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.
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.
Though a much-discussed principle of American foreign policy, it was undermined by the Spanish-American War and proved a dead letter as the U.S. entered World War I.
The “Stolen Election” of 1824: Since no candidate had received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives was given the task, on December 1, 1824, of deciding the winner of that year’s presidential race in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The congressional vote took place on February 9, 1825 — the only time in U.S. election history that Congress decided an election in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment.
Democratic candidate Andrew Jackson was none too pleased about Congress’s selection of John Quincy Adams over himself, despite his winning the greatest number of popular and Electoral College votes. He charged Henry Clay and Adams with having struck a “Corrupt Bargain,” and campaigned for four years on the grievance of a “stolen election.”
On November 30, 1782, representatives from the United States and Great Britain signed preliminary peace articles, drafted in Paris, France. These were later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris.
On November 29, 1963, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson established, with Executive Order 11130, the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He named the following men to head the research panel:
Note that one of these men had been fired by the assassinated president as Director of the CIA, and hated JFK’s guts, while another went on to become the only president of the United States to enter office having received no votes in the Electoral College, or any popular votes on a federal-level ticket.
On November 28, 1893, women voted for the first time in New Zealand’s parliamentary election.