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From: "Mary" <>
Subject: [FOLKLORE] Today in History - Dec. 26th
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 06:35:07 -0500


Today is Tuesday, December 26th, the 361st day of 2000.
There are five days left in the year.


Today's Highlight in History:
On December 26th, 1799, former President George Washington
was eulogized by Colonel Henry Lee as "first in war, first
in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

On this date:
In 1776, the British suffered a major defeat in the Battle
of Trenton during the Revolutionary War.

In 1893, Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung was born in Hunan
province.

In 1917, during World War One, the US government took over
operation of the nation's railroads.

In 1941, Winston Churchill became the first British prime
minister to address a joint meeting of the US Congress.

In 1944, in the World War Two Battle of the Bulge, the
embattled US 101st Airborne Division was relieved by units
of the Fourth Armored Division.

In 1944, Tennessee Williams' play "The Glass Menagerie" was
first performed publicly, at the Civic Theatre in Chicago.

In 1972, the 33rd president of the United States, Harry S.
Truman, died in Kansas City, Missouri.

In 1974, comedian Jack Benny died in Los Angeles at age 80.

In 1975, the Soviet Union inaugurated the world's first
supersonic transport service with a flight of its
Tupolev-144 airliner from Moscow to Alma-Ata.

In 1996, six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was found
beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's home in
Boulder, Colorado. (To date, the slaying remains unsolved.)

Ten years ago: Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev
nominated Gennady I. Yanayev to be the Soviet Union's first
vice president (Yanayev helped lead an abortive coup against
Gorbachev in August 1991).
Nancy Cruzan, the young woman in an irreversible vegetative
state whose case led to a US Supreme Court decision on the
right to die, died at a Missouri hospital.
The government reported that its 1990 US census had counted
a total 249 million, 632,692 people.

Five years ago: Israel turned dozens of West Bank villages
over to the Palestinian Authority in a smooth transfer of
power.

One year ago: The crew of space shuttle "Discovery" packed
up its tools and prepared to return home after an eight-day
mission of repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope that NASA
declared a success.
Alfonso Portillo, a populist lawyer, scored a resounding
victory in Guatemala's first peacetime presidential
elections in nearly 40 years.
Soul singer and songwriter Curtis Mayfield died in Roswell,
Georgia, at age 57.

Today's Birthdays:
Actor Richard Widmark is 86.
Comedian Alan King is 73.
Actor Donald Moffat is 70.
Rhythm-and-blues singer Abdul "Duke" Fakir (The Four Tops)
is 65.
Record producer Phil Spector is 60.
"America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh is 55.
Baseball Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk is 53.
Baseball coach Chris Chambliss is 52.
Country musician Brian Westrum (Sons of the Desert) is 38.
Rock musician Lars Ulrich (Metallica) is 37.
Rock musician J is 33.
Country singer Audrey Wiggins is 33.
Rock musician Peter Klett (Candlebox) is 31.
Actor Jared Leto is 29.



"Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone."
-- Anonymous.

(Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press. All Rights
Reserved.)

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