EVENTS
- 1865 – The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed. The Amendment, which officially abolished slavery, was adopted on December 6, 1865.
- 1865 – General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief over the Confederate army.
- 1936 – The Green Hornet radio show debuts.
- 1943 – German troops surrendered at Stalingrad, marking the first big defeat of Hitler’s armies in World War II. During the Battle of Stalingrad, 160,000 Germans were killed and 90,000 taken prisoner, including the commander, Friedrich von Paulus, the first German field marshal ever to surrender. The captured Germans were forced to march to Siberia, with few ever returning to Germany.
- 1945 – Eddie Slovik, a 24-year-old U.S. Army private, was executed by a firing squad after being sentenced to death for desertion, the first such occurrence in the U.S. Army since the Civil War.
- 1958 – Explorer I becomes the first successful American satellite.
- 1961 – Ham the Chimp travels into outer space.
- 1990 – The first McDonald’s opens in Moscow, Russia.
- 1996 – A suicide bombing in Sri Lanka kills 91 people. Separatist Tamil Tigers detonated a truck loaded with explosives in front of the central bank in Colombo.
- 2000 – Alaska Airlines flight 261 crashes into the sea. The MD-83 experienced horizontal stabilizer problems before descending into the Pacific Ocean, killing all 88 on board.
- 2011 – Myanmar’s first elected parliament in half a century convenes. The event underlined a general move towards democracy in the country.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1797 – Franz Schubert (Austrian composer)
- 1919 – Jackie Robinson (Baseball Player)
- 1931 – Ernie Banks (Baseball Player)
- 1937 – Philip Glass (American composer)
- 1947 – Nolan Ryan (Baseball Player)
- 1971 – Minnie Driver (Actress)
- 1975 – Preity Zinta (Indian actress)
- 1981 – Justin Timberlake (Singer)
- 1982 – Elena Paparizou (Greek/Swedish singer-songwriter)
DEATHS
- 1606 – Guy Fawkes (English soldier, planned the Gunpowder Plot)
- 1888 – John Bosco (Italian priest, educator)
- 1954 – Edwin Armstrong (American engineer, invented FM radio)
- 1956 – A. A. Milne (English author)
- 1969 – Meher Baba (Indian mystic)