's expedition won the race to the Pole and returned safely to base camp in late January.

Scott's expedition was less fortunate. The motor sleds broke down, the ponies had to be shot, and the dog teams were sent back as Scott and four companions continued on foot. On January 18, 1912, they reached the pole only to find that Amundsen had preceded them by over a month. Weather on the return journey was exceptionally bad--two members perished--and a storm later trapped Scott and the other two survivors in their tent only 11 miles from their base camp. Scott's frozen body was found later that year.

After his historic Antarctic journey, Amundsen established a successful shipping business. He later made attempts to become the first explorer to fly over the North Pole. In 1925, in an airplane, he flew within 150 miles of the goal. In 1926, he passed over the North Pole in a dirigible just three days after American explorer Richard E. Byrd had apparently done so in an aircraft. In 1996, a diary that Byrd had kept on the flight was found that seemed to suggest that the he had turned back 150 miles short of its goal because of an oil leak, making Amundsen's dirigible expedition the first flight over the North Pole.

In 1928, Amundsen lost his life while trying to rescue a fellow explorer whose dirigible had crashed at sea near Spitsbergen, Norway.

Today Birthdays

Vanessa Hudgens turns 20 years old today.

AP Photo/Dan Steinberg Actress Vanessa Hudgens ("High School Musical" movies) turns 20 years old today.

88	Clark Terry Jazz trumpeter
86	Don Hewitt TV producer ("60 Minutes")
70	Hal Williams Actor
62	Patty Duke Actress
62	Michael Ovitz Former Walt Disney Co. president
62	Stan Smith Tennis Hall of Famer
62	Joyce Vincent-Wilson Singer (Tony Orlando and Dawn)
60	Dee Wallace Actress
59	Cliff Williams Rock musician (AC/DC)
50	Mike Scott Rock singer, musician (The Waterboys)
50	Peter "Spider" Stacy Singer, musician (The Pogues)
45	Cynthia Gibb Actress
43	Craig Biggio Baseball player
39	Natascha McElhone Actress
33	KaDee Strickland Actress ("Private Practice")
33	Brian Dalyrimple R&B singer (Soul for Real)
32	Tammy Blanchard Actress
30	Patty Schnyder Tennis player
29	Sophie Monk Actress

DECEMBER 13th

2008-12-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

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.

88	George P. Shultz Former Secretary of State
83	Dick Van Dyke Actor
79	Christopher Plummer Actor
78	Buck White Country singer
78	Lou Adler Music producer
74	Richard Zanuck Movie producer
67	John Davidson Singer
65	Ferguson Jenkins Baseball Hall of Famer
63	Kathy Garver Actress ("Family Affair")
60	Jeff "Skunk" Baxter Rock musician (The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan)
60	Ron Getman Country singer (The Tractors)
60	Ted Nugent Rock musician
59	Robert Lindsay Actor
59	Randy Owen Country singer, musician (Alabama)
58	Wendie Malick Actress ("Just Shoot Me")
58	Tom Vilsack Former governor of Iowa
55	Ben Bernanke Federal Reserve chairman
54	John Anderson Country singer
54	Steve Forbert Rock singer
52	Morris Day R&B singer-actor (The Time)
51	Steve Buscemi Actor
49	Johnny Whitaker Actor ("Family Affair")
39	Gary Zimmerman Football Hall of Famer
41	Jamie Foxx Actor, singer
39	Sergei Fedorov Hockey player
34	Debbie Matenopoulos TV personality
33	Thomas Delonge Rock musician
33	James Kyson Lee Actor ("Heroes")
27	Chelsea Hertford Actress ("Major Dad")
27	Amy Lee Rock singer (Evanescence)

DECEMBER 12th

2008-12-12T03:29:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1745	John Jay, American statesman and the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, was born in New York City.
1787	Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1870	Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina took his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first black congressman.
1897	"The Katzenjammer Kids," the pioneering comic strip by Rudolph Dirks, debuted in the New York Journal.
1914	The New York Stock Exchange re-opened for the first time since July 30. The market had shut down when World War I broke out.
1915	Singer Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, N.J.
1917	Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha, Neb.
1925	The first motel - the "Motel Inn" - opened, in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
1946	A United Nations committee voted to accept a six-block tract of Manhattan real estate offered as a gift by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to be the site of U.N. headquarters.
1947	The United Mine Workers union withdrew from the American Federation of Labor.
1975	Sara Jane Moore pleaded guilty to trying to kill President Gerald R. Ford.
1998	Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles died in Tallahassee at age 68.
1998	The House Judiciary Committee approved a fourth and final article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton and submitted the case to the full House.
1999	"Catch-22" author Joseph Heller died at age 76.
2000	A divided U.S. Supreme Court halted the presidential recount in Florida, effectively making Republican George W. Bush the winner.
2000	The Marine Corps grounded all eight of its high-tech V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft following a fiery crash in North Carolina that killed four Marines.
2003	Keiko, the killer whale made famous by the "Free Willy" movies, died in a Norwegian fjord.
2007	Ike Turner, the rock pioneer and ex-husband of Tina Turner, died at age 76.

Article of the day

Da Vinci notebook sells for over $5 million

On this day in 1980, American oil tycoon Armand Hammer pays $5,126,000 at auction for a notebook containing writings by the legendary artist Leonardo da Vinci.

The manuscript, written around 1508, was one of some 30 similar books da Vinci produced during his lifetime on a variety of subjects. It contained 72 loose pages featuring some 300 notes and detailed drawings, all relating to the common theme of water and how it moved. Experts have said that da Vinci drew on it to paint the background of his masterwork, the Mona Lisa. The text, written in brown ink and chalk, read from right to left, an example of da Vinci's favored mirror-writing technique. The painter Giuseppi Ghezzi discovered the notebook in 1690 in a chest of papers belonging to Guglielmo della Porto, a 16th-century Milanese sculptor who had studied Leonardo's work. In 1717, Thomas Coke, the first earl of Leicester, bought the manuscript and installed it among his impressive collection of art at his family estate in England.

More than two centuries later, the notebook--by now known as the Leicester Codex--showed up on the auction block at Christie's in London when the current Lord Coke was forced to sell it to cover inheritance taxes on the estate and art collection. In the days before the sale, art experts and the press speculated that the notebook would go for $7 to $20 million. In fact, the bidding started at $1.4 million and lasted less than two minutes, as Hammer and at least two or three other bidders competed to raise the price $100,000 at a time. The $5.12 million price tag was the highest ever paid for a manuscript at that time; a copy of the legendary Gutenberg Bible had gone for only $2 million in 1978. "I’m very happy with the price. I expected to pay more," Hammer said later. "There is no work of art in the world I wanted more than this." Lord Coke, on the other hand, was only "reasonably happy" with the sale; he claimed the proceeds would not be sufficient to cover the taxes he owed.

Hammer, the president of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, renamed his prize the Hammer Codex and added it to his valuable collection of art. When Hammer died in 1990, he left the notebook and other works to the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Several years later, the museum offered the manuscript for sale, claiming it was forced to take this action to cover legal costs incurred when the niece and sole heir of Hammer's late wife, Frances, sued the estate claiming Hammer had cheated Frances out of her rightful share of his fortune. On November 11, 1994, the Hammer Codex was sold to an anonymous bidder--soon identified as Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft--at a New York auction for a new record high price of $30.8 million. Gates restored the title of Leicester Codex and has since loaned the manuscript to a number of museums for public display.

Today Birthdays

Jennifer Connelly turns 38 years old today.

AP Photo/Denis Poroy Actress Jennifer Connelly turns 38 years old today.

85	Bob Barker TV game show host ("The Price is Right")
84	Ed Koch Former New York City mayor
70	Connie Francis Singer, actress
68	Dionne Warwick R&B singer
65	Dickey Betts Rock musician (The Allman Brothers)
61	Wings Hauser Actor
59	Bill Nighy Actor ("Pirates of the Caribbean" movies)
58	Duane Chase Actor (Kurt in "The Sound of Music")
58	LaCosta Country singer
56	Cathy Rigby Actress, Olympic gymnast
51	Sheila E. Singer, musician
50	Sheree J. Wilson Actress
47	Daniel O'Donnell Singer
46	Tracy Austin Tennis Hall of Famer
45	Eric Schenkman Rock musician (Spin Doctors)
41	Nicholas Dimichino Rock musician (Nine Days)
39	Maggie Rodriguez TV host ("The Early Show")
38	Madchen Amick Actress
36	Hank Williams III Country singer
33	Mayim Bialik Actress ("Blossom")
31	Bridget Hall Model

DECEMBER 11th

2008-12-11T02:49:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1816	Indiana became the 19th state.
1872	America's first black governor took office as Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became acting governor of Louisiana. (He served for only 35 days, during the impeachment of Gov. Henry Clay Warmoth.)
1918	Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk, Russia.
1936	Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson.
1937	Italy withdrew from the League of Nations.
1946	UNICEF (the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) was established.
1961	A U.S. aircraft carrier carrying Army helicopters arrived in Saigon - the first direct American military support for South Vietnam's battle against Communist guerrillas.
1972	Man landed on the moon for the last time during the Apollo 17 mission.
1981	The U.N. Security Council chose Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru to be its fifth secretary-general.
1994	Russian troops rolled into breakaway republic of Chechnya in a failed bid to restore Moscow's control over the region.
1997	Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams became the first political ally of the Irish Republican Army to meet a British leader in 76 years as he conferred with Prime Minister Tony Blair in London.
1997	More than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to take steps to control the greenhouse gas emissions.
1998	The House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton.
2000	Shortstop Alex Rodriguez agreed to a $252 million 10-year deal with the Texas Rangers, the most lucrative sports contract in history.
2002	A congressional report found that intelligence agencies before Sept. 11, 2001, were poorly organized, poorly equipped and slow to pursue clues that might have prevented that day's terrorist attacks.

Article of the day

Edward VIII abdicates

After ruling for less than one year, Edward VIII becomes the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne. He chose to abdicate after the British government, public, and the Church of England condemned his decision to marry the American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson. On the evening of December 11, he gave a radio address in which he explained, "I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of king, as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love." On December 12, his younger brother, the duke of York, was proclaimed King George VI.

Edward, born in 1896, was the eldest son of King George V, who became the British sovereign in 1910. Still unmarried as he approached his 40th birthday, he socialized with the fashionable London society of the day. By 1934, he had fallen deeply in love with American socialite Wallis Warfield Simpson, who was married to Ernest Simpson, an English-American businessman who lived with Mrs. Simpson near London. Wallis, who was born in Pennsylvania, had previously married and divorced a U.S. Navy pilot. The royal family disapproved of Edward's married mistress, but by 1936 the prince was intent on marrying Mrs. Simpson. Before he could discuss this intention with his father, George V died, in January 1936, and Edward was proclaimed king.

The new king proved popular with his subjects, and his coronation was scheduled for May 1937. His affair with Mrs. Simpson was reported in American and continental European newspapers, but due to a gentlemen's agreement between the British press and the government, the affair was kept out of British newspapers. On October 27, 1936, Mrs. Simpson obtained a preliminary decree of divorce, presumably with the intent of marrying the king, which precipitated a major scandal. To the Church of England and most British politicians, an American woman twice divorced was unacceptable as a prospective British queen. Winston Churchill, then a Conservative backbencher, was the only notable politician to support Edward.

Despite the seemingly united front against him, Edward could not be dissuaded. He proposed a morganatic marriage, in which Wallis would be granted no rights of rank or property, but on December 2, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin rejected the suggestion as impractical. The next day, the scandal broke on the front pages of British newspapers and was discussed openly in Parliament. With no resolution possible, the king renounced the throne on December 10. The next day, Parliament approved the abdication instrument, and Edward VIII's reign came to an end. The new king, George VI, made his older brother the duke of Windsor. On June 3, 1937, the duke of Windsor and Wallis Warfield married at the Château de Cande in France's Loire Valley.

