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.
On Dec. 20, 1946, the film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, was first released in New York City. In its initial run, the film did not make a profit. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, though it did not win one. Today, the film is considered a classic and watched around the world at Christmas time.
On Dec. 19, 1776, Thomas Paine published the first in a series of pamphlets in the Pennsylvania Journal titled “The American Crisis.” Paine’s popular pamphlet, “Common Sense,” released in January of ’76, called for the separation from Britain accomplished that July through the Declaration of Independence.
On Dec. 19, 1777, George Washington’s Continental Army went into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
One year ago, on Dec. 18, 2010, protests broke out in Tunisia following Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation death in protest of police corruption and ill treatment. This began what came to be known as the Arab Spring, protests throughout the Arab world and the toppling of regimes in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.
On Dec. 18, 1620, the British ship Mayflower docked at modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, and its passengers prepared to begin their new settlement, Plymouth Colony.
On Dec. 18, 1777, the United States celebrated its first national day of thanksgiving, commemorating the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777.
On Dec 17, 1777, France officially recognized the United States of America as an independent nation. News of the Continental Army’s victory against the British at Saratoga in October reached France in early December, giving Benjamin Franklin new leverage in rallying French support for the American rebels.
On Dec. 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. The biplane stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. The Wright Brothers received no federal funding.
On Dec. 17, 1991, after a meeting between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin, a Yeltsin spokesman announced that the Soviet Union would officially cease to exist by New Year’s Eve.