Today in history

George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Army and retired to his home at Mount Vernon, Va.

In 1783

Maryland voted to cede a 100-square-mile area for the seat of the national government; about two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia.

In 1788

the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Moore was published in the Troy (N.Y.) Sentinel.

In 1823

the Engelbert Humperdinck opera “Haensel und Gretel” was first performed, in Weimar, Germany.

In 1893

the National Broadcasting Co. set up a permanent, coast-to-coast network.

In 1928

during World War II, American forces on Wake Island surrendered to the Japanese.

In 1941

the experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first nonstop, nonrefueled, round-the-world flight as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

In 1986

Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford in 1975, escaped from the Alderson Federal Prison for Women in West Virginia. (She was recaptured two days later.)

In 1987

held near the children’s school. Also in 1995 the charred bodies of 16 members of a doomsday cult, the Order of the Solar Temple, were found outside Grenoble, France. (The same cult lost 53 members in 1994 in ritual killings in Switzerland and Canada.)

a jury in Denver convicted Terry Nichols of involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing, declining to find him guilty of murder.

In 1997

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat freed Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin from house arrest, a move denounced by Israel.

In 1998

President Bill Clinton pardoned Freddie Meeks, a black sailor courtmartialed for mutiny during World War II when he and other sailors refused to load live ammunition following a deadly explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine near San Francisco that had claimed more than 300 lives. Also in 1999 the Nasdaq composite index briefly crossed 4,000 and closed at a record high for the 58th time in 1999.

In 1999

pianist and comic Victor Borge died in Greenwich, Conn.; he was 91. Also in 2000 diminutive actor Billy Barty died in Glendale, Calif.; he was 76.

In 2000

Israel barred Yasser Arafat from making his annual Christmas Eve visit to Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

In 2001

Senate Republicans unanimously elected Bill Frist to succeed Trent Lott as their leader in the next Congress.

the government announced the first suspected (later confirmed) case of mad cow disease in United States. Also in 2003 a jury in Chesapeake, Va., sentenced teen sniper Lee Boyd Malvo to life in prison, sparing him the death penalty.