TODAY IN HISTORY

KEY EVENTS FOR DEC. 6

In 1790, Congress moved to Philadelphia from New York.

In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified as Georgia became the 27th state to endorse it.

In 1907, the worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, West Virginia.

In 1917, some 2,000 people were killed when an explosives-laden French cargo ship, the Mont Blanc, collided with the Norwegian vessel Imo at the harbor in Halifax, Nova Scotia, setting off a blast that devastated the Canadian city. Finland declared its independence from Russia.

In 1922, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which established the Irish Free State, came into force one year to the day after it was signed in London.

In 1923, a presidential address was broadcast on radio for the first time as President Calvin Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress.

In 1947, Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Harry S. Truman.

In 1957, America’s first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit failed as Vanguard TV3 rose about four feet off a Cape Canaveral launch pad before crashing down and exploding.

In 1962, 37 coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Robena No. 3 Mine operated by U.S. Steel in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania.

In 1969, a free concert by The Rolling Stones at the Altamont Speedway in Alameda County, California, was marred by the deaths of four people, including one who was stabbed by a Hell’s Angel.

In 1973, House minority leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew.

In 1989, 14 women were shot to death at the University of Montreal’s school of engineering by a man who then took his own life.

In 1998, in Venezuela, former Lt. Col. Hugo Chavez, who had staged a bloody coup attempt against the government six years earlier, was elected president.

In 2012, shocking some of his closest Republican colleagues, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina announced he would resign his seat to head Washington’s conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

Marijuana possession became legal in Washington state, the day a measure approved by voters to regulate marijuana like alcohol took effect.

In 2017, President Donald Trump declared Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital, defying warnings from the Palestinians and others around the world that he would be destroying hopes for Mideast peace.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he would seek reelection, putting him on track to become Russia’s longest-serving ruler since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

In 2021, the Justice Department said it was ending its investigation into the 1955 lynching of the Black teenager Emmett Till, who was killed after witnesses said he whistled at a white woman in Mississippi.

The White House said the U.S. would stage a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing to protest Chinese human rights abuses; U.S. athletes would compete, but no U.S. dignitaries would be sent to attend the games. The Biden administration reinstated a Trump-era policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.

Medina Spirit, a 3-year-old colt whose Kentucky Derby victory in May came under scrutiny because of a positive drug test, collapsed and died after a workout at Santa Anita in Southern California.