On This Day:
Wednesday December 18, 2013 This is the 352nd day of the year, with 13 days remaining in 2013. Fact of the Day: Q-tips Q-tips were invented by Leo Gerstenzang in 1923 after observing his wife apply wads of cotton to toothpicks. The original name, Baby Gays, was changed to Q-tips Baby Gays in 1926 and then shortened to Q-tips. The Q in Q-tips stands for "quality" and the word tips describes the cotton swab at the end of the stick.
Holidays Feast day of Saints Rufus and Zosimus, St. Flannan, St. Winebald, St. Gatian, and St. Samthan.
Niger: Republic Day.
Events 1787 - New Jersey became the third state to ratify the Constitution of the United States of America.
1865 - The 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, abolishing slavery, went into effect.
1892 - Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" was first performed, in St. Petersburg by the Russian Imperial Ballet.
1912 - The discovery of the Piltdown Man in East Sussex was announced; it was proved to be a hoax in 1953.
1915 - President Woodrow Wilson, widowed the year before, married Edith Bolling Galt at her Washington home.
1940 - Adolf Hitler signed a secret directive ordering preparations for a Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
1956 - Japan was admitted to the United Nations.
1956 - The show "To Tell the Truth" premiered on TV.
1957 - The Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first civilian nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States, went online.
1958 - The first communications satellite broadcast was made when President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his Christmas message.
1979 - The sound barrier was broken on land for the first time by Stanley Barrett, driving at 739.6 mph, in California.
Births 1779 - Joseph Grimaldi, English clown.
1879 - Paul Klee, Swiss abstract painter.
1886 - Ty Cobb, American baseball star and first man to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1888 - Robert Moses, American public works planner who supervised construction of many New York City landmarks.
1890 - Edwin Armstrong, American, inventor of FM (frequency modulation) which eliminated radio static.
1913 - Betty Grable (Elisabeth Grasle), American actress.
1913 - Willy Brandt, mayor of Berlin and Chancellor of West Germany.
1947 - Stephen Spielberg, American Academy Award-winning director.
Deaths 1737 - Antonio Stradivari, Italian violin maker.
1971 - Bobby Jones, American amateur golfer who was the first player to win the Grand Slam (winning the four major tournaments of the time in a single year) in golf.
1997 - Chris Farley, American comedian and actor.
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