On December 13, 1577, Sir Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.
In 1623 on this date, the Plymouth Colony in North America established a system of trial by 12-men jury.
On December 13, 1972, astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt began the third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or “Moonwalk” of Apollo 17. To this date in 2025 they remain the last humans to set foot on the Moon.
On December 12, 1787, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
On the same date in 1870, Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina became the first former slave elected to serve in the United States House of Representatives. His father had emancipated him as a child, and he had worked as a barber before the Civil War.
On December 11, 1792, King Louis XVI of France was put on trial for treason by the National Convention of the new, revolutionary, République française. His name had been de-sacralized to Citizen Louis Capet, and he was found guilty and then executed in January of the next year . . . by decapitation.
On December 10, 1884, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was first published. This novel, narrated in the first person by the title character, is a dark comedy of the antebellum South and slavery, and has been considered by more than one literary critic as the “Great American Novel.”
On this date in 1901, the first Nobel Peace Prizes were awarded — to economist Frédéric Passy, co-founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Union; and to Henry Dunant the founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Passy was an admirer of Richard Cobden and an active member in the French Liberal School of Political Economy that developed in the tradition of J. B. Say, Destutt de Tracy, and Frédéric Bastiat. His published works include Leçons d’économie politique (1860-61); La Démocratie et l’Instruction (1864); L’Histoire du Travail (1873); Malthus et sa Doctrine (1868); and La Solidarité du Travail et du Capital (1875).
On December 9, 1958, the John Birch Society was founded in the United States. December 9 also marks the birthdays of
On December 8, 1974, a plebiscite finalized the abolition of the monarchy in Greece. The last Greek king, Constantine II, had ceased any royal pretensions while in exile on June 1. The December referendum was something of a formality.
On December 7, 1972, Apollo 17 launched, the last of the Apollo Moon missions. Later that day, one of the astronauts — either Ron Evans or Harrison Schmitt — snapped the photo that would later become famous as “The Blue Marble.”
On December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, banning slavery in all states and territories.
One-hundred-and-nineteen years later, to the day, in 1984, Paul Jacob (of ThisIsCommonSense.org, LibertyiFund.org, and the Citizens in Charge Foundation) was arrested by the FBI for his refusal to register with Selective Service System (the draft people). The Government was probably not attempting to make a commemorative point about involuntary servitude.
On December 5, 1933, nationwide alcohol Prohibition in the United States ended after Utah became the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75 percent of states needed to enact the amendment that overturned the 18th.
On December 4, 1783, at Fraunces Tavern in New York City, General George Washington formally bade his officers farewell.