Today in History Dec. 11
Today is Monday, Dec. 11, the 345th day of 2017. There are 20 days left in the year.
On Dec. 11, 1917, British Gen. Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem two days after his forces expelled the Ottoman Turks; in a show of respect, Allenby and his officers made their way into the Holy City on foot.
In 1792, France’s King Louis XVI went before the Convention to face charges of treason. (Louis was convicted, and executed the following month.)
In 1816, Indiana became the 19th state.
In 1936, Britain’s King Edward VIII abdicated the throne so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson; his brother, Prince Albert, became King George VI.
In 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the United States responded in kind.
In 1946, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.
In 1957, the movie “Peyton Place,” based on the novel by Grace Metalious, had its world premiere in Camden, Maine, where most of it was filmed.
In 1961, a U.S. aircraft carrier carrying Army helicopters arrived in Saigon – the first direct American military support for South Vietnam’s battle against Communist guerrillas.
In 1972, Apollo 17’s lunar module landed on the moon with astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt aboard; during three extravehicular activities, they became the last two men to date to step onto the lunar surface.
In 1997, more than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth’s greenhouse gases.
“The fear of life is the favorite disease of the twentieth century.”
– William Lyon Phelps, American educator and journalist (1865-1943)