Madison Square Garden formally opens with NHL game

Following ratification by the state of Virginia, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, become the law of the land. In September 1789, the first Congress of the United States approved 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. The amendments […]

A day after Bolsheviks seize control of Russian military headquarters at Mogilev, a formal ceasefire is proclaimed throughout the battle zone between Russia and the Central Powers. Immediately after their accession to power in Russia in November 1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, had approached the Central Powers to arrange an armistice and withdraw […]

General Douglas MacArthur, in his capacity as Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in the Pacific, brings an end to Shintoism as Japan’s established religion. The Shinto system included the belief that the emperor, in this case Hirohito, was divine. On September 2, 1945 aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, MacArthur signed the instrument of […]

Jean Paul Getty III, the grandson of American billionaire J. Paul Getty, is found alive near Naples, Italy, five months after his kidnapping by an Italian gang. J. Paul Getty, who became the richest man in the world in 1957, had initially refused to pay his 16-year-old grandson’s $17 million ransom but finally agreed to […]

On December 15, 1973, at a time when society often still views gay people as deviants, the American Psychiatric Association reverses a century-old decision, issuing a resolution stating that homosexuality it neither a mental illness nor a sickness. To underline the point, the association removes homosexuality from its influential reference tool, the Diagnostic and Statistical […]

In one of the most dramatic announcements of the Cold War, President Jimmy Carter states that as of January 1, 1979, the United States will formally recognize the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) and sever relations with Taiwan. Following Mao Zedong’s successful revolution in China in 1949, the United States steadfastly refused to recognize […]

Schindler’s List, starring Liam Neeson in the true story of a German businessman who saves the lives of more than a thousand Polish Jews during the Holocaust, opens in theaters. The film was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and took home seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. It was the first Best Director […]

In a ceremony held in Baghdad on December 15, 2011, the war that began in 2003 with the American-led invasion of Iraq is declared officially over.