Category: Today

On Dec. 27, 1657, thirty non-Quakers signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition to Peter Stuyvesant, Director-General of the New Netherland colony requesting an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship. In 1663, the Dutch West India Company informed Stuyvesant to end religious persecution in the colony, which was the northeast Atlantic coast, including what is now New York City. The petition is considered a precursor to the First Amendment’s provision guaranteeing freedom of religion.

On Dec. 25, 1776, just before midnight, General George Washington crossed the icy Delaware River with 5,400 troops, surprising a Hessian mercenary force early the next morning, Dec. 26. Washington’s men captured close to 1,000 Hessians still groggy from Christmas festivities, and the military triumph provided a much needed boost to morale after months of military defeats.

On Dec. 24, 1745, Benjamin Rush was born. Rush founded Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and signed the Declaration of Independence. A physician, writer, educator, and humanitarian, he was also an early opponent of slavery and capital punishment. Dr. Rush may be most famous today for reconciling the friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams by encouraging the two former Presidents to resume writing to each other.

On Dec. 23, 1783, General George Washington resigned his commission as commander in chief of the Continental Army, following the signing of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War, and retired to his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia. Many people at the time wanted Washington to become the new king. His quick resignation of his military post helped fortify the republican foundations of the new nation.

On Dec. 22, 1990, Polish labor leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa was sworn in as the first non-communist president of Poland since the end of World War II, a decade after he took over the leadership of a 1980 strike of shipyard workers in Gdansk.

A year earlier, on Dec. 22, 1989, the government of Romania’s communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown after the army defected to the cause of anti-communist demonstrators, ending 42 years of communist rule.

On Dec. 21, 1603, Roger Williams was born in London. Williams became an early proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. In 1636, he began the colony of Providence Plantation (Rhode Island), which provided a refuge for religious minorities. Williams started the first Baptist church in America. He was also a student of Native American languages and an advocate for fair dealings with Native Americans.