Today is Dec. 19, the 353rd day of 2018.
There are 12 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Dec. 19, 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached by the Republican-controlled House for perjury and obstruction of justice (he was subsequently acquitted by the Senate).
On this date:
In 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to camp for the winter.
In 1813, British forces captured Fort Niagara during the War of 1812.
In 1907, 239 workers died in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.
In 1946, war broke out in Indochina as troops under Ho Chi Minh launched widespread attacks against the French.
In 1950, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was named commander of the military forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
In 1957, Meredith Willson’s musical play “The Music Man” opened on Broadway.
In 1972, Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, winding up the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.
In 1974, Nelson A. Rockefeller was sworn in as the 41st vice president of the United States in the U.S. Senate chamber by Chief Justice Warren Burger with President Gerald R. Ford looking on.
In 1975, John Paul Stevens was sworn in as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1986, the Soviet Union announced it had freed dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile, and pardoned his wife, Yelena Bonner. Lawrence E. Walsh was appointed independent counsel to investigate the Iran-Contra affair.
In 2001, the fires that had burned beneath the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York City for the previous three months were declared extinguished except for a few scattered hot spots.
In 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared Iraq in “material breach” of a U.N. disarmament resolution.
