Picture of the Day
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Thomas Nast's Santa Claus German-born illustrator Thomas Nast, widely recognized as the father of political cartooning, is also responsible for our modern-day concept of Santa Claus. Nast, who came to the United States from Germany at age 6, received his …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
1914 Christmas Eve Truce World War I was only months old on Christmas Eve 1914 when an extraordinary unofficial truce occurred in many places along the Western Front. 'We were all moved and felt quite melancholy,' wrote one German soldier, …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Madam C.J. Walker Entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker was the first black American woman millionaire. She was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867, to former slaves on a Louisiana cotton plantation. In 1906 she married Charles Joseph Walker, who became …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Rachel Jackson Dies Rachel Jackson, beloved wife of Andrew Jackson, died of heart disease on December 22, 1828, just weeks before her recently elected husband was inaugurated as president of the United States. This portrait of her was painted in …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Fetterman Massacre U.S. Army Captain William J. Fetterman once boasted, 'Give me 80 men and I'll march through the whole Sioux nation!' On December 21, 1866, when Lakota warriors under the overall leadership of Chief Red Cloud gathered around Fort …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Slater's Mill In Pawtucket, Rhode Island, 23-year-old British subject Samuel Slater began production of the first American spinning mill in December 1790. The British jealously guarded their technological superiority in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, making it illegal …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Jane Austen
Best known for her novels Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Emma and Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen was born in Steventon, England, on December 16, 1775, to well-educated parents who encouraged reading and …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol On December 19, 1843, British author Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, the delightful tale of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and his miraculous Yuletide transformation. Although the story was conceived and written in only a …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
The First Powered Flight by the Wright Brothers On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright made the first powered, controlled and sustained flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina–ushering in a new era in world history. Orville, shown here lying prone at …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
The Boston Tea Party
On December 16, 1773, Massachusetts revolutionary Samuel Adams' Sons of Liberty, crudely dressed as Indians and plied with rum, boarded British East India Tea Company ships anchored in Boston Harbor and tossed the tea overboard to …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Glenn Miller Disappears Over the English Channel On December 15, 1944, Army Air Force Band leader and trombonist Glenn Miller boarded a single-engine C-64 Norseman in England for a flight to France, where he was to make arrangements for a …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Millions of Africans were torn from their homelands, herded into ships and sold in the New World for more than 300 years. Perhaps the cruelest part of the Atlantic slave trade was the weeks-long sea crossing, or the so-called Middle …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Alvin York
Corporal Alvin C. York of Wolf River Valley, Tennessee, was born on December 13, 1887. York was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism during World War I's Argonne Offensive. York was …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Radio Innovator Guglielmo Marconi
Italian scientist and engineer Guglielmo Marconi received the first long-distance radio transmission in St. John's, Newfoundland, on December 12, 1901. Electrical engineer John Ambrose Fleming transmitted the Morse code signal for 's' from across the Atlantic …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Pierre and Marie Curie awarded the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to Pierre and Marie Curie and fellow physicist Henri Becquerel on December 10, 1903, for their work with radioactivity. Marie Curie, the first woman to …
Published: June 12, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne
Edward VIII had been king of Great Britain and Ireland for less than a year when he abdicated the throne on December 11, 1936, to marry 'the woman I love,'–the twice-divorced American Wallis Warfield …
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