TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Monday, Dec. 14, the 349th day of 2020. There are 17 days left in the year.
ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY
On Dec. 14, 2012, a gunman with a semi-automatic rifle killed 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, then committed suicide as police arrived; the 20-year-old had also fatally shot his mother at their home before carrying out the attack on the school.
1819 — Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state.
1911 — Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team became the first men to reach the South Pole, beating out a British expedition led by Robert F. Scott.
1916 — President Woodrow Wilson vetoed an immigration measure aimed at preventing “undesirables” and anyone born in the “Asiatic Barred Zone” from entering the US. (Congress overrode Wilson’s veto in February 1917.)
1961 — A school bus was hit by a passenger train at a crossing near Greeley, Colorado, killing 20 students.
1964 — The US Supreme Court, in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, ruled that Congress was within its authority to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against racial discrimination by private businesses. (In this case, a motel that refused to cater to Blacks.)
2006 — A British police inquiry concluded that the deaths of Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, in a 1997 Paris car crash were a “tragic accident,” and that allegations of a murder conspiracy were unfounded.
Five years ago — Bill Cosby fired back at seven women who were suing him for defamation, accusing them in a federal countersuit of making false accusations of sexual misconduct for financial gain.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Singer-actor Abbe Lane is 89. Actor
Hal Williams is 86. Actor-singer Jane Birkin is 74. Pop singer Joyce Vincent-Wilson (Tony Orlando and Dawn) is 74. Entertainment executive Michael Ovitz is 74. Actor Dee Wallace is 72. Rhythmand-blues singer Ronnie McNeir (The Four Tops) is 71. Rock musician Cliff Williams is 71. Actor-comedian T.K. Carter is 64. Rock singer-musician Mike Scott (The Waterboys) is 62. Singer-musician Peter “Spider” Stacy (The Pogues) is 62. Actor Cynthia Gibb is 57. Actor Nancy Valen is 55. Actor Archie Kao is 51. Actor Natascha McElhone is 51. Actor-comedian Michaela Watkins is 49. Actor-comedian Miranda Hart is 48. Rhythm-and-blues singer Brian Dalyrimple (Soul For Real) is 45. Actor KaDee Strickland is 45. Actor Tammy Blanchard is 44. Actor Sophie Monk is 41. Actor-singer-musician Jackson Rathbone is 36. Actor Vanessa Hudgens is 32. Rock/R&B singer Tori Kelly is 28.