On December 19, 1776, Tom Paine published one of a series of pamphlets in the Pennsylvania Journal titled The American Crisis. Exactly one year later, George Washington’s Continental Army went into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
On December 19, 1828, Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun penned the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828, a key moment in what became known as the Nullification Crisis.
On December 18, 1777, the United States celebrated its first official Thanksgiving, marking the recent October victory by the Americans over General John Burgoyne in the Battle of Saratoga.
On December 17, 1777, France formally recognized the United States of America. The 17th of December, 1819, was the day Simon Bolivar declared the independence of the Republic of Gran Colombia in Angostura.
On December 16, 1689, the Convention Parliament began, not only transferring power from one king to another, but establishing procedures and rights into the British Constitution, both of which were copied in the United States of America a century later, with the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
On December 15, 1791, the United States Bill of Rights became federal law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly. On December 15 in 1933, the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially became effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment (which had enabled the Volstead Act) that had prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol.
December 15 birthdays include that of Pehr Evind Svinhufvud af Qvalstad, 1861, first head of state of independent Finland, strongly anti-Communist.
On December 14, 1819, Alabama became the 22nd state of these United States. On the same December date in 1918, Friedrich Karl von Hessen, a German prince elected by the Parliament of Finland to become King Väinö I, renounced the Finnish throne. In 1939, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland and starting the Winter War.
On December 13, 1920, American economist, statesman, and 60th United States Secretary of State George Shultz was born.
On December 12, 1939, Finnish forces defeated those of the Soviet Union in the first major victory of what became known as the Winter War, the Battle of Tolvajärvi.
December 12th birthdays include:
* Erasmus Darwin (1731) – English physician, slave trade abolitionist, inventor and poet
* John Jay (1745) — First Chief Justice of the United States
* William Lloyd Garrison (1805) — American abolitionist, editor of The Liberator
On December 11, 1957, American cartoonist and Reason magazine contributor Peter Bagge was born.
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 many American critics and writers to qualify as the “Great American Novel.”
On this date in 1901, the first Nobel Peace Prizes are awarded, to French Liberal School economist Frédéric Passy, co-founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and Henry Dunant the founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Passy was an admirer of 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, Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer, and Frederic Bastiat. His published works include “De la Propriété Intellectuelle” (1859); “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).