TODAY HISTORY IN
Today is Tuesday, Dec. 11, the 345th day of 2018. There are 20 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Dec. 11, 1972, Apollo 17’s lunar module landed on the moon with astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt aboard; they became the last two men to date to step onto the lunar surface.
On this date:
■ In 1910, French inventor Georges Claude publicly displayed his first neon lamp, consisting of two 38-foot-long tubes, at the Paris Expo.
■ 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 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 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 1997, more than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth’s greenhouse gases.
Ten years ago: Former Nasdaq chairman Bernie Madoff was arrested, accused of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that destroyed thousands of people’s life savings and wrecked charities.
(Madoff is serving a 150-year federal prison sentence.)
Five years ago: Time magazine selected Pope Francis as its Person of the Year, saying the Roman Catholic church’s new leader—the first from Latin America—had changed the perception of the 2,000-year-old institution in an extraordinary way in a short time.
One year ago: A Bangladeshi immigrant set off a crude pipe bomb in a New York City subway passageway in a botched suicide bombing; it did not fully detonate and Akayed Ullah was the only one seriously hurt. (Ullah was convicted on terrorism charges in federal court; sentencing is set for April 5, 2019.)
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Jean-Louis Trintignant is 88. Actress Rita Moreno is 87. Pop singer David Gates (Bread) is 78. Actress Donna Mills is
78. Former Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is 77. Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is 75. Singer Brenda Lee is 74. Actress Lynda Day George is
74. Music producer Tony Brown is 72. Actress Teri Garr is Singer Jermaine Jacksun is 64. Rock musician Darryl Jones (The Rolling Stones) is 57. is 54. Actor Gary Dourdan is 52. Actresscomedian Rapper-actor Mos Def is 45. Actor Rider Strong is 39. Actress Xosha Roquemore is 34. Actress Hailee Steinfeld is 22.
Thought for Today: “It takes a long time to understand nothing.”—Edward Dahlberg, American author and critic (1900-1977).