For the next two years, the duke and duchess lived primarily in France but visited other European countries, including Germany, where the duke was honored by Nazi officials in October 1937 and met with Adolf Hitler. After the outbreak of World War II, the duke accepted a position as liaison officer with the French. In June 1940, France fell to the Nazis, and Edward and Wallis went to Spain. During this period, the Nazis concocted a scheme to kidnap Edward with the intention of returning him to the British throne as a puppet king. George VI, like his prime minister, Winston Churchill, was adamantly opposed to any peace with Nazi Germany. Unaware of the Nazi kidnapping plot but conscious of Edward's pre-war Nazi sympathies, Churchill hastily offered Edward the governorship of the Bahamas in the West Indies. The duke and duchess set sail from Lisbon on August 1, 1940, narrowly escaping a Nazi SS team sent to seize them.

In 1945, the duke resigned his post, and the couple moved back to France. They lived mainly in Paris, and Edward made a few visits to England, such as to attend the funerals of King George VI in 1952 and his mother, Queen Mary, in 1953. It was not until 1967 that the duke and duchess were invited by the royal family to attend an official public ceremony, the unveiling of a plaque dedicated to Queen Mary. Edward died in Paris in 1972 but was buried at Frogmore, on the grounds of Windsor Castle. In 1986, Wallis died and was buried at his side.

Today Birthdays

Rita Moreno turns 77 years old today.

AP Photo/Matt Sayles Actress Rita Moreno turns 77 years old today.

69	Tom Hayden Activist
68	David Gates Singer (Bread)
67	Max Baucus U.S. senator, D-Mont.
66	Donna Mills Actress ("Knots Landing")
65	John Kerry U.S. senator, D-Mass.
64	Lynda Day George Actress
64	Brenda Lee Singer
62	Tony Brown Country music producer
60	Teri Garr Actress
56	Susan Seidelman Director
55	Bess Armstrong Actress
54	Jermaine Jackson Singer (The Jackson 5)
51	Mike Mesaros Rock musician (The Smithereens)
50	Nikki Sixx Rock musician (Motley Crue)
47	Darryl Jones Rock musician
44	David Schools Rock musician (Widespread Panic)
44	Justin Currie Rock musician (Del Amitri)
42	Gary Dourdan Actor ("CSI")
40	Mo'Nique Actress, comedian
35	Mos Def Rapper, actor
29	Rider Strong Actor

DECEMBER 10th

2008-12-10T06:44:00.000-08:00

On this date in:

1520 Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict demanding that he recant or face excommunication.

1817 Mississippi was admitted to the union as the 20th state.

1869 Women were granted the right to vote in the Wyoming Territory.

1898 A treaty was signed in Paris officially ending the Spanish-American War.

1906 President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for helping mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War.

1931 Jane Addams became a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the first American woman so honored.

1946 Baseball Hall of Famer Walter Johnson died at age 59.

1948 The U.N. General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

1950 Ralph J. Bunche was presented the Nobel Peace Prize, the first black American to receive the award.

1958 The first domestic passenger jet flight took place in the United States as a National Airlines Boeing 707 flew 111 passengers from New York City to Miami.

1964 The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize during ceremonies in Oslo, Norway.

1965 The Grateful Dead played their first concert, at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.

1967 Singer Otis Redding died at age 26 in the crash of his private plane in Wisconsin.

1980 Rep. John W. Jenrette, D-S.C., resigned to avoid being expelled from the House following his conviction on charges related to the FBI's Abscam investigation.

1984 South African Bishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize.

1994 Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin received the Nobel Peace Prize.

1998 Six astronauts swung open the doors to the new international space station, becoming the first guests aboard the 250-mile-high outpost.

1998 The Palestinian leadership scrapped constitutional clauses rejecting Israel's right to exist.

1999 Computer scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested and charged with removing secrets from secure computers at the Los Alamos weapons lab.

2002 Former President Jimmy Carter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomacy in the Middle East in the 1970s.

2003 Iranian democracy activist Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, accepted the award in Oslo, Norway.

2005 Actor-comedian Richard Pryor died at age 65.

2005 Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, D-Minn., died at age 89.

Article of the day

First Nobel Prizes awarded

The first Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. The ceremony came on the fifth anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite and other high explosives. In his will, Nobel directed that the bulk of his vast fortune be placed in a fund in which the interest would be "annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." Although Nobel offered no public reason for his creation of the prizes, it is widely believed that he did so out of moral regret over the increasingly lethal uses of his inventions in war.

Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born in Stockholm in 1833, and four years later his family moved to Russia. His father ran a successful St. Petersburg factory that built explosive mines and other military equipment. Educated in Russia, Paris, and the United States, Alfred Nobel proved a brilliant chemist. When his father's business faltered after the end of the Crimean War, Nobel returned to Sweden and set up a laboratory to experiment with explosives. In 1863, he invented a way to control the detonation of nitroglycerin, a highly volatile liquid that had been recently discovered but was previously regarded as too dangerous for use. Two years later, Nobel invented the blasting cap, an improved detonator that inaugurated the modern use of high explosives. Previously, the most dependable explosive was black powder, a form of gunpowder.

Nitroglycerin remained dangerous, however, and in 1864 Nobel's nitroglycerin factory blew up, killing his younger brother and several other people. Searching for a safer explosive, Nobel discovered in 1867 that the combination of nitroglycerin and a porous substance called kieselguhr produced a highly explosive mixture that was much safer to handle and use. Nobel christened his invention "dynamite," for the Greek word dynamis, meaning "power." Securing patents on dynamite, Nobel acquired a fortune as humanity put his invention to use in construction and warfare.

In 1875, Nobel created a more powerful form of dynamite, blasting gelatin, and in 1887 introduced ballistite, a smokeless nitroglycerin powder. Around that time, one of Nobel's brothers died in France, and French newspapers printed obituaries in which they mistook him for Alfred. One headline read, "The merchant of death is dead." Alfred Nobel in fact had pacifist tendencies and in his later years apparently developed strong misgivings about the impact of his inventions on the world. After he died in San Remo, Italy, on December 10, 1896, the majority of his estate went toward the creation of prizes to be given annually in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. The portion of his will establishing the Nobel Peace Prize read, "[one award shall be given] to the person who has done the most or best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." Exactly five years after his death, the first Nobel awards were presented.

Today, the Nobel Prizes are regarded as the most prestigious awards in the world in their various fields. Notable winners have included Marie Curie, Theodore Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Nelson Mandela. Multiple leaders and organizations sometimes receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and multiple researchers often share the scientific awards for their joint discoveries. In 1968, a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science was established by the Swedish national bank, Sveriges Riksbank, and first awarded in 1969.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decides the prizes in physics, chemistry, and economic science; the Swedish Royal Caroline Medico-Surgical Institute determines the physiology or medicine award; the Swedish Academy chooses literature; and a committee elected by the Norwegian parliament awards the peace prize. The Nobel Prizes are still presented annually on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death. In 2006, each Nobel Prize carried a cash prize of nearly $1,400,000 and recipients also received a gold medal, as is the tradition.

Today Birthdays

Raven-Symone turns 23 years old today.

AP Photo/Matt Sayles Actress Raven-Symone ("That's So Raven," "The Cosby Show") turns 23 years old today.

85	Harold Gould Actor
67	Fionnula Flanagan Actress
67	Tommy Kirk Actor
67	Chad Stuart Singer (Chad and Jeremy)
62	Gloria Loring Actress, singer
60	Jessica Cleaves R&B singer (Friends of Distinction)
60	Ralph Tavares R&B singer
57	Johnny Rodriguez Country singer
56	Susan Dey Actress ("L.A. Law," "The Partridge Family")
52	Rod Blagojevich Governor of Illinois
51	Michael Clarke Duncan Actor
51	Paul Hardcastle Jazz musician
48	Kenneth Branagh Actor, director
47	Nia Peeples Actress
44	Bobby Flay TV chef
43	J Mascis Rock musician
38	Kevin Sharp Country singer
37	Scot Alexander Rock musician (Dishwalla)
34	Meg White Rock musician (The White Stripes)

DECEMBER 9th

2008-12-09T06:02:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1608	Poet John Milton was born in London.
1854	The poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was published in England.
1907	Christmas seals went on sale for the first time, at the Wilmington, Del., post office. The proceeds went to fight tuberculosis.
1940	British troops opened their first major offensive in North Africa during World War II.
1941	China declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy.
1958	The anti-Communist John Birch Society was formed in Indianapolis.
1975	President Gerald R. Ford signed a $2.3 billion seasonal loan authorization to prevent New York City from having to default.
1990	Solidarity founder Lech Walesa won Poland's presidential runoff by a landslide.
1993	The Air Force destroyed the first of 500 Minuteman II missile silos marked for elimination under an arms control treaty.
1994	President Bill Clinton fired Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders after she told a conference that masturbation should be discussed in school as a part of human sexuality.
1995	Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., was chosen to head the NAACP.
2000	The U.S. Supreme Court ordered a temporary halt in the Florida presidential vote count.
2002	United Airlines filed the biggest bankruptcy in aviation history after losing $4 billion in the previous two years.
2004	Canada's Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage was constitutional.

Article of the day

U.S Marines storm Mogadishu, Somalia

On this day in 1992, 1,800 United States Marines arrive in Mogadishu, Somalia, to spearhead a multinational force aimed at restoring order in the conflict-ridden country.

Following centuries of colonial rule by countries including Portugal, Britain and Italy, Mogadishu became the capital of an independent Somalia in 1960. Less than 10 years later, a military group led by Major General Muhammad Siad Barre seized power and declared Somalia a socialist state. A drought in the mid-1970s combined with an unsuccessful rebellion by ethnic Somalis in a neighboring province of Ethiopia to deprive many of food and shelter. By 1981, close to 2 million of the country's inhabitants were homeless. Though a peace accord was signed with Ethiopia in 1988, fighting increased between rival clans within Somalia, and in January 1991 Barre was forced to flee the capital. Over the next 23 months, Somalia's civil war killed some 50,000 people; another 300,000 died of starvation as United Nations peacekeeping forces struggled in vain to restore order and provide relief amid the chaos of war.

In early December 1992, outgoing U.S. President George H.W. Bush sent the contingent of Marines to Mogadishu as part of a mission dubbed Operation Restore Hope. Backed by the U.S. troops, international aid workers were soon able to restore food distribution and other humanitarian aid operations. Sporadic violence continued, including the murder of 24 U.N. soldiers from Pakistan in 1993. As a result, the U.N. authorized the arrest of General Mohammed Farah Aidid, leader of one of the rebel clans. On October 3, 1993, during an unsuccessful attempt to make the arrest, rebels shot down two of the Marines' Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 U.S. soldiers.

As horrified TV viewers watched images of the bloodshed—-including footage of Aidid's supporters dragging the body of one dead soldier through the streets of Mogadishu, cheering—-President Bill Clinton immediately gave the order for all American soldiers to withdraw from Somalia by March 31, 1994. Other Western nations followed suit. When the last U.N. peacekeepers left in 1995, ending a mission that had cost more than $2 billion, Mogadishu still lacked a functioning government. A ceasefire accord signed in Kenya in 2002 failed to put a stop to the violence, and though a new parliament was convened in 2004, rival factions in various regions of Somalia continue to struggle for control of the troubled nation.

Today Birthdays

Kirk Douglas turns 92 years old today.

AP Photo/Chris Pizzello Actor Kirk Douglas turns 92 years old today.

