DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Friday, Dec. 17, the 351st day of 2021. There are 14 days left in the year.
On this date in:
1777: France recognized American independence.
1903: Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, conducted the first successful manned powered-airplane flights near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, using their experimental craft, the Wright Flyer.
1933: In the inaugural NFL championship football game, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants, 23-21, at Wrigley Field.
1944: The U.S. War Department announced it was ending its policy of excluding people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.
1969: The U.S. Air Force closed its Project “Blue Book” by concluding there was no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.
1975: Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was sentenced in Sacramento, California, to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Gerald R. Ford. (She was paroled in August 2009.)
1979: Arthur Mcduffie, a Black insurance executive, was fatally injured after leading police on a chase with his motorcycle in Miami. (Four white police officers accused of beating Mcduffie were later acquitted, sparking riots.)
1992: President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in separate ceremonies. (After President Donald Trump demanded a new deal, the three countries signed a replacement agreement in 2018.)
2000: President-elect George W. Bush named Stanford professor Condoleezza Rice his national security adviser and Alberto Gonzales to the White House counsel’s job, the same day Bush was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.
2001: Marines raised the Stars and Stripes over the long-abandoned American Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
2014: The United States and Cuba restored diplomatic relations, sweeping away one of the last vestiges of the Cold War.
2018: A report from the Senate intelligence committee found that Russia’s political disinformation campaign on U.S. social media was more far-reaching than originally thought, with troll farms working to discourage Black voters and “blur the lines between reality and fiction” to help elect Donald Trump.
Actor Ernie Hudson (“Ghostbusters”) is 76. Actor-comedian Eugene Levy is 75. Drummer Jim Bonfanti of The Raspberries is 73. Actor Joel Brooks (“Six Feet Under”) is 72. Actor
Barry Livingston (“My Three Sons”) is 68. Actor
Bill Pullman is 68. Director-producer Peter Farrelly is 65. Bassist Mike Mills of R.E.M. is 63. Singer Sarah Dallin of Bananarama is 60. Country singer Tracy Byrd is 55. Bassist Duane Propes of Little Texas is 55. Actor Laurie Holden (“The Walking Dead”) is 52. DJ Homicide of Sugar Ray is 51. Actor Sean Patrick Thomas (“The District”) is 51. Actor
Claire Forlani (“Meet Joe Black,” “CSI: NY”) is 50. Drummer Eddie Fisher of Onerepublic is 48.