1760 – Deborah Sampson was born. During the Revolutionary War, Sampson disguised herself as a man using the name Robert Shurtliff and enlisted in the Continental Army. She is one of a handful of women who also received a military pension at that time.
1777 – France formally recognizes the United States
1892 –Arthur Baldwin Turnure published the first edition of Vogue.
1903 – Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully complete the first powered and controlled flight.
1917 – Burt Baskin is born. One half of the Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream business duo, Burt Baskin joined his brother-in-law Irv Robbins in 1948.
1933 – The NFL hosts their first Championship Game.
1944 – U.S. approves end to internment of Japanese Americans
1963 –Clean Air Act becomes law
1991 –Boris Yeltsin announces the Soviet Union will cease to exist by New Year’s Eve
1993 – Judith Rodin is named president of Univ. of Pennsylvania, the first woman to head an Ivy League institution
2011 –Kim Jong Il, leader of North Korea, dies
2014 – The United States and Cuba re-establish diplomatic relations that had been severed since 1961