1954 USS Forrestal christened in Newport News, Va.

On this day December 12th, 1925

World's first motel opens in San Luis Obispo, California
Arthur Heineman opens the Motel Inn in a town midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. As people began driving longer distances, Heineman sought to offer travelers a spot for the night beyond camping. Now, they could drive up to his "motor hotel" or "motel" and sleep in comfort.

1800 Washington, D.C., established as the capital of the United States of America.

1915 1st all-metal aircraft (Junkers J-1) test flown at Dessau, Germany.

1946 UN accepts 6 Manhattan blocks as a gift from John D. Rockefeller Jr.

1953 Chuck Yeager reaches Mach 2.43 in Bell X-1A rocket plane.

1991 Maastricht Treaty signed to create a European Community.

1577 Sir Francis Drake sets sail from England on a circumnavigationof the world.

1774 First incident of American Revolution - 400 attack Ft William and Mary, New Hampshire.

1939 Battle of the River Plate - 3 British cruisers vs German pocket battleship Graf Spee.

1941 U-81 torpedoes British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal.

1966 First US bombing of Hanoi part of Operation Rolling Thunder during the Vietnam War.

2002 Enlargement of the European Union: The European Union announces that Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia will become members from May 1, 2004.

2003 Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit, during Operation Red Dawn by US forces.

1546: The astronomer Tycho Brahe is born.

1900: Max Planck publishes a paper that would later be dubbed "the birth of quantum theory".

1911: Roald Amundsen reaches the South Pole.

1542 Princess Mary Stuart succeeds her father James V and becomes Queen Mary I of Scotland at 6 days old.

1812 The French Invasion of Russia, led by Napoleon, officially ends.

1903 The Wright brothers attempt to fly the Wright Flyer for the first time at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1937 Japanese troops conquer/plunder Nanking.

1941 Premier Winston Churchill travels to US on board HMS Duke of York.

1941 U-557 torpedoes British cruiser Galatea.

2008 President George W. Bush make his fourth and final trip to Iraq as president and is almost struck by two shoes thrown at him by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi during a farewell conference in Baghdad.

Good pics; good tent; good God it's ...COLD!
 

1911: The first expedition to reach the geographic South Pole was led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. He and four others arrived at the pole on 14 December 1911 five weeks ahead of a British party led by Robert Falcon Scott (in his diary: “Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority.”) as part of the Terra Nova Expedition. Amundsen and his team returned safely to their base. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ember_1911.jpg<The Norwegians; The British>https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...le%2C_1912.pngIn a paper published 100 years after the Amundsen expedition, researchers claimed that the tent and flags are buried under 17 m (56 ft) of ice and about a minute north of the South Pole. Scott's party was the last to see the tent, which found it on January 18, 1912. From the bone-chilling temperatures of -70 F. Expedition member SUBLT. Henry Bowers(front seated) took the last photo of Amundsen's tent...the silver gelatin print sold for $13,729 at Christie's auction 2010>https://southpoledoc.files.wordpress...tent.jpg?w=748https://southpoledoc.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/in-search-of-amundsens-tent/

1840 Napoleon Bonaparte receives a French state funeral in Paris 19 years after his death.

1941 German submarine U-127 sinks.

1941 USS Swordfish becomes first US sub to sink a Japanese ship.

1961 Adolf Eichmann convicted of crimes against humanity in Israel.

1773 Boston tea party incident - Sons of Liberty protesters throw tea shipments into Boston harbour in protest against British imposed Tea Act.

1907 As a gesture of the US's new presence as a world power, President Theodore Roosevelt sends the US Battle Fleet on a round-the-world cruise, visiting ports internationally.

1914 World War I: German battleships under Franz Von Hipper bombard the English ports of Hartlepool and Scarborough.

1944 Ardennes campaign ('Battle of the Bulge') begins in Belgium.

1998 Iraq disarmament crisis: Operation Desert Fox - the United States and United Kingdom bomb targets in Iraq.

1916 The bizarre murder of Rasputin occurs.

Don't forget the best Christmas story ever told :yep:

December 17 th 1843 A Christmas Carol is published

Episode 1: the Wright Stuff!"
 

1941 German submarine U-434 sinks.

1941 Japanese troops land on Hong Kong.

1944 US Destroyers Hull, Spence & Monaghan sink in typhoon (Philippines).

1961 Britain's EMI Records originally rejects the Beatles.

Tphoon Cobra...immortalized!
 

Because of 100 mph (87 kn; 45 m/s; 160 km/h) winds, very high seas and torrential rain, three destroyers capsized and sank, and 790 lives were lost. Nine other warships were damaged, and over 100 aircraft were wrecked or washed overboard. Admiral Chester Nimitz: " the typhoon's impact "represented a more crippling blow to the Third Fleet than it might be expected to suffer in anything less than a major action". A typhoon plays an important role in the novel, The Caine Mutiny, which is thought to be based on the author's own experience surviving Typhoon Cobra on a mine sweeper, USS Zane DD 337/DMS-14.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...8DD-337%29.jpg<enlarges laid down at Mare Island CA 1919!:up: Herman Wouk, author of the Caine Mutiny, served as an officer aboard USS Zane from February 1943 to February 1945 before becoming executive officer of another DMS, USS Southard . USS Zane and her campaigns served as the model for many of those of the fictional USS Caine (DMS-22) in the novel. USS Zane would win six battle stars and a Navy Unit Commendation (just below a Presidential Unit Citation) in the Guadalcanal campaign.
Immortalized on the big screen, a play and a novel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB_--9YcbvQ and captured on radar!! This storm was the second tropical storm to ever be observed on radar. This being a naval forum: I'm pleased to report former XO Wouk is still kickin' at age 100! https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...20px-HWouk.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...t_of_Luzon.jpg:k_confused:

December 19th, 1998 President Clinton impeached

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...nton-impeached