TODAY IN HISTORY
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Today is Monday, Dec. 12. There are 19 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight:
On Dec. 12, 2015, nearly 200 nations meeting in Paris adopted the first global pact to fight climate change, call- ing on the world to collec- tively cut and then eliminate greenhouse gas pollution but imposing no sanctions on countries that didn’t do so.
On this date:
In 1787, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
In 1870, Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina became the first Black lawmaker sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives.
In 1913, authorities in Flor- ence, Italy, announced that the “Mona Lisa,” stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1911, had been recovered.
In 1917, during World War I, a train carrying some 1,000 French troops from the Italian front derailed while descending a steep hill in Modane; at least half of the soldiers were killed in France’s greatest rail disaster.
In 1977, the dance movie “Saturday Night Fever,” star- ring John Travolta, premiered in New York.
In 1985, 248 American soldiers and eight crew members were killed when an Arrow Air charter crashed after takeoff from Gander, Newfoundland.
In 1995, by three votes, the Senate killed a constitutional amendment giving Congress authority to outlaw flag burning and other forms of desecration against Old Glory.
In 2000, George W. Bush became president-elect as a divided U.S. Supreme Court reversed a state court decision for recounts in Florida’s contested election. The Marine Corps grounded all eight of its high-tech MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft following a fiery crash in North Carolina that killed four Marines. (The Osprey program was revived by the Pentagon in 2005.)
In 2019, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson led his Conservative Party to a landslide victory in a general election that was dominated by Brexit.
In 2020, thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump gathered in Washington for rallies to back his desperate efforts to subvert the election that he lost to Joe Biden; sporadic fights broke out between pro-Trump and anti-Trump demonstrators after sundown, and four people were taken to the hospital with stab wounds. Charley Pride, who became the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, died in Dallas at 86 from what a spokesman said were complications from COVID-19.
Ten years ago: Pope Benedict XVI sent his first tweet from his new account; it read, “Dear friends, I am pleased to get in to u ch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.”
Five years ago: Democrat Doug Jones won Alabama’s special Senate election over Republican Roy Moore, who had denied accusations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls that allegedly took place when he was in his 30s.