On this date...

Ethan Allen

In 1620, Mayflower arrives at Plymouth Harbor.

In 1775, News has reached Washington of Ethan Allen’s brutal treatment in British captivity. Enraged, Washington drafts a letter to General William Howe. His tone is formal but cold: If Allen continues to suffer, Brigadier General Richard Prescott, held by the Americans, will receive “exactly” the same treatment.

In 1777, General George Washington’s army celebrated the first national Thanksgiving in Gulph Mills and on Rebel Hill.

In 1787, New Jersey became the 3rd state to ratify the US Constitution.

In 1799, George Washington’s body was interred at Mount Vernon.

In 1839, John William Draper takes the first portrait photograph of a woman's face in the US

In 1859, South Carolina declared itself an “independent commonwealth.”

In 1862, Confederate cavalry leader General Nathan Bedford Forrest routs a Union force under the command of Colonel Robert Ingersoll on a raid into western Tennessee, an area held by the Union.

In 1860, Texas Rangers found Cynthia Ann Parker at a Comanche hunting camp. She had been kidnapped by them in 1836 as a very young girl and no longer considered herself part of white society. Her son Quanah went on to become the last chief of the Quahada Comanche.

In 1865, 13th Amendment formally adopted into the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson marries Edith Galt in Washington, D.C. The bride was 43 and the groom was 59.

In 1917, Congress passed the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” and sent it to the states for ratification. (It was repealed in 1933 by the 21st Amendment.)

In 1920, 1st US postage stamps printed without the words United States or US.

In 1932, the Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans, 9-0, in the NFL's first playoff game—and first game played indoors.

In 1944, The Supreme Court upheld the wartime relocation of Japanese-Americans.

In 1957, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States, went on line. (It was taken out of service in 1982.)

In 1958, The world's first communications satellite was launched by the United States aboard an Atlas rocket.

In 1966, The animated TV adaptation of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! aired for the first time. It quickly became a holiday staple.Test your knowledge of classic children's books.

In 1972, Following the breakdown of peace talks with North Vietnam just a few days earlier, President Richard Nixon announces the beginning of a massive bombing campaign to break the stalemate.

In 1975, George and Kathy Lutz move into a house in Amityville, N.Y., site of a 1974 massacre; 28 days later, they flee in terror, citing oozing green slime, red-eyed pigs and more. Their much-disputed tale inspires the book and movie "The Amityville Horror."

In 1996, The Oakland, California school board passes a resolution officially declaring "Ebonics" a language or dialect

In 2003, A judge in Seattle sentenced confessed Green River killer Gary Ridgeway to 48 consecutive life terms.

In 2003, A jury in Chesapeake, Va., convicted teenager Lee Boyd Malvo of two counts of murder in the Washington-area sniper shootings. (He was later sentenced to life in prison without parole.)

In 2011, the last convoy of heavily armored U.S. troops left Iraq, crossing into Kuwait in darkness in the final moments of a nearly nine-year war.

In 2019, Donald Trump became the third U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives, which charged him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted by the Senate in February 2020.