Today is Tuesday, Dec. 6, the 341st day of 2016. There are 25 days left in the year.
Today’s highlights:
On Dec. 6, 1889, Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, died in New Orleans. The Mark Twain novel “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” was first published in England under the title “A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur.”
On this date:
In 1790, Congress moved to Philadelphia from New York.
In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified as Georgia became the 27th state to endorse it.
In 1907, the worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, West Virginia.
In 1917, some 2,000 people died when an explosives-laden French cargo ship collided with a Norwegian vessel at the harbor in Halifax, Nova Scotia, setting off a blast that devastated the city.
In 1922, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which established the Irish Free State, came into force one year to the day after it was signed in London.
In 1947, Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Harry S. Truman.
In 1957, America’s first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit failed as Vanguard TV3 rose about four feet off a Cape Canaveral launch pad before crashing down and exploding.
In 1969, a free concert by The Rolling Stones at the Altamont Speedway in Alameda County, California, was marred by the deaths of four people, including one who was stabbed by a Hell’s Angel.
In 1973, House minority leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew.
In 1989, 14 women were shot to death at the University of Montreal’s school of engineering by a man who then took his own life.
Ten years ago: The bipartisan Iraq Study Group concluded that President George W. Bush’s war policies had failed in almost every regard, and said the situation in Iraq was “grave and deteriorating.”
Associated Press
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