Today in History Dec. 23
Today is Saturday, Dec. 23, the 357th day of 2017. There are eight days left in the year.
On Dec. 23, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson, on his way home from a visit to Australia and Southeast Asia, held an unprecedented meeting with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican; during the two-hour conference, Johnson asked the pope for help in bringing a peaceful end to the Vietnam War.
In 1788, Maryland passed an act to cede an area “not exceeding ten miles square” for the seat of the national government; about 2/3 of the area became the District of Columbia.
In 1823, the poem “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” was published in the Troy (New York) Sentinel; the verse, more popularly known as “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,” was later attributed to Clement C. Moore.
In 1913, the Federal Reserve System was created as President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act.
In 1928, the National Broadcasting Company set up a permanent, coast-to-coast network.
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt restored the civil rights of about 1,500 people who had been jailed for opposing the (First) World War.
In 1941, during World War II, American forces on Wake Island surrendered to the Japanese.
In 1948, former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese war leaders were executed in Tokyo.
In 1954, the first successful human kidney transplant took place at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston as a surgical team removed a kidney from 23-year-old Ronald Herrick and implanted it in Herrick’s twin brother, Richard.
“Only the thinking man lives his life, the thoughtless man’s life passes him by.”
– Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Austrian writer (1830-1916).