December eleventh

Today's Highlight in History:
On December eleventh, 1936, Britain's King Edward the Eighth abdicated the throne in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson.

On this date:
In 1719, the first recorded sighting of the Aurora Borealis took place in New England.

In 1792, France's King Louis the 16th 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 1872, America's first black governor took office as Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became acting governor of Louisiana.

In 1928, police in Buenos Aires thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Herbert Hoover.

In 1937, Italy withdrew from the League of Nations.

In 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the US responded in kind.

In 1946, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.

In 1961, a US aircraft carrier carrying Army helicopters arrived in Saigon -- the first direct American military support for South Vietnam's battle against Communist guerrillas.

In 1981, the UN Security Council chose Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru to be the fifth secretary-general of the world body.

Ten years ago: President Bush, facing criticism at home for sending two US officials to China, defended the diplomatic overture despite the Beijing government's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators the previous June.

Five years ago: Thousands of Russian troops backed by armored columns and jets rolled into breakaway republic of Chechnya in a bid to restore Moscow's control over the region. Leaders of 34 Western Hemisphere nations signed a free-trade declaration in Miami.

One year ago: Majority Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee pushed through three articles of impeachment against President Clinton, over Democratic objections. The Mars Climate Orbiter blasted off on a nine-month journey to the red planet (however, the probe disappeared last September, apparently destroyed because scientists had failed to convert English measures to metric values).

"Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it."

-- Henry David Thoreau, American writer (1817-1862).