Today is Wednesday, Dec. 18, the 352nd day of 2013. There are 13 days left in the year.
Highlights in history
• In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery, was declared in effect by Secretary of State William H. Seward.
• In 1892, Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia.
• In 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered secret preparations for Nazi Germany to invade the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa was launched in June 1941.
• In 1958, the world’s first communications satellite, SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment), nicknamed “Chatterbox,” was launched by the United States aboard an Atlas rocket.
• In 1971, the Rev. Jesse Jackson announced in Chicago the founding of Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity).
• In 1998, South Carolina carried out the nation’s 500th execution since capital punishment resumed in 1977.
• In 2011, the last convoy of heavily armored U.S. troops left Iraq, crossing into Kuwait in darkness in the final moments of a nine-year war.
• Ten years ago: A jury in Chesapeake, Va., convicted teenager Lee Boyd Malvo (right) of two counts of capital murder in the Washington-area sniper shootings. He later was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
• Five years ago: W. Mark Felt (left), the former FBI second-in-command who had revealed himself as “Deep Throat” three decades after the Watergate scandal, died in Santa Rosa, Calif., at age 95.
• One year ago: Two bank robbers escaped from downtown Chicago’s high-rise jail by scaling down 17 stories using a makeshift rope. Kenneth Conley and Jose Banks were later recaptured.
Thought for today
“No one worth possessing can be quite possessed.” — Sara Teasdale, American author and poet (1884-1933)
Source: Associated Press