December 15
Today is
Bill of Rights Day in the U.S., as declared by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, commemorating the ratification of the
Bill of Rights.
Concurrently, today is
Second Amendment Day in South Carolina, celebrating the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right to the people keep and bear arms, "One right, protecting all others."
And, much more importantly, today is
International Tea Day.
There are
16 days remaining in 2016.
There are
9 days until Christmas.
Events
1791 – The United States
Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly.
1864 – American Civil War:
Battle of Nashville: Union forces under
George Thomas almost completely destroy the Army of Tennessee under
John Bell Hood.
1890 –
Hunkpapa Lakota leader
Sitting Bull is killed on
Standing Rock Indian Reservation, leading to the
Wounded Knee Massacre.
1906 – The London Underground's
Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway opens.
1933 – The
Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially becomes effective, repealing the
Eighteenth Amendment that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol. [And there was much,
much rejoicing.

]
1939 –
Gone with the Wind receives its premiere at
Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
1941 – The Holocaust: German troops murder over 15,000 Jews at
Drobytsky Yar, a ravine southeast of the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, Soviet Union.
1943 - American jazz musician, singer and composer,
Fats Waller died of pneumonia on a train trip near Kansas City, Missouri. In 1926 Waller was kidnapped at gunpoint in Chicago and driven to a club owned by gangster
Al Capone. Inside the club he was ordered to perform at what turned out to be a surprise birthday party for the gangster.
1944 -
Hank Williams married
Audrey Sheppard, with the ceremony taking place at a Texaco filling station in Andalusia, Alabama.
1956 -
Elvis Presley gave his final performance on
Louisiana Hayride, a live radio program that was broadcast on
KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana. Presley made 50 appearances on the show. At the end of the show, Horace Logan first made the now legendary phrase "
Elvis has left the building".
1960 –
Richard Pavlick is arrested for plotting to assassinate U.S. President-Elect
John F. Kennedy.
1961 –
Adolf Eichmann is sentenced to death after being found guilty by an Israeli court of 15 criminal charges, including charges of crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership of an outlawed organization.
1969 -
John Lennon played what would be his final ever gig in the UK when he appeared at
The Lyceum Ballroom, London, with the
Plastic Ono Band in a UNICEF 'Peace For Christmas' benefit.
1970 – Soviet spacecraft
Venera 7 successfully lands on
Venus. It is the first successful soft
landing on another planet.
1973 –
John Paul Getty III, grandson of American billionaire
J. Paul Getty, is found alive near Naples, Italy, after being kidnapped by an Italian gang on July 10.
1973 – The American Psychiatric Association votes 13–0 to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the
DSM-II.
1981 – A suicide car
bombing targeting the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, levels the embassy and kills 61 people, including Iraq's ambassador to Lebanon. The attack is considered the first modern
suicide bombing.
1984 -
Do They Know It's Christmas? by
Band Aid entered the UK chart at No.1 and stayed at the top for five weeks. It became the biggest selling UK single of all time with sales over 3 and a half million. Band Aid was masterminded by former
Boomtown Rats singer
Bob Geldof, who had been moved by a TV news story of
famine in Ethiopia.
1988 - Soul singer
James Brown was sentenced to six years in prison for various offenses including possession of weapons and resisting arrest.
1993 – The Troubles: The
Downing Street Declaration is issued by British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.
1999 -
Boy George was knocked unconscious when a
mirror ball fell on his head during a show in Dorset, England. [The visual of Boy George being clobbered by a disco ball and piling up like a sack of potatoes is just hilarious to me.:lol2]
2000 – The third reactor at the
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is shut down.
2001 -
Eagles guitarist
Joe Walsh was given an honorary Doctorate of Music from
Kent State University in Ohio.
2001 – The
Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and
$27,000,000 spent to stabilize it, without fixing its famous lean.
2005 – Introduction of the
Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor into USAF active service.
2006 - The co-founder of
Atlantic Records Ahmet Ertegun died, aged 83. Ertegun founded Atlantic Records with
Herb Abramson in 1947.
2009 –
Boeing's 787 Dreamliner makes its maiden flight from Seattle, Washington.
2014 –
Man Haron Monis takes
18 hostages inside a café in Martin Place for 16 hours in Sydney. Monis and two hostages are killed when police raid the café the following morning.
Continued in next post