80	Dick Van Patten Actor ("Eight is Enough")
78	Buck Henry Actor, writer
74	Judi Dench Actress
70	Deacon Jones Football Hall of Famer
67	Beau Bridges Actor
67	Dan Hicks Jazz guitarist
66	Dick Butkus Football Hall of Famer
63	Michael Nouri Actor
61	Tom Daschle Former U.S. senator, D-S.D.
59	Tom Kite Golfer
58	Joan Armatrading Rock singer
56	Michael Dorn Actor
55	John Malkovich Actor
52	Sylvia Country singer
51	Donny Osmond Singer, game show host
50	Nick Seymour Rock musician (Crowded House)
49	Mario Cantone Comedian
47	Joe Lando Actor
43	Jerry Hughes Country musician (Yankee Grey)
41	Thomas Flowers Rock musician (Oleander)
40	Brian Bell Rock musician (Weezer)
39	Jakob Dylan Rock musician (Wallflowers)
39	Brian Hayes Country musician
39	Allison Smith Actress
38	Kara DioGuardi Songwriter, TV personality ("American Idol")
38	David Kersh Country singer
36	Tre Cool Rock musician (Green Day)
34	Canibus Rapper
32	Eric Zamora Saxophonist (Save Ferris)
31	Imogen Heap Rock singer
30	Jesse Metcalfe Actress
28	Simon Helberg Actor ("The Big Bang Theory")

DECEMBER 8th

2008-12-08T06:54:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1776	George Washington's retreating army crossed the Delaware River from New Jersey to Pennsylvania during the American Revolution.
1854	Pope Pius IX proclaimed the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was free of original sin from the moment of her own conception.
1863	President Abraham Lincoln announced his plan for the Reconstruction of the South.
1886	The American Federation of Labor was founded in Columbus, Ohio.
1949	The Chinese Nationalist government moved from the Chinese mainland to Taiwan as the Communists pressed their attacks.
1978	Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir died at age 80.
1980	Rock musician John Lennon was shot to death outside his New York City apartment building by Mark David Chapman. The former Beatle was 40.
1986	House Democrats selected Jim Wright to be the chamber's 48th speaker, succeeding Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill.
1987	Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories began an intefadeh, or uprising.
1987	President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty calling for destruction of intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
1991	Russia, Belarus and Ukraine declared the Soviet national government dead, forging a new alliance, the Commonwealth of Independent States.
1991	Kimberly Bergalis, who had contracted AIDS from her dentist, died in Florida at age 23.
1992	Americans saw live TV coverage of U.S. troops landing on the beaches of Somalia as Operation Restore Hope began.
1993	President Bill Clinton signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement.
1995	The Grateful Dead announced they were breaking up after 30 years of making music. The news came four months after the death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia.
2003	Rep. Bill Janklow, R-S.D., resigned after being convicted in the traffic death of a motorcyclist.

Article of the day

John Lennon shot

John Lennon, a former member of the Beatles, the rock group that transformed popular music in the 1960s, is shot and killed by an obsessed fan in New York City. The 40-year-old artist was entering his luxury Manhattan apartment building when Mark David Chapman shot him four times at close range with a .38-caliber revolver. Lennon, bleeding profusely, was rushed to the hospital but died en route. Chapman had received an autograph from Lennon earlier in the day and voluntarily remained at the scene of the shooting until he was arrested by police. For a week, hundreds of bereaved fans kept a vigil outside the Dakota--Lennon's apartment building--and demonstrations of mourning were held around the world.

John Lennon was one half of the singing-songwriting team that made the Beatles the most popular musical group of the 20th century. The other band leader was Paul McCartney, but the rest of the quartet--George Harrison and Ringo Starr--sometimes penned and sang their own songs as well. Hailing from Liverpool, England, and influenced by early American rock and roll, the Beatles took Britain by storm in 1963 with the single "Please Please Me." "Beatlemania" spread to the United States in 1964 with the release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," followed by a sensational U.S. tour. With youth poised to break away from the culturally rigid landscape of the 1950s, the "Fab Four," with their exuberant music and good-natured rebellion, were the perfect catalyst for the shift.

The Beatles sold millions of records and starred in hit movies such as A Hard Day's Night (1964). Their live performances were near riots, with teenage girls screaming and fainting as their boyfriends nodded along to the catchy pop songs. In 1966, the Beatles gave up touring to concentrate on their innovative studio recordings, such as 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, a psychedelic concept album that is regarded as a masterpiece of popular music. The Beatles' music remained relevant to youth throughout the great cultural shifts of the 1960s, and critics of all ages acknowledged the songwriting genius of the Lennon-McCartney team.

Lennon was considered the intellectual Beatle and certainly was the most outspoken of the four. He caused a major controversy in 1966 when he declared that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus," prompting mass burnings of Beatles' records in the American Bible Belt. He later became an anti-war activist and flirted with communism in the lyrics of solo hits like "Imagine," recorded after the Beatles disbanded in 1970. In 1975, Lennon dropped out of the music business to spend more time with his Japanese-born wife, Yoko Ono, and their son, Sean. In 1980, he made a comeback with Double-Fantasy, a critically acclaimed album that celebrated his love for Yoko and featured songs written by her.

On December 8, 1980, their peaceful domestic life on New York's Upper West Side was shattered by 25-year-old Mark David Chapman. Psychiatrists deemed Chapman a borderline psychotic. He was instructed to plead insanity, but instead he pleaded guilty to murder. He was sentenced to 20 years to life. In 2000, New York State prison officials denied Chapman a parole hearing, telling him that his "vicious and violent act was apparently fueled by your need to be acknowledged." He remains behind bars at Attica Prison in New York State.

John Lennon is memorialized in "Strawberry Fields," a section of Central Park across the street from the Dakota that Yoko Ono landscaped in honor of her husband.

Today Birthdays

Teri Hatcher turns 44 years old today.

AP Photo/Matt Sayles Actress Teri Hatcher ("Desperate Housewives") turns 44 years old today.

78	Maximilian Schell Actor, director
72	David Carradine Actor
71	James MacArthur Actor ("Hawaii Five-O")
69	Jerry Butler R&B singer
69	James Galway Flutist
67	Bobby Elliott Rock musician (The Hollies)
63	Toots Hibbert Reggae singer (Toots and the Maytals)
62	John Rubinstein Actor
61	Gregg Allman Rock singer, musician (The Allman Brothers)
55	Kim Basinger Actress
52	Warren Cuccurullo Rock musician (Duran Duran)
51	Phil Collen Rock musician (Def Leppard)
49	Marty Raybon Country singer
46	Marty Friedman Rock musician (Megadeth)
46	Wendell Pierce Actor
42	Bushwick Bill Rapper (Geto Boys)
42	Matthew Laborteaux Actor
42	Sinead O'Connor Rock singer
40	Mike Mussina Baseball player
36	Ryan Newell Rock musician (Sister Hazel)
32	Dominic Monaghan Actor ("Lost")
30	Ian Somerhalder Actor
29	Ingrid Michaelson Rock singer
15	AnnaSophia Robb Actress

DECEMBER 7th

2008-12-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1787	Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1796	Electors chose John Adams to be the second president of the United States.
1836	Martin Van Buren was elected the eighth president of the United States.
1842	The New York Philharmonic gave its first concert.
1963	Videotaped instant replay was used for the first time in a live sports telecast during the Army-Navy football game on CBS.
1972	America's last moon mission was launched as Apollo 17 blasted off from Cape Canaveral.
1982	Convicted murderer Charlie Brooks became the first U.S. prisoner to be executed by injection, at a prison in Huntsville, Texas.
1985	Retired Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart died at age 70.
1988	An earthquake in northern Armenia claimed an estimated 25,000 lives.
1993	A gunman opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train, killing six people and wounding 17. Colin Ferguson was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in prison.
1995	A 746-pound probe from the Galileo spacecraft hurtled into Jupiter's atmosphere, sending back data to the mothership before it was destroyed.
2001	Taliban forces abandoned their last bastion in Afghanistan, fleeing the southern city of Kandahar.
2002	Iraq denied it had weapons of mass destruction in a declaration to the United Nations.
2004	Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president.
2007	Baseball home run king Barry Bonds pleaded not guilty in San Francisco to charges he'd lied to federal investigators about using performance-enhancing drugs.

Article of the day

Pearl Harbor bombed

At 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time, a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings appears out of the clouds above the island of Oahu. A swarm of 360 Japanese warplanes followed, descending on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in a ferocious assault. The surprise attack struck a critical blow against the U.S. Pacific fleet and drew the United States irrevocably into World War II.

With diplomatic negotiations with Japan breaking down, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers knew that an imminent Japanese attack was probable, but nothing had been done to increase security at the important naval base at Pearl Harbor. It was Sunday morning, and many military personnel had been given passes to attend religious services off base. At 7:02 a.m., two radio operators spotted large groups of aircraft in flight toward the island from the north, but, with a flight of B-17s expected from the United States at the time, they were told to sound no alarm. Thus, the Japanese air assault came as a devastating surprise to the naval base.

Much of the Pacific fleet was rendered useless: Five of eight battleships, three destroyers, and seven other ships were sunk or severely damaged, and more than 200 aircraft were destroyed. A total of 2,400 Americans were killed and 1,200 were wounded, many while valiantly attempting to repulse the attack. Japan's losses were some 30 planes, five midget submarines, and fewer than 100 men. Fortunately for the United States, all three Pacific fleet carriers were out at sea on training maneuvers. These giant aircraft carriers would have their revenge against Japan six months later at the Battle of Midway, reversing the tide against the previously invincible Japanese navy in a spectacular victory.

The day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, President Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress and declared, "Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date which will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." After a brief and forceful speech, he asked Congress to approve a resolution recognizing the state of war between the United States and Japan. The Senate voted for war against Japan by 82 to 0, and the House of Representatives approved the resolution by a vote of 388 to 1. The sole dissenter was Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, a devout pacifist who had also cast a dissenting vote against the U.S. entrance into World War I. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war against the United States, and the U.S. government responded in kind.

The American contribution to the successful Allied war effort spanned four long years and cost more than 400,000 American lives.

Today Birthdays

Susan Collins turns 56 years old today.

AP Photo/Joel Page Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, turns 56 years old today.

93	Eli Wallach Actor
77	Bobby Osborne Bluegrass singer
71	Thad Cochran U.S. senator, R-Miss.
68	Gerry Cheevers Hockey Hall of Famer
68	Carole Simpson Broadcast journalist
61	Johnny Bench Baseball Hall of Famer
60	Gary Morris Country singer
59	Tom Waits Rock singer, actor
53	Priscilla Barnes Actress
52	Larry Bird Basketball Hall of Famer
50	Tim Butler Rock musician (The Psychedelic Furs)
43	Jeffrey Wright Actor
42	C. Thomas Howell Actor
35	Terrell Owens Football player
33	Nicole Appleton Singer (All Saints)
32	Sunny Sweeney Country singer
31	Eric Chavez Baseball player
30	Shiri Appleby Actress
29	Sara Bareilles Singer
25	Fausto Carmona Baseball player
21	Aaron Carter Singer

DECEMBER 6th

2008-12-06T05:37:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1790	Congress moved from New York City to Philadelphia.
1884	Army engineers completed construction of the Washington Monument.
1889	Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, died in New Orleans at age 81.
1907	The worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, W.Va.
1947	Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Harry S. Truman.
1957	AFL-CIO members voted to expel the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
1957	America's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit blew up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla.
1969	A free concert by the Rolling Stones at Altamont Speedway in Livermore, Calif., was marred by the deaths of four people, including a man who was stabbed by a Hell's Angel.
1973	House minority leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who had resigned after pleading no contest to income tax evasion.
1982	A bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army exploded in a pub in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, killing 11 soldiers and six civilians.
1989	Fourteen women were shot to death at the University of Montreal's school of engineering by a man who then took his own life.
1992	Thousands of Hindu extremists destroyed a mosque in India, setting off two months of Hindu-Muslim rioting that claimed at least 2,000 lives.
1994	Orange County, Calif., filed for bankruptcy protection due to investment losses of about $2 billion.
1998	Hugo Chavez, who had staged a bloody coup attempt against the Venezuelan government six years earlier, was elected president.
1999	SabreTech, an aircraft maintenance company, was convicted of mishandling oxygen canisters blamed for a cargo hold fire that caused the 1996 ValuJet crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people.
2003	Army became the first team to finish 0-13 in major college football history after a 34-6 loss to Navy.
2004	Al-Qaida struck the U.S. Consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, with explosives and machine guns, killing nine people.
2006	The bipartisan Iraq Study Group concluded that President George W. Bush's war policies had failed in almost every regard, and said the situation in Iraq was "grave and deteriorating."

Article of the day

Washington Monument completed

On this day in 1884, in Washington, D.C., workers place a nine-inch aluminum pyramid atop a tower of white marble, completing the construction of an impressive monument to the city's namesake and the nation's first president, George Washington.
As early as 1783, the infant U.S. Congress decided that a statue of George Washington, the great Revolutionary War general, should be placed near the site of the new Congressional building, wherever it might be. After then-President Washington asked him to lay out a new federal capital on the Potomac River in 1791, architect Pierre L'Enfant left a place for the statue at the western end of the sweeping National Mall (near the monument's present location).

