Category: Today

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 transfering 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.

December 16 birthdays include that of Léon Walras, French economist and founder of the Lausanne School of Economics, son of Auguste Walras, French economist. Léon Walras’s mathematical approach to the science, and his conception of a general equilibrium, became the dominant approach to economics in the 20th century. Walras was, himself, something like a Georgist free trader. Another, somewhat less important French economist, Fran&ccedois Quesnay, was earlier born on the same December day in 1774.

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 (and the enabling 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 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 Harmony 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).

On December 9, 1958, the John Birch Society was founded in the United States. December 9 marks the birthdays of

• poet and anti-censorship advocate John Milton, author of “Paradise Lost” (1608) and “Areopagitica” (1644)
• Russian prince and anarchist theoretician Peter Kropotkin (1842), author of “Mutual Aid”
• actor John Malkovitch (1953), director and star of “The Dancer Upstairs” as well as eponymous actor/character of “Being John Malkovich”

On December 8, 1927, one of the United States’ oldest think tanks was founded through the merger of three organizations that had been created by philanthropist Robert S. Brookings. Called the Brookings Institution, it would provide a blueprint for future work by research and advocacy organizations in the modern era.

On this date in 1974, a plebiscite abolished the monarchy in Greece.

On December 7, 1776, the Marquis de Lafayette arranged to enter the American military as a major general. On the same date in 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.

The 1941 date marks, of course, “the day that will live in infamy,” when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.