TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, Dec. 12, the 346th day of 2023. 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, calling on the world to collectively 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 Florence, Italy, announced that the “Mona Lisa,” stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1911, had been recovered.
In 1915, singer-actor Frank Sinatra was born Francis Albert Sinatra in Hoboken, N.J.
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 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.
In 2010,
the inflatable roof of the Minneapolis Metrodome collapsed following a snowstorm that had dumped 17 inches on the city. (The NFL was forced to shift an already rescheduled game between the Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants to Detroit’s Ford Field.)
Today’s birthdays
Basketball Hall of Famer Bob Pettit is 91. Singer Connie Francis is 86. Singer Dionne Warwick is 83. Singer-musician Dickey Betts is 80. Hall of Fame race car driver Emerson Fittipaldi is 77. Actor Wings Hauser is 76. Actor Bill Nighy is 74. Actor Duane Chase (“The Sound of Music”) is 73. Gymnast-turnedactor Cathy Rigby is 71. Singer-musician Sheila E. is 66. Actor Sheree J. Wilson is 65. Tennis Hall of Famer Tracy Austin is 61. Actor Jennifer Connelly is 53. Actor Madchen Amick is 53. Actor Actor Mayim Bialik is 48. Actor Lucas Hedges is 27. Actor Sky Katz is 19.