It wasn't until 1832, however--33 years after Washington's death--that anyone really did anything about the monument. That year, a private Washington National Monument Society was formed. After holding a design competition and choosing an elaborate Greek temple-like design by architect Robert Mills, the society began a fundraising drive to raise money for the statue's construction. These efforts--including appeals to the nation's schoolchildren--raised some $230,000, far short of the $1 million needed. Construction began anyway, on July 4, 1848, as representatives of the society laid the cornerstone of the monument: a 24,500-pound block of pure white marble.

Six years later, with funds running low, construction was halted. Around the time the Civil War began in 1861, author Mark Twain described the unfinished monument as looking like a "hollow, oversized chimney." No further progress was made until 1876--the centennial of American independence--when President Ulysses S. Grant authorized construction to be completed.

Made of some 36,000 blocks of marble and granite stacked 555 feet in the air, the monument was the tallest structure in the world at the time of its completion in December 1884. In the six months following the dedication ceremony, over 10,000 people climbed the nearly 900 steps to the top of the Washington Monument. Today, an elevator makes the trip far easier, and more than 800,000 people visit the monument each year. A city law passed in 1910 restricted the height of new buildings to ensure that the monument will remain the tallest structure in Washington, D.C.--a fitting tribute to the man known as the "Father of His Country."

Today Birthdays

Lindsay Price turns 32 years old today.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini Actress Lindsay Price ("Lipstick Jungle") turns 32 years old today.

88	Dave Brubeck Jazz musician
67	Helen Cornelius Country singer
63	James Naughton Actor
62	Frankie Beverly R&B singer
60	Don Nickles Former U.S. senator, R-Okla.
60	JoBeth Williams Actress
55	Tom Hulce Actor
55	Kin Shriner Actor
55	Wil Shriner Actor
54	Miles Chapin Actor
53	Rick Buckler Rock musician (The Jam)
53	Tish Hinojosa Folk, country singer
53	Bill Lloyd Country singer
53	Steven Wright Comedian
52	Peter Buck Rock musician (R.E.M.)
47	David Lovering Rock musician (Pixies)
46	Janine Turner Actress ("Northern Exposure")
46	Ben Watt Rock musician (Everything But The Girl)
41	Judd Apatow Director ("The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "Knocked Up")
38	Ulf "Buddha" Ekberg Rock musician (Ace of Base)
37	Craig Brewer Director, screenwriter
32	Colleen Haskell TV personality ("Survivor")

DECEMBER 5th

2008-12-05T02:03:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1776	The first scholastic fraternity in America, Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
1782	Martin Van Buren, the eighth U.S. president and the first to be born after the country was formed, was born in Kinderhook, N.Y.
1791	Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna at age 35.
1792	George Washington was re-elected president and John Adams was re-elected vice president.
1831	Former President John Quincy Adams took his seat as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
1848	President James K. Polk triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California.
1901	Movie producer Walt Disney was born in Chicago.
1955	The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to form the AFL-CIO.
1994	Republicans chose Newt Gingrich to be the first GOP speaker of the House in four decades.
1996	Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan questioned whether the stock market was overvalued, saying in a speech in Washington, "How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly inflated asset values?"
2002	Senate Republican leader Trent Lott praised Strom Thurmond's pro-segregation 1948 presidential campaign. The ensuing uproar led to Lott's resignation from the Senate leadership.
2006	New York became the first city in the nation to ban artery-clogging trans fats at restaurants.
2007	A teenage gunman went on a shooting rampage at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Neb., killing six store employees and two customers; Robert A. Hawkins, 19, then took his own life.

Article of the day

Aircraft squadron lost in the Bermuda Triangle

At 2:10 p.m., five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base. They never returned.

Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron, who had been flying in the area for more than six months, reported that his compass and back-up compass had failed and that his position was unknown. The other planes experienced similar instrument malfunctions. Radio facilities on land were contacted to find the location of the lost squadron, but none were successful. After two more hours of confused messages from the fliers, a distorted radio transmission from the squadron leader was heard at 6:20 p.m., apparently calling for his men to prepare to ditch their aircraft simultaneously because of lack of fuel.

By this time, several land radar stations finally determined that Flight 19 was somewhere north of the Bahamas and east of the Florida coast, and at 7:27 p.m. a search and rescue Mariner aircraft took off with a 13-man crew. Three minutes later, the Mariner aircraft radioed to its home base that its mission was underway. The Mariner was never heard from again. Later, there was a report from a tanker cruising off the coast of Florida of a visible explosion seen at 7:50 p.m.

The disappearance of the 14 men of Flight 19 and the 13 men of the Mariner led to one of the largest air and seas searches to that date, and hundreds of ships and aircraft combed thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and remote locations within the interior of Florida. No trace of the bodies or aircraft was ever found.

Although naval officials maintained that the remains of the six aircraft and 27 men were not found because stormy weather destroyed the evidence, the story of the "Lost Squadron" helped cement the legend of the Bermuda Triangle, an area of the Atlantic Ocean where ships and aircraft are said to disappear without a trace. The Bermuda Triangle is said to stretch from the southern U.S. coast across to Bermuda and down to the Atlantic coast of Cuba and Santo Domingo.

Today Birthdays

Cliff Floyd turns 36 years old today.

AP Photo/Steve Nesius Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Cliff Floyd turns 36 years old today.

76	Little Richard Rock singer, musician
74	Joan Didion Author
73	Calvin Trillin Author
70	J.J. Cale Rock musician
64	Jeroen Krabbe Actor
62	Jose Carreras Opera singer
61	Jim Messina Rock singer (Loggins and Messina, Poco)
57	Morgan Brittany Actress ("Dallas")
52	Brian Backer Actor
51	Art Monk Football Hall of Famer
45	Ty England Country singer
43	John Rzeznik Rock musician (The Goo Goo Dolls)
41	Gary Allan Country singer
40	Margaret Cho Comedian-actress
39	Alex Kapp Horner Actress ("The New Adventures of Old Christine")
36	Regina Zernay Rock musician (Cowboy Mouth)
33	Paula Patton Actress
32	Amy Acker Actress ("Angel")
29	Nick Stahl Actor
23	Frankie Muniz Actor ("Malcolm in the Middle")
20	Ross Bagley Actor

DECEMBER 4th

2008-12-04T03:18:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1783	Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.
1816	James Monroe of Virginia was elected the fifth president of the United States.
1918	President Woodrow Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles peace conference.
1942	President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression.
1942	U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time in World War II.
1978	Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco's first woman mayor when she was named to replace George Moscone, who had been assassinated.
1980	The bodies of four American nuns slain in El Salvador two days earlier were unearthed. (Five national guardsmen were later convicted of murder.)
1991	Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson, the longest-held Western hostage in Lebanon, was released after nearly seven years in captivity.
1992	President George H.W. Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia, threatening military action against warlords and gangs who were blocking food for starving millions.
1993	Rock musician Frank Zappa died at age 52.
1995	The first NATO troops landed in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission.
1997	The NBA suspended Latrell Sprewell of the Golden State Warriors for one year for choking and threatening to kill his coach, P.J. Carlesimo. (An arbitrator later reduced the suspension and reinstated Sprewell to the Warriors, which had terminated his contract.)
2000	A Florida state judge refused to overturn Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush's certified victory in Florida, and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling that had allowed manual recounts.
2001	The United States froze the financial assets of organizations allegedly linked to the terrorist group Hamas.
2006	Lacking the Senate votes to keep his job, embattled U.N. Ambassador John Bolton offered his resignation to President George W. Bush, who accepted it.

Article of the day

Hostage Terry Anderson freed in Lebanon

On this day in 1991, Islamic militants in Lebanon release kidnapped American journalist Terry Anderson after 2,454 days in captivity.

As chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, Anderson covered the long-running civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990). On March 16, 1985, he was kidnapped on a west Beirut street while leaving a tennis court. His captors took him to the southern suburbs of the city, where he was held prisoner in an underground dungeon for the next six-and-a-half years.

Anderson was one of 92 foreigners (including 17 Americans) abducted during Lebanon's bitter civil war. The kidnappings were linked to Hezbollah, or the Party of God, a militant Shiite Muslim organization formed in 1982 in reaction to Israel’s military presence in Lebanon. They seized several Americans, including Anderson, soon after Kuwaiti courts jailed 17 Shiites found guilty of bombing the American and French embassies there in 1983. Hezbollah in Lebanon received financial and spiritual support from Iran, where prominent leaders praised the bombers and kidnappers for performing their duty to Islam.

U.S. relations with Iran--and with Syria, the other major foreign influence in Lebanon--showed signs of improving by 1990, when the civil war drew to a close, aided by Syria's intervention on behalf of the Lebanese army. Eager to win favor from the U.S. in order to promote its own economic goals, Iran used its influence in Lebanon to engineer the release of nearly all the hostages over the course of 1991.

Anderson returned to the U.S. and was reunited with his family, including his daughter Suleme, born three months after his capture. In 1999, he sued the Iranian government for $100 million, accusing it of sponsoring his kidnappers; he received a multi-million dollar settlement.

Today Birthdays

Jeff Bridges turns 59 years old today.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini Actor Jeff Bridges turns 59 years old today.

87	Deanna Durbin Actress
74	Wink Martindale Game show host
71	Max Baer Jr. Actor, producer
66	Gemma Jones Actress
66	Bob Mosley Rock musician (Moby Grape)
64	Chris Hillman Rock singer, musician (The Byrds)
61	Terry Woods Musician (The Pogues)
60	Johnny Lyon Rock singer (Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes)
60	Mary Peters Secretary of transportation
57	Gary Rossington Rock musician (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
57	Patricia Wettig Actress
54	Tony Todd Actor
53	Brian Prout Country musician (Diamond Rio)
53	Cassandra Wilson Jazz singer
49	Bob Griffin Rock musician (The BoDeans)
46	Vinnie Dombroski Rock singer (Sponge)
44	Marisa Tomei Actress
44	Chelsea Noble Actress
42	Fred Armisen Actor, comedian ("Saturday Night Live")
39	Jay-Z Rapper
38	Kevin Sussman Actor ("Ugly Betty")
35	Tyra Banks Model, TV host ("America's Next Top Model")
27	Lila McCann Country singer
24	Lindsay Felton Actress
21	Orlando Brown Actor

DECEMBER 3rd

2008-12-03T03:32:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1818	Illinois was admitted to the union as the 21st state.
1828	Andrew Jackson was elected the seventh president of the United States.
1857	Novelist Joseph Conrad was born in Berdychiv, Poland.
1947	"A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams opened on Broadway.
1948	The House Un-American Activities Committee announced that former Communist spy Whittaker Chambers had produced microfilm of secret documents hidden inside a pumpkin on his Maryland farm.
1964	Police arrested some 800 students at the University of California at Berkeley, one day after the students stormed the administration building and staged a massive sit-in.
1965	The album "Rubber Soul" by the Beatles was released.
1967	Surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard, performed the first human heart transplant. Louis Washkansky lived 18 days with the new heart.
1967	The 20th Century Limited, the famed luxury train, completed its final run from New York City to Chicago.
1979	Eleven people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum before a rock concert by The Who.
1989	East German Communist leader Egon Krenz, the ruling Politburo and the party's Central Committee resigned.
1994	Elizabeth Glaser, who became an AIDS activist after she and her two children were infected with HIV via a blood transfusion, died at age 47.
1997	South Korea struck a deal with the International Monetary Fund for a $55 billion bailout of its foundering economy.
1999	Scientists failed to make contact with the Mars Polar Lander after it began its fiery descent toward the red planet; the spacecraft was presumed destroyed.
2006	Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won re-election.

Article of the day

A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway

On this day in 1947, Marlon Brando's famous cry of "STELLA!" first booms across a Broadway stage, electrifying the audience at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre during the first-ever performance of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire.

The 23-year-old Brando played the rough, working-class Polish-American Stanley Kowalski, whose violent clash with Blanche DuBois (played on Broadway by Jessica Tandy), a Southern belle with a dark past, is at the center of Williams' famous drama. Blanche comes to stay with her sister Stella (Kim Hunter), Stanley's wife, at their home in the French Quarter of New Orleans; she and Stanley immediately despise each other. In the climactic scene, Stanley rapes Blanche, causing her to lose her fragile grip on sanity; the play ends with her being led away in a straitjacket.

