On this day …
December 26, 2014
- In 1799, more than 4,000 people attended George Washington’s funeral.
- In 1846, members of the Donner Party, trapped without food in the Sierra Nevada mountains, resorted to cannibalism.
- In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie announced the isolation of radium.
- In 1919, Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.
- In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving.
- In 1963, The Beatles’ single “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was released in the United States, sparking the beginning of Beatlemania.
- In 1982, Time magazine’s Man of the Year was the personal computer, the first time it honored a non-human.
- In 1991, the Supreme Soviet met and formally dissolved the Soviet Union.