1787 – Delaware is the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.
1891 – 52nd Congress holds first session. It’s the first to appropriate $1 billion.
1909 – Inventor Leo Baekeland patents the first thermo-setting plastic, Bakelite, sparking the birth of the plastic industry.
1917 – The United States becomes the 13th country to declare war on Austria during World War I.
1926 – Gas refrigerator patented.
1937 – Boston Red Sox acquire the contract of 19-year-old Ted Williams.
1941 – Imperial Japanese Navy with 353 planes attack the US fleet at Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii, killing 2,403 people.
1946 – Fire at Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta kills 119.
1953 – WCCB-TV channel 18 in Charlotte, North Carolina (IND/ABC) begins broadcasting.
1957 – Tony Kubek of the New York Yankees selected as American League Rookie of the Year.
1963 – First use of the instant replay machine invented by CBS in an Army vs. Navy football game.
1967 – Otis Redding records his song “(Sittin’On) The Dock of the Bay”, co-written and produced by guitarist Steve Cropper, at Stax Studios in Memphis, Tennessee.
1972 – Apollo 17 launched the final manned lunar landing mission where the crew took the famous “blue marble” photo of the entire Earth.
1980 – Senior PGA Championship, Turnberry Isle CC: Arnold Palmer wins with a birdie on the first playoff hole against Paul Harney.
1987 – Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in the United States for a summit meeting with President Ronald Reagan.
1996 – Space Shuttle STS 80 (Columbia) lands.
2005 – Debut of the second part of two-part TV miniseries “Pope Paul II” on CBS.
2015 – Time Magazine readers name Bernie Sanders their ‘person of the year’
2017 – Former gymnastics physician Larry Nasser is sentenced to 60 years on child pornography charges.
2022 – Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock wins re-election over Republican Herschel Walker in run-off for the Georgia Senate seat, taking the Senate to a clearer 51-49 Democratic majority.
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