#Middlebury
On Dec. 16, 1773, in Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The raid was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, which granted the East India Company a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade.- On Dec. 19, 1843, Charles Dickens’ classic story “A Christmas Carol” is published. Dickens was sent to work in a factory at age 12 when his father was thrown into debtors’ prison.
- On Dec. 22, 1864, Union Gen. William Sherman presents the city of Savannah, Georgia, to President Abraham Lincoln. Sherman captured the key Confederate port after his famous March to the Sea from Atlanta.
- On Dec. 18, 1878, John Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires, is executed in Pennsylvania. The Irish secret society, which had allegedly been responsible for incidences of vigilante justice in the coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania, defended their actions as attempts to protect exploited Irish-American workers.
- On Dec. 21, 1945, Gen. George Patton, commander of the U.S. 3rd Army during World War II, dies from injuries suffered not in battle, but from a freak car accident less than two weeks earlier. He was 60.
- On Dec. 20, 1963, more than two years after the Berlin Wall was constructed by East Germany to prevent its citizens from fleeing its communist regime, nearly 4,000 West Berliners are given one-day passes to cross into East Berlin to visit relatives.
- On Dec. 17, 1979, Hollywood stuntman Stan Barrett blasts across a dry lakebed at California’s Edwards Air Force Base in a rocket- and missile-powered car, becoming the first person to travel faster than the speed of sound on land. He reached an estimated top speed of 739 mph.
© 2019 Hearst Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
You must be logged in to post a comment.