Today’s highlight in history

On Dec. 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the U.S. responded in kind.

On this date

In 1936, Britain’s King Edward VIII abdicated the throne so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson; his brother, Prince Albert, became King George VI.

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

In 1961, a U.S. aircraft carrier carrying Army helicopters arrived in Saigon — the first direct American military support for South Vietnam’s battle against Communist guerrillas.

In 1972, Apollo 17’s lunar module landed on the moon with astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt aboard; during three extravehicular activities, they became the last two men to date to step onto the lunar surface.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation creating a $1.6 billion environmental “superfund” to pay for cleaning up chemical spills and toxic waste dumps.

In 2008, financier Bernie Madoff was arrested, accused of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. (Madoff is serving a 150-year federal prison sentence.)

Five years ago: The Michigan Legislature gave final approval to a pair of right-to-work bills that were signed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder amid protests by union members and their supporters.

One year ago: President-elect Donald Trump called a recent CIA assessment of Russian hacking in the U.S. election “ridiculous” and said he wasn’t interested in getting daily intelligence briefings, telling “Fox News Sunday”: “I get it when I need it.”