Streetcar, produced by Irene Mayer Selznick and directed by Elia Kazan, shocked mid-century audiences with its frank depiction of sexuality and brutality onstage. When the curtain went down on opening night, there was a moment of stunned silence before the crowd erupted into a round of applause that lasted 30 minutes. On December 17, the cast left New York to go on the road. The show would run for more than 800 performances, turning the charismatic Brando into an overnight star. Tandy won a Tony Award for her performance, and Williams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

In 1951, Kazan made Streetcar into a movie. Brando, Hunter and Karl Malden (as Stanley's friend and Blanche's love interest) reprised their roles. The role of Blanche went to Vivien Leigh, the scenery-chewing star of Gone with the Wind. Controversy flared when the Catholic Legion of Decency threatened to condemn the film unless the explicitly sexual scenes--including the climactic rape--were removed. When Williams, who wrote the screenplay, refused to take out the rape, the Legion insisted that Stanley be punished onscreen. As a result, the movie (but not the play) ends with Stella leaving Stanley.

A Streetcar Named Desire earned 12 Oscar nominations, including acting nods for each of its four leads. The movie won for Best Art Direction, and Leigh, Hunter and Malden all took home awards; Brando lost to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen.

Today Birthdays

Brendan Fraser turns 40 years old today.

AP Photo/ Wong Maye-E Actor Brendan Fraser ("The Mummy" films) turns 40 years old today.

83	Ferlin Husky Country singer
81	Andy Williams Singer
78	Jean-Luc Godard Director
77	Jaye P. Morgan Singer ("The Gong Show")
67	Mary Alice Actress
60	Ozzy Osbourne Rock singer (Black Sabbath)
59	Heather Menzies Actress
54	Paul Gregg Country musician (Restless Heart)
53	Steven Culp Actor
48	Julianne Moore Actress
48	Daryl Hannah Actress
40	Montell Jordan R&B singer
39	Royale Watkins Actor, comedian
38	Paul Byrd Baseball player
35	Bruno Campos Actor
35	Holly Marie Combs Actress ("Charmed")
33	Lauren Roman Actress
29	Daniel Bedingfield Singer
28	Anna Chlumsky Actress ("My Girl" movies)
27	Brian Bonsall Actor
23	Amanda Seyfried Actress ("Mamma Mia," "Big Love")
21	Michael Angarano Actor

DECEMBER 2nd

2008-12-02T03:01:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1804	Napoleon was crowned emperor of France.
1816	The first savings bank in the United States, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, opened.
1823	President James Monroe outlined his doctrine opposing European expansion in the Western Hemisphere.
1859	Militant abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his Oct. 16 raid on a federal armory at Harpers Ferry in present-day West Virginia. (Brown had hoped to start an anti-slavery rebellion.)
1939	New York's La Guardia Airport began operations.
1942	A self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated for the first time at the University of Chicago.
1961	Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist who would lead Cuba to Communism.
1967	Cardinal Francis Spellman died in New York City at age 78.
1969	The Boeing 747 jumbo jet debuted.
1970	The Environmental Protection Agency began operations.
1980	Four American churchwomen were raped, murdered and buried in El Salvador. (Five national guardsmen were later convicted of murder.)
1982	Doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center performed the first implant of a permanent artificial heart in a human. Barney Clark lived 112 days with the device.
1990	Chancellor Helmut Kohl's center-right coalition easily won the first free all-German elections since 1932.
1990	Composer Aaron Copland died at age 90.
1993	Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot to death by security forces in Medellin.
1999	A power-sharing cabinet of Protestants and Catholics sat down together for the first time in Northern Ireland.
2001	Enron filed for Chapter 11 protection in one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history.
2001	A bomb went off aboard a bus in Haifa, killing 15 Israelis.

Article of the day

Enron files for bankruptcy

On this day in 2001, the Enron Corporation files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a New York court, sparking one of the largest corporate scandals in U.S. history.

An energy-trading company based in Houston, Texas, Enron was formed in 1985 as the merger of two gas companies, Houston Natural Gas and Internorth. Under chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay, Enron rose as high as number seven on Fortune magazine's list of the top 500 U.S. companies. In 2000, the company employed 21,000 people and posted revenue of $111 billion. Over the next year, however, Enron's stock price began a dramatic slide, dropping from $90.75 in August 2000 to $0.26 by closing on November 30, 2001.

As prices fell, Lay sold large amounts of his Enron stock, while simultaneously encouraging Enron employees to buy more shares and assuring them that the company was on the rebound. Employees saw their retirement savings accounts wiped out as Enron's stock price continued to plummet. After another energy company, Dynegy, canceled a planned $8.4 billion buy-out in late November, Enron filed for bankruptcy. By the end of the year, Enron's collapse had cost investors billions of dollars, wiped out some 5,600 jobs and liquidated almost $2.1 billion in pension plans.

Over the next several years, the name "Enron" became synonymous with large-scale corporate fraud and corruption, as an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Justice Department revealed that Enron had inflated its earnings by hiding debts and losses in subsidiary partnerships. The government subsequently accused Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, who served as Enron's CEO from February to August 2001, of conspiring to cover up their company's financial weaknesses from investors. The investigation also brought down accounting giant Arthur Anderson, whose auditors were found guilty of deliberately destroying documents incriminating to Enron.

In July 2004, a Houston court indicted Skilling on 35 counts including fraud, conspiracy and insider trading. Lay was charged with 11 similar crimes. The trial began on January 30, 2006, in Houston. A number of former Enron employees appeared on the stand, including Andrew Fastow, Enron's ex-CFO, who early on pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and agreed to testify against his former bosses. Over the course of the trial, the defiant Skilling--who unloaded almost $60 million worth of Enron stock shortly after his resignation but refused to admit he knew of the company's impending collapse--emerged as the figure many identified most personally with the scandal. In May 2006, Skilling was convicted of 19 of 35 counts, while Lay was found guilty on 10 counts of fraud and conspiracy. When Lay died from heart disease just two months later, a Houston judge vacated the counts against him. That October, the 52-year-old Skilling was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.

Today Birthdays

Lucy Liu turns 40 years old today.

AP Photo/Matt Sayles Actress Lucy Liu turns 40 years old today.

94	Bill Erwin Actor
84	Alexander M. Haig Former secretary of state
83	Julie Harris Actress
77	Edwin Meese III Former attorney general
69	Harry Reid Senate majority leader, D-Nev.
65	Wayne Allard U.S. senator, R-Colo.
64	Cathy Lee Crosby Actress
63	Penelope Spheeris Director
59	Ron Raines Actor
58	John Wesley Ryles Country singer
56	Keith Szarabajka Actor
54	Dan Butler Actor
54	Stone Phillips Broadcast journalist
53	Dennis Christopher Actor
52	Steven Bauer Actor
48	Joe Henry Country singer
48	Rick Savage Rock musician (Def Leppard)
40	Jimi Haha Rock singer (Jimmie's Chicken Shack)
40	Nate Mendel Rock musician (Foo Fighters)
40	Rena Sofer Actress
38	Treach Rapper (Naughty by Nature)
35	Monica Seles Tennis player
30	Nelly Furtado Rock singer
27	Britney Spears Singer
25	Aaron Rodgers Football player

December 1st

2008-12-01T02:46:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1824	The House of Representatives convened to decide the presidential election because no candidate had received a majority in the Electoral College. John Quincy Adams was eventually chosen the winner over Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay.
1913	The first drive-in automobile service station opened, in Pittsburgh.
1919	Lady Astor was sworn in as the first female member of the British Parliament.
1934	Sergei M. Kirov, the head of the Communist Party in Leningrad, was assassinated as Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a massive purge that would claim tens of millions of lives.
1942	Nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States.
1955	Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, defied the law by refusing to give up her seat to a white man aboard a Montgomery, Ala., city bus. Parks was arrested, sparking a year-long boycott of the buses by blacks.
1963	The Beatles' first single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand," was released in the United States.
1965	An airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States began in which thousands of Cubans were allowed to leave their homeland.
1969	The U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II.
1973	David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, died at age 87.
1991	Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union.
1992	Amy Fisher was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison for shooting and seriously wounding Mary Jo Buttafuoco, the wife of the teenager's lover, Joey Buttafuoco, on New York's Long Island.
1997	A 14-year-old student opened fire on a morning prayer group at a high school in West Paducah, Ky., killing three students and wounding five.
2000	Vicente Fox was sworn in as president of Mexico, ending 71 years of ruling-party domination.
2004	Tom Brokaw signed off for the last time as anchor of the "NBC Nightly News."

Article of the day

Chunnel makes breakthrough

Shortly after 11 a.m. on December 1, 1990, 132 feet below the English Channel, workers drill an opening the size of a car through a wall of rock. This was no ordinary hole--it connected the two ends of an underwater tunnel linking Great Britain with the European mainland for the first time in more than 8,000 years.

The Channel Tunnel, or "Chunnel," was not a new idea. It had been suggested to Napoleon Bonaparte, in fact, as early as 1802. It wasn't until the late 20th century, though, that the necessary technology was developed. In 1986, Britain and France signed a treaty authorizing the construction of a tunnel running between Folkestone, England, and Calais, France.

Over the next four years, nearly 13,000 workers dug 95 miles of tunnels at an average depth of 150 feet (45 meters) below sea level. Eight million cubic meters of soil were removed, at a rate of some 2,400 tons per hour. The completed Chunnel would have three interconnected tubes, including one rail track in each direction and one service tunnel. The price? A whopping $15 billion.

After workers drilled that final hole on December 1, 1990, they exchanged French and British flags and toasted each other with champagne. Final construction took four more years, and the Channel Tunnel finally opened for passenger service on May 6, 1994, with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and France's President Francois Mitterrand on hand in Calais for the inaugural run. A company called Eurotunnel won the 55-year concession to operate the Chunnel, which is the crucial stretch of the Eurostar high-speed rail link between London and Paris. The regular shuttle train through the tunnel runs 31 miles in total--23 of those underwater--and takes 20 minutes, with an additional 15-minute loop to turn the train around. The Chunnel is the second-longest rail tunnel in the world, after the Seikan Tunnel in Japan.

Today Birthdays

Sarah Silverman turns 38 years old today.

AP Photo/Dan Steinberg Comedian-actress Sarah Silverman turns 38 years old today.

86	Paul Picerni Actor
85	Stansfield Turner Former CIA director
74	Billy Paul R&B singer
73	Woody Allen Writer, director
69	Lee Trevino Golfer
69	Dianne Lennon Singer (The Lennon Sisters)
66	Casey Van Beek Country musician
65	David Salzman TV producer
64	Eric Bloom Rock musician (Blue Oyster Cult)
64	John Densmore Rock musician (The Doors)
63	Bette Midler Actress, singer
62	Gilbert O'Sullivan Singer
57	Treat Williams Actor
52	Kim Richey Country singer
50	Charlene Tilton Actress ("Dallas")
48	Carol Alt Model, actress
47	Jeremy Northam Actor
42	Larry Walker Baseball player
41	Nestor Carbonell Actor ("Lost")
38	Golden Brooks Actress
36	Ron Melendez Actor
33	Sarah Masen Singer
31	Brad Delson Rock musician (Linkin Park)
20	Ashley Monique Clark Actress

NOVEMBER 30th

2008-11-30T03:43:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1782	The United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris, ending the Revolutionary War.
1804	Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase went on trial, accused of political bias. He was acquitted by the Senate.
1835	Author Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Mo.
1874	British statesman Winston Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.
1900	Author Oscar Wilde died at age 46.
1962	U Thant of Burma was elected secretary-general of the United Nations, succeeding the late Dag Hammarskjold.
1966	The former British colony of Barbados became independent.
1979	The album "The Wall" by Pink Floyd was released.
1981	The United States and the Soviet Union opened negotiations in Geneva aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe.
1993	President Bill Clinton signed into law the Brady bill, which requires a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers.
1993	Authorities in California arrested Richard Allen Davis, who confessed to abducting and killing 12 year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma.
1999	The opening of a 135-nation trade gathering in Seattle was disrupted by at least 40,000 demonstrators, some of whom clashed with police.
2001	Robert Tools, the first person to receive a fully self-contained artificial heart, died in Louisville, Ky., after living with the device for 151 days.
2007	A man took hostages at a Hillary Clinton campaign office in Rochester, N.H.; Leeland Eisenberg surrendered about five hours later.

