more events on December 12
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2000
The US Supreme Court announces its decision in Bush v. Gore, effectively ending legal changes to the results of that year’s Presidential election.
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1995
Willie Brown beats incumbent mayor Frank Jordon to become the first African-American mayor of San Francisco.
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1991
The Russian Federation becomes independent from the USSR.
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1985
Arrow Air Flight 1285 crashes after takeoff at Gander, Newfoundland; among the 256 dead are 236 members of the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division.
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1979
South Korean Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan, acting without authorization from President Choi Kyu-ha, orders the arrest of Army Chief of Staff General Jeong Seung-hwa, alleging that the chief of staff was involved in the assassination of ex-President Park Chung Hee.
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1967
The United States ends the airlift of 6,500 men in Vietnam.
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1964
Three Buddhist leaders begin a hunger strike to protest the government in Saigon.
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Kenya becomes a republic.
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1956
The United Nations calls for immediate Soviet withdrawal from Hungary.
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1952
Cathy Rigby, gymnast, actress.
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1943
Grover Washington Jr, singer, songwriter, musician, producer.
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The exiled Czech government signs a treaty with the Soviet Union for postwar cooperation.
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The German Army launches Operation Winter Tempest, the relief of the Sixth Army trapped in Stalingrad.
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1940
Dionne Warwick, singer, actress.
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1938
Connie Francis, singer.
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1931
Under pressure from the Communists in Canton, Chiang Kai-shek resigns as president of the Nanking Government but remains the head of the Nationalist government that holds nominal rule over most of China.
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1930
The last Allied troops withdraw from the Saar region in Germany.
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The Spanish Civil War begins as rebels take a border town.
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1929
John Osbourne, playwright and film producer (Look Back in Anger).
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1928
Helen Frankenthaler, abstract painter.
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1927
Robert Norton Noyce, co-inventor of the integrated circuit.
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Communists forces seize Canton, China.
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1915
Frank Sinatra, American pop singer and actor.
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1912
Henry Jackson Jr, boxer using the name Henry Armstrong, the only fighter to hold 3 professional boxing titles simultaneously.
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1901
Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio transmission in St. John’s Newfoundland.
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1897
Lillian Smith, Southern writer and civil rights activist.
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1893
Edward G. Robinson, actor famous for gangster roles.
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1863
Edvard Munch, Norwegian artist (The Scream).
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Orders are given in Richmond, Virginia, that no more supplies from the Union should be received by Federal prisoners.
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1862
The Union loses its first ship to a torpedo, USS Cairo, in the Yazoo River.
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1821
Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (Madame Bovary, A Simple Heart).
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1805
William Lloyd Garrison, American abolitionist who published The Liberator.
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1770
The British soldiers responsible for the "Boston Massacre" are acquitted on murder charges.
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1753
George Washington, the adjutant of Virginia, delivers an ultimatum to the French forces at Fort Le Boeuf, south of Lake Erie, reiterating Britain’s claim to the entire Ohio River valley.
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1745
John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who negotiated treaties for the United States.