On December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, banning slavery in all states and territories. On 1917 on this date, Finland declared independence from Russia.
Vladimir Nabokov completed his controversial novel “Lolita” on the Sixth of December in 1953, and would soon find himself embroiled in censorship and related publishing difficulties, though with no trouble in the United States when it was eventually published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in 1958.
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.
On December 3, 1989, the leaders of the two world superpowers, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, declared an end to the Cold War, at a summit in Malta. A little over two years later not only had the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union was itself dissolved.
On December 2, 1823, U.S. President James Monroe delivered a speech establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts. The policy became known as the Monroe Doctrine.
On December 1, 1824, with neither John Quincy Adams nor Andrew Jackson (pictured) receiving a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives was given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The House selected Adams.
On November 30, 1804, the United States House of Representatives began impeachment hearings against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. The House thought he was too partisan, too “Federalist.” The Senate later acquitted Chase.
On 1835 on this date, Samuel Clemens was born, later to achieve world fame as author and humorist Mark Twain.
Irish-English medievalist, theologian, and fantasy writer Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898.
On November 28, 1893, women voted in a national election for the first time . . . in New Zealand. On the same date in 1917, the Estonian Provincial Assembly declared itself the sovereign power of Estonia. November 28 also marks the independence of Mauritania from France (1960), and East Timor from Portugal.
In 1894, on November 28, economics journalist Henry Hazlitt was born. Halitt went on to write “Economics in One Lesson,” “Time Will Run Back,” and several books criticizing Keynesianism. He was the main proponent of the work of Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek in America during the 1940s and 1950s.
November 27, 1295, the first elected representatives from Lancashire were called to Westminster by King Edward I to attend what later became known as “The Model Parliament.” On the same date in 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, thereby establishing the Nobel Prizes.