Article of the day

Folies Bergere stage first revue

Once a hall for operettas, pantomime, political meetings, and vaudeville, the Folies Bergère in Paris introduces an elaborate revue featuring women in sensational costumes. The highly popular "Place aux Jeunes" established the Folies as the premier nightspot in Paris. In the 1890s, the Folies followed the Parisian taste for striptease and quickly gained a reputation for its spectacular nude shows. The theater spared no expense, staging revues that featured as many as 40 sets, 1,000 costumes, and an off-stage crew of some 200 people.

The Folies Bergère dates back to 1869, when it opened as one of the first major music halls in Paris. It produced light opera and pantomimes with unknown singers and proved a resounding failure. Greater success came in the 1870s, when the Folies Bergère staged vaudeville. Among other performers, the early vaudeville shows featured acrobats, a snake charmer, a boxing kangaroo, trained elephants, the world's tallest man, and a Greek prince who was covered in tattoos allegedly as punishment for trying to seduce the Shah of Persia's daughter. The public was allowed to drink and socialize in the theater's indoor garden and promenade area, and the Folies Bergère became synonymous with the carnal temptations of the French capital. Famous paintings by Édouard Manet and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec were set in the Folies.

In 1886, the Folies Bergère went under new management, which, on November 30, staged the first revue-style music hall show. The "Place aux Jeunes," featuring scantily clad chorus girls, was a tremendous success. The Folies women gradually wore less and less as the 20th century approached, and the show's costumes and sets became more and more outrageous. Among the performers who got their start at the Folies Bergère were Yvette Guilbert, Maurice Chevalier, and Mistinguett. The African American dancer and singer Josephine Baker made her Folies debut in 1926, lowered from the ceiling in a flower-covered sphere that opened onstage to reveal her wearing a G-string ornamented with bananas.

The Folies Bergère remained a success throughout the 20th century and still can be seen in Paris today, although the theater now features many mainstream concerts and performances. Among other traditions that date back more than a century, the show's title always contains 13 letters and includes the word "Folie."

Today Birthdays

Folies Bergere stage first revue

NOVEMBER 29th

2008-11-29T04:08:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1890	The first Army-Navy football game was played, with Navy winning 24-0 at West Point, N.Y.
1924	Italian composer Giacomo Puccini died in Brussels.
1929	Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd radioed that he'd made the first airplane flight over the South Pole.
1952	President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower kept his campaign promise to visit Korea to assess the ongoing conflict.
1961	Enos the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited Earth twice before returning.
1963	President Lyndon B. Johnson named a commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
1967	Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced he was leaving the Johnson administration to become president of the World Bank.
1981	Actress Natalie Wood drowned in a boating accident at age 43.
1986	Actor Cary Grant died at age 82.
1989	In response to a growing pro-democracy movement in Czechoslovakia, the Communist-run parliament ended the party's 40-year monopoly on power.
1990	The U.N. Security Council voted 12-2 to authorize military action if Iraq did not withdraw its troops from Kuwait and release all foreign hostages by Jan. 15, 1991.
1996	A U.N. court sentenced Bosnian Serb army soldier Drazen Erdemovic to 10 years in prison for his role in the massacre of 1,200 Muslims - the first international war crimes sentence since World War II.
1999	Protestant and Catholic adversaries formed a Northern Ireland government.
2001	Rock musician George Harrison of the Beatles died at age 58 following a battle with cancer.

Article of the day

U.N. votes for partition of Palestine

Despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations votes for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish state.

The modern conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine dates back to the 1910s, when both groups laid claim to the British-controlled territory. The Jews were Zionists, recent emigrants from Europe and Russia who came to the ancient homeland of the Jews to establish a Jewish national state. The native Palestinian Arabs sought to stem Jewish immigration and set up a secular Palestinian state.

Beginning in 1929, Arabs and Jews openly fought in Palestine, and Britain attempted to limit Jewish immigration as a means of appeasing the Arabs. As a result of the Holocaust in Europe, many Jews illegally entered Palestine during World War II. Radical Jewish groups employed terrorism against British forces in Palestine, which they thought had betrayed the Zionist cause. At the end of World War II, in 1945, the United States took up the Zionist cause. Britain, unable to find a practical solution, referred the problem to the United Nations, which on November 29, 1947, voted to partition Palestine.

The Jews were to possess more than half of Palestine, though they made up less than half of Palestine's population. The Palestinian Arabs, aided by volunteers from other countries, fought the Zionist forces, but the Jews secured full control of their U.N.-allocated share of Palestine and also some Arab territory. On May 14, 1948, Britain withdrew with the expiration of its mandate, and the State of Israel was proclaimed by Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion. The next day, forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded.

The Israelis, though less well equipped, managed to fight off the Arabs and then seize key territories, such as Galilee, the Palestinian coast, and a strip of territory connecting the coastal region to the western section of Jerusalem. In 1949, U.N.-brokered cease-fires left the State of Israel in permanent control of those conquered areas. The departure of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from Israel during the war left the country with a substantial Jewish majority.

Today Birthdays

Don Cheadle turns 44 years old today.

AP Photo/Matt Sayles Actor Don Cheadle ("Hotel Rwanda") turns 44 years old today.

81	Vin Scully Sportscaster
76	Jacques Chirac Former president of France
75	John Mayall Blues singer, musician
73	Diane Ladd Actress
68	Chuck Mangione Musician, composer
67	Jody Miller Country singer
64	Felix Cavaliere Pop singer, musician (The Rascals)
62	Suzy Chaffee Skier
59	Garry Shandling Actor, comedian ("The Larry Sanders Show")
54	Joel Coen Director ("Fargo")
56	Jeff Fahey Actor
53	Howie Mandel Comedian, game show host ("Deal or No Deal")
51	Janet Napolitano Governor of Arizona
48	Cathy Moriarty Actress
47	Kim Delaney Actress ("NYPD Blue")
47	Tom Sizemore Actor
46	Andrew McCarthy Actor
43	Neill Barry Actor, producer
43	Wallis Buchanan Musician (Jamiroquai)
40	Martin Carr Rock musician (Boo Radleys)
40	Jonathan Knight Singer (New Kids on the Block)
39	Mariano Rivera New York Yankees pitcher
38	Larry Joe Campbell Actor ("According to Jim")
37	Gena Lee Nolin Actress
36	Brian Baumgartner Actor ("The Office")
32	Anna Faris Actress
32	Julian Ovenden Actor
29	The Game Rapper
27	Ringo Garza Rock musician (Los Lonely Boys)
26	Lucas Black Actor

NOVEMBER 28th

2008-11-28T02:32:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1520	Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean after passing through the South American strait that now bears his name.
1895	The first automobile race took place, between Chicago and Waukegan, Ill.
1925	The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville made its radio debut on station WSM.
1939	James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, died at age 78.
1942	Fire destroyed the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, killing nearly 500 people.
1958	The African nation of Chad became an autonomous republic within the French community.
1975	President Gerald R. Ford nominated federal Judge John Paul Stevens to the U.S. Supreme Court seat vacated by William O. Douglas.
1990	Margaret Thatcher resigned as prime minister of Britain. She was succeded by John Major.
1994	Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered in a Wisconsin prison by a fellow inmate.
1995	President Bill Clinton signed a bill that ended the federal 55 mph speed limit.
1999	Hsing-Hsing, a giant panda who arrived at the National Zoo in 1972 as a symbol of U.S.-China detente, was euthanized at age 28 because of deteriorating health.
2000	George W. Bush's lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to bring "legal finality" to the presidential election by ending any further ballot recounts; Al Gore's team countered that the nation's highest court should not interfere in Florida's recount dispute.
2001	Enron Corp., once the world's largest energy trader, collapsed after would-be rescuer Dynegy Inc. backed out of an $8.4 billion deal to take it over.
2007	O.J. Simpson pleaded not guilty in Las Vegas to charges of kidnapping and armed robbery stemming from a confrontation with sports memorabilia dealers. (Simpson and a co-defendant were convicted last month.)

Article of the day

Magellan reaches the Pacific

After sailing through the dangerous straits below South America that now bear his name, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan enters the Pacific Ocean with three ships, becoming the first European explorer to reach the Pacific from the Atlantic.

On September 20, 1519, Magellan set sail from Spain in an effort to find a western sea route to the rich Spice Islands of Indonesia. In command of five ships and 270 men, Magellan sailed to West Africa and then to Brazil, where he searched the South American coast for a strait that would take him to the Pacific. He searched the Rio de la Plata, a large estuary south of Brazil, for a way through; failing, he continued south along the coast of Patagonia. At the end of March 1520, the expedition set up winter quarters at Port St. Julian. On Easter day at midnight, the Spanish captains mutinied against their Portuguese captain, but Magellan crushed the revolt, executing one of the captains and leaving another ashore when his ship left St. Julian in August.

On October 21, he finally discovered the strait he had been seeking. The Strait of Magellan, as it became known, is located near the tip of South America, separating Tierra del Fuego and the continental mainland. Only three ships entered the passage; one had been wrecked and another deserted. It took 38 days to navigate the treacherous strait, and when ocean was sighted at the other end Magellan wept with joy. His fleet accomplished the westward crossing of the ocean in 99 days, crossing waters so strangely calm that the ocean was named "Pacific," from the Latin word pacificus, meaning "tranquil." By the end, the men were out of food and chewed the leather parts of their gear to keep themselves alive. On March 6, 1521, the expedition landed at the island of Guam.

Ten days later, they dropped anchor at the Philippine island of Cebu--they were only about 400 miles from the Spice Islands. Magellan met with the chief of Cebu, who after converting to Christianity persuaded the Europeans to assist him in conquering a rival tribe on the neighboring island of Mactan. In fighting on April 27, Magellan was hit by a poisoned arrow and left to die by his retreating comrades.

After Magellan's death, the survivors, in two ships, sailed on to the Moluccas and loaded the hulls with spice. One ship attempted, unsuccessfully, to return across the Pacific. The other ship, the Vittoria, continued west under the command of Basque navigator Juan Sebastian de Elcano. The vessel sailed across the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at the Spanish port of Sanlucar de Barrameda on September 6, 1522, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.

Today Birthdays

Jon Stewart turns 46 years old today.

AP Photo/Reed Saxon Comedian Jon Stewart ("The Daily Show") turns 46 years old today.

79	Berry Gordy Jr. Motown Records founder
72	Gary Hart Former U.S. senator, D-Colo.
68	Bruce Channel Singer, songwriter
66	Paul Warfield Football Hall of Famer
65	Randy Newman Singer, songwriter
62	Joe Dante Movie director
59	Paul Shaffer Bandleader ("Late Show With David Letterman")
58	Ed Harris Actor
56	S. Epatha Merkerson Actress ("Law and Order")
55	Michael Chertoff Secretary of homeland security
52	Kristine Arnold Country singer (Sweethearts of the Rodeo)
49	Judd Nelson Actor
47	Alfonso Cuaron Director ("Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban")
46	Matt Cameron Rock musician
46	Jane Sibbett Actress
42	Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon Actress
40	Dawn Robinson R&B singer
34	apl.de.ap Hip-hop artist (Black Eyed Peas)
30	Aimee Garcia Actress ("George Lopez")
29	Chamillionaire Rapper
24	Mary Elizabeth Winstead Actress
20	Scarlett Pomers Actress ("Reba")

NOVEMBER 27th

2008-11-27T06:31:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1901	The Army War College was established in Washington, D.C.
1910	New York's Pennsylvania Station opened.
1942	The French navy at Toulon scuttled its ships and submarines to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis.
1953	Playwright Eugene O'Neill died at age 65.
1970	Pope Paul VI, visiting the Philippines, was slightly wounded at the Manila airport by a dagger-wielding Bolivian painter disguised as a priest.
1978	San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot to death inside City Hall by Dan White, a former supervisor.
1985	The British House of Commons approved the Anglo-Irish accord, giving Dublin a consultative role in the governing of British-ruled Northern Ireland.
2002	U.N. specialists began a new round of weapons inspections in Iraq.
2003	President George W. Bush flew to Iraq under extraordinary secrecy and security to spend Thanksgiving with U.S. troops.

