On This Day:
Sunday December 14, 2014 This is the 348th day of the year, with 17 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: Christmas tree The ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, and Chinese used evergreen trees and wreaths as symbols of eternal life. In the Middle Ages, the Christmas tree was first used in Germany and originally decorated with candles and wafers. In the same room, during the Christmas season, was the Christmas pyramid, a triangular construction of wood, with shelves to hold Christmas figurines, decorated with evergreens, candles, and a star. By the 16th century, the Christmas pyramid and tree had merged, becoming the Christmas tree. In the 19th century, the Christmas tree was used throughout Europe and the United States.
Holidays Feast day of St. John of the Cross, Saints Fingar or Gwinnear and Phiala, St. Spiridion, St. Venantius Fortunatus, and St. Nicasius of Reims.
Events 1819 - Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state. At that point, there were 11 slave states and 11 free states.
1900 - German physicist Max Planck published his groundbreaking study of the effect of radiation on a "blackbody" substance, and the quantum theory of modern physics was born.
1911 - Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, beating out an expedition led by Robert F. Scott.
1939 - The Soviet Union was dropped from the League of Nations.
1946 - The United Nations General Assembly voted to establish United Nations headquarters in New York. They also voted to accept a gift of more than $8 million from American philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to be used toward the establishment of permanent the United Nations headquarters along New York City's East River.
1962 - U.S. Mariner II sent the first close-up pictures of the planet Venus back to Earth.
1981 - Israel annexed the Golan Heights, which it had seized from Syria in 1967.
1985 - Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major Native American tribe, becoming principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
1995 - In Paris, leaders from the former Yugoslavia signed the Bosnia peace treaty, formally ending four years of conflict and creating two entities within Bosnia: a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb republic.
1999 - Charles M. Schulz announced he was retiring the "Peanuts" comic strip.
2000 - America Online and Time Warner merge in an $111 billion deal.
Births 1503 - Nostradamus (Michael de Notredame), French physician and astrologer.
1546 - Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer and mathematician.
1585 - Henry IV, the first Bourbon king of France.
1895 - George VI, King of Great Britain.
1897 - Margaret Chase Smith, American politician.
1946 - Patty Duke, American Academy Award-winning actress.
Deaths 1799 - George Washington, American general and commander of the colonial armies during the American Revolution and first President of the United States of America, of acute laryngitis, which was exacerbated by the medical practices of the day.
1993 - Myrna Loy, American film actress.
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