TODAY IN HISTORY

In 1773, the Boston Tea Party took place as American colonists boarded a British ship and dumped more than 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest tea taxes.

In 1905, the entertainment trade publication Variety came out with its first weekly issue.

In 1944, the World War II Battle of the Bulge began as German forces launched a surprise attack against Allied forces through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxembourg. The Allies eventually were able to turn the Germans back.

In 1950, President Harry S. Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight “world conquest by Communist imperialism.” In 1960, a United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation collided over New York City, killing 134 people. In 1976, the government halted its swine flu vaccination program following reports of paralysis apparently linked to the vaccine.

In 1982, Environmental Protection Agency head Anne M. Gorsuch became the first Cabinetlevel officer to be cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to submit documents requested by a congressional committee.

In 1985, at services in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, offered condolences to families of 248 soldiers killed in the crash of a chartered plane in Newfoundland. In 1991, the U.N. General Assembly rescinded its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism by a vote of 111-25.

In 2000, President-elect George W. Bush selected Colin Powell to become the first African American secretary of state.

In 2001, after nine weeks of fighting, Afghan militia leaders claimed control of the last mountain bastion of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida fighters, but bin Laden himself was nowhere to be seen.

In 2012, President Barack Obama visited Newtown, Connecticut, the scene of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. After meeting privately with victims’ families, the president told an evening vigil he would use “whatever power” he had to prevent future shootings.