Article of the day

Pope Urban II orders first Crusade

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II makes perhaps the most influential speech of the Middle Ages, giving rise to the Crusades by calling all Christians in Europe to war against Muslims in order to reclaim the Holy Land, with a cry of "Deus volt!" or "God wills it!"

Born Odo of Lagery in 1042, Urban was a protege of the great reformer Pope Gregory VII. Like Gregory, he made internal reform his main focus, railing against simony (the selling of church offices) and other clerical abuses prevalent during the Middle Ages. Urban showed himself to be an adept and powerful cleric, and when he was elected pope in 1088, he applied his statecraft to weakening support for his rivals, notably Clement III.

By the end of the 11th century, the Holy Land--the area now commonly referred to as the Middle East--had become a point of conflict for European Christians. Since the 6th century, Christians frequently made pilgrimages to the birthplace of their religion, but when the Seljuk Turks took control of Jerusalem, Christians were barred from the Holy City. When the Turks then threatened to invade the Byzantine Empire and take Constantinople, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I made a special appeal to Urban for help. This was not the first appeal of its kind, but it came at an important time for Urban. Wanting to reinforce the power of the papacy, Urban seized the opportunity to unite Christian Europe under him as he fought to take back the Holy Land from the Turks.

At the Council of Clermont, in France, at which several hundred clerics and noblemen gathered, Urban delivered a rousing speech summoning rich and poor alike to stop their in-fighting and embark on a righteous war to help their fellow Christians in the East and take back Jerusalem. Urban denigrated the Muslims, exaggerating stories of their anti-Christian acts, and promised absolution and remission of sins for all who died in the service of Christ.

Urban's war cry caught fire, mobilizing clerics to drum up support throughout Europe for the crusade against the Muslims. All told, between 60,000 and 100,000 people responded to Urban's call to march on Jerusalem. Not all who responded did so out of piety: European nobles were tempted by the prospect of increased land holdings and riches to be gained from the conquest. These nobles were responsible for the death of a great many innocents both on the way to and in the Holy Land, absorbing the riches and estates of those they conveniently deemed opponents to their cause. Adding to the death toll was the inexperience and lack of discipline of the Christian peasants against the trained, professional armies of the Muslims. As a result, the Christians were initially beaten back, and only through sheer force of numbers were they eventually able to triumph.

Urban died in 1099, two weeks after the fall of Jerusalem but before news of the Christian victory made it back to Europe. His was the first of seven major military campaigns fought over the next two centuries known as the Crusades, the bloody repercussions of which are still felt today. Urban was beatified by the Roman Catholic Church in 1881.

Today Birthdays

Jimmy Rollins turns 30 years old today.

AP Photo/David J. Phillip Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins turns 30 years old today.

60	James Avery Actor
53	Bill Nye TV personality
52	William Fichtner Actor
51	Caroline Kennedy Daughter of President John F. Kennedy
50	Mike Scioscia Baseball manager
49	Charlie Burchill Rock musician (Simple Minds)
48	Tim Pawlenty Governor of Minnesota
46	Charlie Benante Rock musician (Anthrax)
46	Mike Bordin Rock musician (Faith No More)
45	Fisher Stevens Actor
44	Robin Givens Actress
40	Michael Vartan Actor ("Alias")
38	Skoob Rapper (DAS EFX)
37	Kirk Acevedo Actor
36	Twista Rapper
32	Jaleel White Actor
23	Alison Pill Actress

Wenger: first step to recovery

2008-11-26T04:42:00.001-08:00

Arsene Wenger is pleased about yesterday win in Champions league against Dynamo Kiev.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger greeted his side's nervy but ultimately rewarding 1-0 Champions League victory over Dynamo Kiev as the first step towards recovery after a week of self-inflicted wounds at the Emirates.

Two successive Premier League defeats sandwiched public indiscretions by William Gallas that cost the experienced Frenchman the club captaincy.

After that unwanted turmoil, a winning goal by substitute Nicklas Bendtner three minutes from full-time at the Emirates Stadium was just what the doctor ordered.

It sent Wenger's side through to the knockout stages of Europe's premier club competition, but just as significantly, it heralded a new beginning.

"This is the first step for us," said Wenger.

"It was what the team needs, reassurance, and this will give us that.

"We left it late. It was more a steady than spectacular performance, but it was important to win the game."

There was some controversy about the only goal, with Dynamo Kiev's players complaining that the ball was rolling when new Arsenal skipper Cesc Fabregas hit the long pass from which Nicklas Bendtner scored.

They would have had a point if it had been a free-kick - but it was a drop-ball, and Fabregas had merely reacted fastest.

Dynamo also felt that Bendtner controlled the pass with his hand, but Wenger was having none of that.

"The referee had two decisions to make on the goal," said Kiev coach Yuri Semin.

"We can't change anything. I just have to accept it and be very calm. Tomorrow, we can discuss that."

Wenger felt differently. "It was a great goal. It is not hand-ball. Watch it on the replay. He did not take it with his arm like they complained.

"A fantastic ball first from Fabregas, good control and a fine finish.

"I'm very happy for him. He [Bendtner] was a bit disturbed recently with a lack of confidence, but that will help give him confidence."

There were no obvious signs of any residual hostility from the Arsenal fans towards Gallas, and Wenger commented: "I believe his focus was great.

"He wanted to do well and you could see he was completely committed in the game.

"Overall, I feel he did well. The crowd responded well. Somewhere, they acknowledge that he was a committed captain and I was very happy that the crowd reacted in this way to him."

But Wenger was also happy with his new young skipper, Fabregas.

"He was very good for me," he said. "Focused for 90 minutes in the game, worked hard defensively and offensively.

"It was not easy in midfield because they closed us down very well. I expected them to go up a little bit in the second half, but they didn't."

Fabregas added: "We showed we are united and the performance was superb.

"It's fantastic to learn from them [previous Arsenal captains] and maybe do things they used to do. William as well."

New executive officer i Arsenal

2008-11-26T04:40:00.000-08:00

If ever there's a time for increased boardroom stability, it's now. Arsenal have been rocked by a form dip and a captaincy row which ended up with Cesc Fabregas taking the armband from William Gallas.

Add to that the shocking current financial climate, persistent rumours of an impending Arsenal takeover and the fast-approaching January transfer window and you understand the need for a new chief executive.

Thus, the club have appointed Ivan Gazidis in the role. Gazidis, 44, is currently the Deputy Commissioner of Major League Soccer, but has agreed to switch to the Emirates Stadium and will arrive in the New Year to belatedly replace departed vice-chairman David Dein, who had a similar role.

Gazidis also has experience of working on a global scale from his time heading up the innovative Soccer United Marketing between 2002 and 2006.

Arsenal Chairman Peter Hill-Wood confirmed via the club's official website: "Ivan’s credentials are first class. It is evident that he has a wealth of business acumen, together with a broad knowledge of football that will not only help to maintain Arsenal’s pre-eminent standing, but enhance our reputation within the football community and international commercial markets."

Ivan Gazidis himself stated: "I have been privileged throughout my 14 years with MLS. Now, I am delighted to be offered the opportunity to bring my experience to Arsenal - a club rich in heritage and tradition - that is superbly positioned for success in the modern era. I relish the prospect of working with the key stakeholders to further propel the club forward."

The chief exec saga was in danger of dragging on. The Gunners were rebuffed by Celtic CEO Peter Lawwell in September, with talks reportedly also breaking down with Vodaphone beak Paul Donovan and former Charlton chief executive Peter Varney.

The position is rumoured to be worth in excess of £1 million per year.

NOVEMBER 26th

2008-11-26T04:39:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1789	A day of thanksgiving was set aside by President George Washington to observe the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.
1825	The first college social fraternity, Kappa Alpha, was formed at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.
1832	Public streetcar service began in New York City.
1940	The half million Jews of Warsaw, Poland, were forced by the Nazis to live within a walled ghetto.
1942	"Casablanca," starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, had its world premiere at the Hollywood Theater in New York.
1949	India adopted a constitution as a republic within the British Commonwealth.
1950	China entered the Korean War, launching a counter-offensive against soldiers from the United Nations, the United States and South Korea.
1965	France launched its first satellite.
1968	Cream, rock's first supergroup, played their farewell concert at London's Royal Albert Hall. (The band reunited for seven shows in 2005.)
1973	President Richard Nixon's personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she'd accidentally caused part of the 18 1/2-minute gap in a key Watergate tape.
1975	A federal jury in Sacramento, Calif., found Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, guilty of trying to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford.
1992	The British government announced that Queen Elizabeth II had volunteered to start paying taxes on her personal income, and would take her children off the public payroll.
1998	Tony Blair gave the first speech ever by a British prime minister to an Irish parliament.
2000	Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified Republican George W. Bush the winner over Democrat Al Gore in the state's presidential balloting by 537 votes.

Article of the day

FDR establishes modern Thanksgiving holiday

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill officially establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

The tradition of celebrating the holiday on Thursday dates back to the early history of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, when post-harvest holidays were celebrated on the weekday regularly set aside as "Lecture Day," a midweek church meeting where topical sermons were presented. A famous Thanksgiving observance occurred in the autumn of 1621, when Plymouth governor William Bradford invited local Indians to join the Pilgrims in a three-day festival held in gratitude for the bounty of the season.

Thanksgiving became an annual custom throughout New England in the 17th century, and in 1777 the Continental Congress declared the first national American Thanksgiving following the Patriot victory at Saratoga. In 1789, President George Washington became the first president to proclaim a Thanksgiving holiday, when, at the request of Congress, he proclaimed November 26, a Tuesday, as a day of national thanksgiving for the U.S. Constitution. However, it was not until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving to fall on the last Thursday of November, that the modern holiday was celebrated nationally.

With a few deviations, Lincoln's precedent was followed annually by every subsequent president--until 1939. In 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt departed from tradition by declaring November 23, the next to last Thursday that year, as Thanksgiving Day. Considerable controversy surrounded this deviation, and some Americans refused to honor Roosevelt's declaration. For the next two years, Roosevelt repeated the unpopular proclamation, but on November 26, 1941, he admitted his mistake and signed a bill into law officially making the fourth Thursday in November the national holiday of Thanksgiving Day.

Today Birthdays

Natasha Bedingfield turns 27 years old today.

AP Photo/Peter Kramer Singer Natasha Bedingfield turns 27 years old today.

90	Ellen Albertini Dow Actress
70	Samuel Bodman Secretary of energy
70	Porter Goss Former CIA director
70	Rich Little Comedian
69	Tina Turner Rock singer
63	John McVie Rock musician (Fleetwood Mac)
62	Art Shell Football Hall of Famer
55	Harry Carson Football Hall of Famer
49	Jamie Rose Actress
46	Linda Davis Country singer
43	Bernard Allison Blues musician
43	Steve Grisaffe Country musician
35	Kristin Bauer Actress
35	Peter Facinelli Actor
32	Maia Campbell Actress
32	Joe Nichols Country singer
28	Jessica Bowman Actress
23	Lil Fizz R&B singer
21	Aubrey Collins Country singer

NOVEMBER 25th

2008-11-25T02:56:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1783	The British evacuated New York, their last military position in the United States, during the Revolutionary War.
1835	Industrialist Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland.
1881	Pope John XXIII was born Angelo Roncalli near Bergamo, Italy.
1914	Baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio was born in Martinez, Calif.
1944	Baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis died at age 78.
1947	Movie studio executives meeting in New York agreed to blacklist the "Hollywood 10," who were cited a day earlier and jailed for contempt of Congress for failing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
1957	President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a slight stroke.
1963	The body of President John F. Kennedy was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
1973	Greek President George Papadopoulos was ousted in a bloodless military coup.
1974	Former U.N. Secretary-General U Thant died at age 65.
1987	Chicago Mayor Harold Washington died after suffering a heart attack in his City Hall office.
1999	Six-year-old Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez was rescued by a pair of sport fishermen off the coast of Florida.
2001	CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann was killed during a prison uprising in Mazar-e-Sharif, becoming America's first combat casualty of the conflict in Afghanistan.
2002	President George W. Bush signed legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security and appointed Tom Ridge to be its head.
2003	The Senate gave final congressional approval to historic Medicare legislation combining a new prescription drug benefit with measures to control costs before the baby boom generation reaches retirement age.
2003	Yemen arrested Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal, a top al-Qaida member suspected of masterminding the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker off Yemen's coast.
2006	New York City police officers shot an unarmed man to death outside a bar in Queens in the early morning hours of his wedding day.
2006	Israel and the Palestinians agreed to a cease-fire to end a five-month Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip and the firing of rockets by Palestinian militants into the Jewish state.

