TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS THURSDAY, DEC. 13, the 347th day of 2018. There are 18 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole under a farmhouse in Adwar, Iraq, near his hometown of Tikrit.
In 1862, Union forces led by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside launched futile attacks against entrenched Confederate soldiers during the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg; the soundly defeated Northern troops withdrew two days later.
In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson arrived in France, becoming the first chief executive to visit Europe while in office.
In 1928, George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” had its premiere at Carnegie Hall in New York.
In 1937, the Chinese city of Nanjing fell to Japanese forces during the SinoJapanese War; what followed was a massacre of war prisoners, soldiers and citizens. (China maintains that up to 300,000 people were killed; Japanese nationalists say the death toll was far lower, and some maintain the massacre never happened.)
In 1944, during World War II, the light cruiser USS Nashville was badly damaged in a Japanese kamikaze attack off Negros Island in the Philippines that claimed 133 lives.
In 1977, Air Indiana Flight 216, a DC-3 carrying the University of Evansville basketball team on a flight to Nashville, crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all 29 people on board.
In 1978, the Philadelphia Mint began stamping the Susan B. Anthony dollar, which went into circulation the next July.
In 1981, authorities in Poland imposed martial law in a crackdown on the Solidarity labor movement. (Martial law formally ended in 1983.)
In 1996, the U.N. Security Council chose Kofi Annan of Ghana to become the world body’s seventh secretary-general.
In 1997, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held in Los Angeles for the $1 billion Getty Center, one of the largest arts centers in the United States.
In 2000, Republican George W. Bush claimed the presidency a day after the U.S. Supreme Court shut down further recounts of disputed ballots in Florida; Democrat Al Gore conceded, delivering a call for national unity.
In 2002, Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as Boston archbishop because of the priest sex abuse scandal.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz is 98. Actor-comedian Dick Van Dyke is 93. Actor Christopher Plummer is 89. Country singer Buck White is 88. Music/film producer Lou Adler is 85. Singer John Davidson is 77. Actress Kathy Garver (TV: “Family Affair”) is 73. Singer Ted Nugent, rock musician Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and country musician Ron Getman are 70. Actor Robert Lindsay and country singer-musician Randy Owen are 69. Actress Wendie Malick and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack are 68. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is 65. Country singer John Anderson and singer-songwriter Steve Forbert are 64. Singer-actor Morris Day is 62. Actor Steve Buscemi is 61. Actor Johnny Whitaker (TV: “Family Affair”) is 59. Rock musician John Munson (Semisonic; Twilight Hours) is 56. Actress-reality TV star NeNe Leakes is 52. Actor-comedian Jamie Foxx is 51. Actor Bart Johnson is 48. Actor Jeffrey Pierce is 47. TV personality Debbie Matenopoulos is 44. Rock singer-musician Thomas Delonge and actor James Kyson Lee are 43. Actress Kimee Balmilero (TV: “Hawaii Five-0”) is 39. Actress Chelsea Hertford and rock singer Amy Lee (Evanescence) are 37. Actor Michael Socha and neosoul musician Wesley Watkins (Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats) are 31. Actor Marcel Spears (TV: “The Mayor”) is 30. Singer Taylor Swift is 29. Actress Maisy Stella is 15.