*1492* Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Santo Domingo in search of gold.
*1776* Phi Beta Kappa, the first scholastic fraternity, is founded at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg.
*1812* The majority of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armeé staggers into Vilna, Lithuania, ending the failed Russian campaign.
*1861* Union General George G. Meade leads a foraging expedition to Gunnell's farm near Dranesville, Virginia.
*1862* President Abraham Lincoln orders the hanging of 39 of the 303 convicted Indians who participated in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. They are to be hanged on December 26.
*1863* The monitor Weehawken sinks in Charleston Harbor.
*1865* The 13th Amendment is ratified, abolishing slavery.
*1876* Jack McCall is convicted for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok and sentenced to hang.
*1877* *Thomas A. Edison makes the first sound recording when he recites "Mary had a Little Lamb" into his phonograph machine.*
*1906* Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge flies a powered, man-carrying kite that carries him 168 feet in the air for seven minutes at Baddeck, Nova Scotia.
*1917* The Bolsheviks imprison Czar Nicholas II and his family in Tobolsk.
*1921* Ireland's 26 southern counties become independent from Britain forming the Irish Free State.
*1922* Benito Mussolini threatens Italian newspapers with censorship if they keep reporting "false" information.
*1934* American Ambassador Davis says Japan is a grave security threat in the Pacific.
*1938* France and Germany sign a treaty of friendship.
*1939* Britain agrees to send arms to Finland, which is fighting off a Soviet invasion.
*1941* President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues a personal appeal to Emperor Hirohito to use his influence to avoid war.
*1945* The United States extends a $3 billion loan to Great Britain to help compensate for the termination of the Lend-Lease agreement.
*1947* Florida's Everglades National Park is established.
*1948* The "Pumpkin Spy Papers" are found on the Maryland farm of Whittaker Chambers. They become evidence that State Department employee Alger Hiss is spying for the Soviet Union.
*1957* Vanguard TV3 explodes on the launchpad, thwarting the first US attempt to launch a satellite into Earth's orbit.
*1967* *Adrian Kantrowitz performs first human heart transplant in the US.*
*1969* Hells Angels, hired to provide security at a Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway in California, beat to death concert-goer Meredith Hunter.
*1971* *Pakistan severs diplomatic relations with India after New Delhi recognizes the state of Bangladesh.*
*1973* US House of Representatives confirms Gerald Ford as Vice-President of the United States, 387–35.
*1975* A Provisional IRA unit takes a couple hostage in Balcombe Street, London, and a 6-day siege begins.
*1976* Democrat Tip O'Neill is elected speaker of the House of Representatives. He will serve the longest consecutive term as speaker.
*1992* The Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India, is destroyed during a riot that started as a political protest.
*2006* NASA reveals photographs from Mars Global Surveyor that suggest the presence of water on the red planet.

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