Article of the day

Mousetrap opens in London

"The Mousetrap," a murder-mystery written by the novelist and playwright Agatha Christie, opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. The crowd-pleasing whodunit would go on to become the longest continuously running play in history, with more than 10 million people to date attending its more than 20,000 performances in London's West End.

When "The Mousetrap" premiered in 1952, Winston Churchill was British prime minister, Joseph Stalin was Soviet ruler, and Dwight D. Eisenhower was president-elect. Christie, already a hugely successful English mystery novelist, originally wrote the drama for Queen Mary, wife of the late King George V. Initially called "Three Blind Mice," it debuted as a 30-minute radio play on the queen's 80th birthday in 1947. Christie later extended the play and renamed it "The Mousetrap"--a reference to the play-within-a-play performed in William Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

On November 25, 1952, 453 people took their seats in the Ambassadors Theatre for the London premiere of Christie's "Mousetrap." The drama is played out at "Monkswell Manor," whose hosts and guests are snowed in among radio reports of a murderer on the loose. Soon a detective shows up on skis with the terrifying news that the murderer, and probably the next victim, are likely both among their number. Soon the clues and false leads pile as high as the snow. At every curtain call, the individual who has been revealed as the murderer steps forward and tells the audience that they are "partners in crime" and should "keep the secret of the whodunit locked in their heart."

Richard Attenborough and his wife, Sheila Sim, were the first stars of "The Mousetrap." To date, more than 300 actors and actresses have appeared in the roles of the eight characters. David Raven, who played "Major Metcalf" for 4,575 performances, is in the "Guinness Book of World Records" as the world's most durable actor, while Nancy Seabrooke is noted as the world's most patient understudy for 6,240 performances, or 15 years, as the substitute for "Mrs. Boyle."

"The Mousetrap" is not considered Christie's best play, and a prominent stage director once declared that "'The Mousetrap'" should be abolished by an act of Parliament." Nevertheless, the show's popularity has not waned. Asked about its enduring appeal, Christie said, "It is the sort of play you can take anyone to. It is not really frightening. It is not really horrible. It is not really a farce, but it has a little bit of all these things, and perhaps that satisfies a lot of different people." In 1974, after almost 9,000 shows, the play was moved to St. Martin's Theatre, where it remains today. Agatha Christie, who wrote scores of best-selling mystery novels, died in 1976.

Today Birthdays

Christina Applegate turns 37 years old today.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini Actress Christina Applegate ("Samantha Who?" "Married ... With Children") turns 37 years old today.

88	Ricardo Montalban Actor ("Fantasy Island")
88	Noel Neill Actress
75	Kathryn Crosby Actress
72	Matt Clark Actor
68	Joe Gibbs Hall of Fame football coach
68	Percy Sledge R&B singer
64	Bob Lind Singer
64	Ben Stein Actor, game show host
61	Jonathan Kaplan Director
61	John Larroquette Actor ("Night Court")
56	John Lynch Governor of New Hampshire
48	Amy Grant Country-gospel singer
44	Eric Grossman Rock musician (K's Choice)
44	Mark Lanegan Rock singer
43	Tim Armstrong Rock musician (Rancid)
42	Stacy Lattisaw R&B singer
42	Rodney Sheppard Rock musician (Sugar Ray)
40	Erick Sermon Rapper, producer
39	Jill Hennessy Actress ("Crossing Jordan," "Law and Order")
35	Eddie Steeples Actor
32	Donovan McNabb Football player
27	Barbara Bush Daughter of President George W. Bush
27	Jenna Bush Daughter of President George W. Bush

NOVEMBER 24th

2008-11-24T03:12:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1784	Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States, was born in Orange County, Va.
1859	British naturalist Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species," which explained his theory of evolution.
1871	The National Rifle Association was incorporated.
1925	Conservative author and editor William F. Buckley Jr. was born in New York.
1947	A group of writers, producers and directors that became known as the "Hollywood 10" was cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions about alleged Communist influence in the movie industry.
1950	The musical "Guys and Dolls," based on the writings of Damon Runyon and featuring songs by Frank Loesser, opened on Broadway.
1969	Apollo 12 returned to Earth after the second manned mission to the moon.
1971	Hijacker D.B. Cooper parachuted from a Northwest Airlines 727 over Washington state with $200,000 in ransom. His fate remains unknown.
1985	The hijacking of an Egyptair jetliner parked on the ground in Malta ended with 60 deaths when Egyptian commandos stormed the plane; two of the dead were shot by the hijackers.
1987	The United States and the Soviet Union agreed to scrap shorter- and medium-range missiles in the first superpower treaty to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.
1989	Czechoslovakia's hard-line party leadership resigned after more than a week of protests against its policies.
1991	Rock singer Freddie Mercury of Queen died at age 45 of pneumonia brought on by AIDS.
1992	Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger pleaded innocent to making a false statement in the Iran-Contra affair.
1998	America Online confirmed it was buying Netscape Communications in a deal ultimately worth $10 billion.
2000	The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider George W. Bush's appeal against the hand recounting of presidential ballots in Florida.
2003	A jury in Virginia Beach, Va., sentenced John Allen Muhammad to death for the Washington-area sniper shootings.

Article of the day

Origin of Species is published

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a groundbreaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England. Darwin's theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called "natural selection." In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species.

Darwin, who was influenced by the work of French naturalist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and the English economist Thomas Mathus, acquired most of the evidence for his theory during a five-year surveying expedition aboard the HMS Beagle in the 1830s. Visiting such diverse places as the Galapagos Islands and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, and geology of many lands. This information, along with his studies in variation and interbreeding after returning to England, proved invaluable in the development of his theory of organic evolution.

The idea of organic evolution was not new. It had been suggested earlier by, among others, Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin, a distinguished English scientist, and Lamarck, who in the early 19th century drew the first evolutionary diagram--a ladder leading from one-celled organisms to man. However, it was not until Darwin that science presented a practical explanation for the phenomenon of evolution.

Darwin had formulated his theory of natural selection by 1844, but he was wary to reveal his thesis to the public because it so obviously contradicted the biblical account of creation. In 1858, with Darwin still remaining silent about his findings, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace independently published a paper that essentially summarized his theory. Darwin and Wallace gave a joint lecture on evolution before the Linnean Society of London in July 1858, and Darwin prepared On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection for publication.

Published on November 24, 1859, Origin of Species sold out immediately. Most scientists quickly embraced the theory that solved so many puzzles of biological science, but orthodox Christians condemned the work as heresy. Controversy over Darwin's ideas deepened with the publication of The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), in which he presented evidence of man's evolution from apes.

By the time of Darwin's death in 1882, his theory of evolution was generally accepted. In honor of his scientific work, he was buried in Westminster Abbey beside kings, queens, and other illustrious figures from British history. Subsequent developments in genetics and molecular biology led to modifications in accepted evolutionary theory, but Darwin's ideas remain central to the field.

Today Birthdays

Katherine Heigl turns 30 years old today.

AP Photo/Chris Weeks Actress Katherine Heigl ("Grey's Anatomy") turns 30 years old today.

73	Ron Dellums Former U.S. Rep., D-Calif.
70	Oscar Robertson Bsaketball Hall of Famer
68	Johnny Carver Country singer
67	Pete Best Rock musician
67	Donald "Duck" Dunn Rock musician (Booker T. and the MG's)
66	Billy Connolly Actor, comedian
66	Marlin Fitzwater Former White House press secretary
64	Dan Glickman President of the Motion Picture Association of America
63	Lee Michaels Rock singer
61	Dwight Schultz Actor
58	Stanley Livingston Actor ("My Three Sons")
53	Clem Burke Rock musician (Blondie)
52	Terry Lewis Record producer
52	Ruben Santiago-Hudson Actor
51	Denise Crosby Actress
46	Shae D'Lyn Actress
46	John Squire Rock musician (The Stone Roses)
46	Gary Stonadge Rock musician (Big Audio)
44	Garret Dillahunt Actor
38	Chad Taylor Rock musician (Live)
37	Lola Glaudini Actress
31	Colin Hanks Actor

NOVEMBER 23rd

2008-11-23T04:32:00.000-08:00

On this date in:
1765	Frederick County, Md., repudiated the British Stamp Act.
1804	Franklin Pierce, the 14th president of the United States, was born in Hillsboro, N.H.
1889	The jukebox made its debut, at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco.
1903	Singer Enrico Caruso made his American debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, appearing in "Rigoletto."
1936	Life magazine, created by Henry R. Luce, was first published.
1945	Most U.S. wartime rationing of foods, including meat and butter, ended.
1954	The Dow Jones industrial average finally surpassed its pre-crash high - 25 years after Black Tuesday - when it closed at 382.74.
1971	The People's Republic of China was seated in the U.N. Security Council.
1980	A series of earthquakes devastated southern Italy, killing some 2,600 people.
2000	In a setback for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, the Florida Supreme Court refused to order Miami-Dade County to resume counting ballots by hand.
2001	An Israeli helicopter fired two missiles at a van in the West Bank, killing Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, a leading member of the Islamic militant Hamas group.
2003	Eduard Shevardnadze resigned as president of Georgia in the face of protests.
2004	Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko declared himself the winner of Ukraine's disputed presidential election and took a symbolic oath of office.
2006	Former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko died in London from radiation poisoning after making a deathbed statement blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Article of the day

First issue of Life is published

On November 23, 1936, the first issue of the pictorial magazine Life is published, featuring a cover photo of the Fort Peck Dam by Margaret Bourke-White.

Life actually had its start earlier in the 20th century as a different kind of magazine: a weekly humor publication, not unlike today's The New Yorker in its use of tart cartoons, humorous pieces and cultural reporting. When the original Life folded during the Great Depression, the influential American publisher Henry Luce bought the name and re-launched the magazine as a picture-based periodical on this day in 1936. By this time, Luce had already enjoyed great success as the publisher of Time, a weekly news magazine.

From his high school days, Luce was a newsman, serving with his friend Briton Hadden as managing editors of their school newspaper. This partnership continued through their college years at Yale University, where they acted as chairmen and managing editors of the Yale Daily News, as well as after college, when Luce joined Hadden at The Baltimore News in 1921. It was during this time that Luce and Hadden came up with the idea for Time. When it launched in 1923, it was with the intention of delivering the world's news through the eyes of the people who made it.

Whereas the original mission of Time was to tell the news, the mission of Life was to show it. In the words of Luce himself, the magazine was meant to provide a way for the American people "to see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events ... to see things thousands of miles away ... to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed ... to see, and to show ..." Luce set the tone of the magazine with Margaret Bourke-White's stunning cover photograph of the Fort Peck Dam, which has since become an icon of the 1930s and the great public works completed under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

Life was an overwhelming success in its first year of publication. Almost overnight, it changed the way people looked at the world by changing the way people could look at the world. Its flourish of images painted vivid pictures in the public mind, capturing the personal and the public, and putting it on display for the world to take in. At its peak, Life had a circulation of over 8 million and it exerted considerable influence on American life in the beginning and middle of the 20th century.

With picture-heavy content as the driving force behind its popularity,the magazine suffered as television became society's predominant means of communication. Life ceased running as a weekly publication in 1972, when it began losing audience and advertising dollars to television. In 2004, however, it resumed weekly publication as a supplement to U.S. newspapers. At its re-launch, its combined circulation was once again in the millions.

Today Birthdays

Charles Schumer turns 58 years old today.

AP Photo/Brendan Hoffman Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., turns 58 years old today.

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