This Day in History

On Nov. 15, 1864, during the Civil War, Union forces led by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman began their “March to the Sea” from Atlanta; the campaign ended with the capture of Savannah on Dec. 21.

On this date:

In 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation.

In 1806, explorer Zebulon Pike sighted the mountaintop now known as Pikes Peak in present-day Colorado.

In 1937, at the U.S. Capitol, members of the House and Senate met in air-conditioned chambers for the first time.

In 1942, the naval Battle of Guadalcanal ended during World War II with a decisive U.S. victory over Japanese forces.

In 1959, four members of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, were found murdered in their home. (Ex-convicts Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were later convicted of the killings and hanged in a case made famous by the Truman Capote book “In Cold Blood.”)

In 1966, the flight of Gemini 12, the final mission of the Gemini program, ended successfully as astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. splashed down safely in the Atlantic after spending four days in orbit.

In 1982, funeral services were held in Moscow’s Red Square for the late Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev.

In 1984, Stephanie Fae Beauclair, the infant publicly known as “Baby Fae” who had received a baboon’s heart to replace her own congenitally deformed one, died at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California three weeks after the transplant.

In 1986, a government tribunal in Nicaragua convicted American Eugene Hasenfus of charges related to his role in delivering arms to Contra rebels, and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. (Hasenfus was pardoned a month later.)

In 1987, 28 of 82 people aboard a Continental Airlines DC-9, including the pilots, were killed when the jetliner crashed seconds after taking off from Denver’s Stapleton International Airport.

In 1998, Kwame Ture, the civil rights activist formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, died in Guinea at age 57.

In 2003, two Black Hawk helicopters collided and crashed in Iraq; 17 U.S. troops were killed.