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Other Notable Events for December 20

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Published in History & Quotes

On this date in history:

In 1803, the United States formally took over territory acquired from France in the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1812, Sacagawea, the Indian woman who guided the Lewis and Clark Expedition, died.

In 1864, Union Gen. William T. Sherman completed his Civil War march to the sea across the South and arrived in Savannah, Ga.

In 1946 the first Indochina war began with Vietnamese troops under Ho Chi Minh clashing with the French at Hanoi.

In 1956, a Montgomery, Ala., public bus boycott officially ended but not until it had given a major boost to the civil rights struggle in the South. The boycott had been called in reaction to the Dec. 1, 1955, arrest of Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man.

In 1987, a passenger ferry struck by an oil tanker sank in the Philippines and nearly 1,600 people died in what was called the century's worst peacetime maritime disaster.

In 1989, the United States invaded Panama to oust Manuel Noriega and install the duly elected civilian government.

In 1990, Eduard Shevardnadze abruptly resigned as Soviet foreign minister, warning that a dictatorship is coming.

In 1995, 160 people were killed when an American Airlines 757 crashed into a mountain shortly before it was scheduled to land in Cali, Colombia.

In 1998, a Houston woman, Nkem Chukwu, gave birth to seven babies after delivering the first of her octuplets 12 days earlier. The six girls and two boys were the only known set of octuplets to be born alive in the United States. (The smallest baby, a girl, died a week later.)

In 2001, Argentine President Fernando de la Rua resigned amid mass protests.

In 2011, the Kepler, NASA's orbiting space observatory, discovered the first two Earth-size planets outside the solar system but scientists said both orbit too close to a sun-like star to have water on the surface.

In 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he opposes the Muslim practice of wearing headscarves, or hijabs, in his country's schools. Why should we adopt outside tradition? he said.

In 2013, a Canada's Supreme Court struck down the country's anti-prostitution laws, calling them grossly disproportionate. (The government instituted a new law in 2014 that targets pimps and people who buy sexual services.)

 


Copyright 2014 by United Press International

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