Picture History : Anniversaries

Anniversaries

To illustrate the depth one can access in our collections, we have compiled relevant archival imagery to frame a diverse cultural, political and chronological retrospective of noteworthy anniversaries. Be sure to bookmark this section as the calendar is a work in progress and will continue to expand.

December	Year	Anniversary	Event
1	1862	147th	Ten weeks after his Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln's State of the Union Address advocates moderation in slavery policy.
1	1971	38th	The war in Cambodia worsens, as Cambodian troops lock in a doomed fight with the Khmer Rouge and their North Vietnamese allies.
2	1917	92nd	Led by Vladimir Lenin, the Bolsheviks arrange an armistice with the Central Powers and withdraw from war.
2	1881	128th	Pauline Canissa, a U.S. opera singer, attempts to sing at a benefit in honor of the late Pres. Garfield, but breaks down
2	1961	48th	Fidel Castro announces he is a Marxist-Leninist and will lead Cuba to Communism.
2	1892	117th	Jay Gould, unscrupulous U.S. financier who joined Daniel Drew to fight with Cornelius Vanderbilt over the railroads, dies.
3	1776	233rd	George Washington arrives at the banks of the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War.
3	1826	183rd	Birth of George McClellan, Union general whom Lincoln promoted to Commander in Chief and then soon demoted
4	1861	148th	Lillian Russell (Helen Louise Leonard), American vocalist and actress, is born.
4	1892	117th	Francisco Franco, Spanish dictator, is born.
4	1942	67th	FDR orders that the Works Progress Administration - which provided jobs during the Depression - be dismantled.
4	1816	193rd	James Monroe becomes the 5th president of the United States.
5	1831	178th	John Quincy Adams, former U.S. president, becomes a member of the House of Representatives.
5	1791	218th	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer, dies.
5	1876	133rd	President Ulysses S. Grant apologizes to Congress for mistakes he made while president.
5	1792	217th	George Washington is re-elected president and John Adams is re-elected vice president.
5	1782	227th	Martin Van Buren, 8th U.S. president and first president born in the United States as a citizen, is born.
6	1917	92nd	The Bolsheviks imprison Czar Nicholas II and his family in Tobolsk.
6	1941	68th	A day before Pearl Harbor, Pres. Franklin Roosevelt asks Hirohito to "prevent further death and destruction," but to no avail.
6	1492	517th	Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Santo Domingo.
6	1877	132nd	Edison makes his first sound recording, "Mary Had a Little Lamb," on his newest invention, the phonograph.
7	1916	93rd	David Lloyd George becomes prime minister of Britain.
7	1796	213rd	John Adams is elected the second U.S. president.
7	1862	147th	At Prairie Grove, AR, Union Gen. Herron's swift march with 7,000 troops helps Gen. James Blunt hold off Conf. Gen. Hindman.
7	1987	22nd	Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in the U.S. for a summit meeting with Reagan.
7	1836	173rd	Martin Van Buren is elected the eighth president of the U.S.
7	1941	68th	Japan attacks the U.S. Pacific fleet home base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
8	1542	467th	Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, is born on this day.
8	1886	123rd	The American Federation of Labor or AFL is born in Columbus, Ohio.
8	1941	68th	The U.S. enters World War II, as Congress declares war on Japan.
8	1776	233rd	General Washington retreats across the Delaware River, from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, to flee the British
8	1987	22nd	Gorbachev and Reagan sign the first treaty between two world powers to reduce their arsenals of nuclear weapons.
9	1847	162nd	George Grossmith, English actor, is born.
9	1982	27th	Leon Jaworski, special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal, dies.
9	1621	388th	The first sermon in New England is delivered at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
9	1641	368th	Anthony Van Dyck, Flemish painter, is born today.
9	1861	148th	The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War forms to monitor Lincoln's Administration after the Battle of Ball's Bluff.
9	1862	147th	Captured Confederate officer Benjamin Carter is incarcerated in Rock Island Union Army Prison, in Illinois.
10	2002	7th	Former president Jimmy Carter accepts the Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomatic efforts in the Middle East during the 1970s.
10	1906	103rd	Pres. Theodore Roosevelt is the first American to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for his mediation efforts in the Russo-Japanese War.
10	1931	78th	Jane Addams is the first U.S. woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the poor.
10	1917	92nd	The International Red Cross, founded in 1863 by Henri Dunant of Switzerland, receives the Nobel Peace Prize.
10	1872	137th	P. B. S. Pinchback of Louisiana becomes the first African American governor of a U.S. state.
10	1817	192nd	Mississippi is admitted as the 20th state in the Union.
11	1941	68th	Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S.
11	1781	228th	Sir David Brewster, Scottish physicist, inventor, and writer, is born.
11	1862	147th	The Union Army occupies Fredericksburg, Virginia.
11	1872	137th	Buffalo Bill Cody makes his first stage appearance.
11	1777	232nd	The British delay General George Washington's march to his winter camp in Valley Forge.
11	1792	217th	Louis XVI goes before the revolutionary Convention to face charges of treason.
11	1961	48th	Pres. Kennedy orders helicopter crewmen to South Vietnam to provide training for South Vietnamese forces.
12	1896	113rd	Guglielmo Marconi, Italian physicist, gives the world's first public demonstration of radio in London.
12	1806	203rd	Stand Watie, Cherokee chief and Confederate general of the Cherokee Cavalry, is born.
12	1901	108th	Nobel-prize winner Guglielmo Marconi sends the first wireless signal, from Great Britain to Newfoundland.
12	1947	62nd	The United Mine Workers Union withdraws from the American Federation of Labor.
13	1776	233rd	Gen. Charles Lee, fond of women and wine, abandons his Patriot troops to go to Widow White's tavern in New Jersey
13	1991	18th	North Korea and South Korea sign a peace treaty, ending the Korean War, 38 years after the fighting stopped.
13	1862	147th	Lee's vastly outnumbered Confederate troops defeat Burnside from their position on Marye's Heights at the battle of Fredericksburg.
14	1897	112nd	Politician Margaret Chase Smith, first U.S. woman elected to both the House of Representatives and the Senate, born.
14	1961	48th	Pres. Kennedy steps up U.S. involvement with South Vietnam.
14	1861	148th	Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, dies in London.
15	1791	218th	The Bill of Rights goes into effect when it is ratified by Virginia on this day
15	1831	178th	Franklin Sanborn, U.S. social reformer, abolitionist, and journalist, is born.
15	1916	93rd	The French defeat the Germans at the Battle of Verdun, in WWI
15	1961	48th	Nazi official Adolf Eichmann is sentenced to death by an Israeli court.
15	1832	177th	Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, French engineer who designed the Eiffel Tower in Paris, is born.
16	1961	48th	Young Pres. Kennedy begins his South American tour to enthusiastic cheers in Caracas, Venezuela.
17	1991	18th	Boris Yeltsin's supporters declare the Soviet Union will cease to exist.
17	1797	212nd	Joseph Henry, eminent U.S. physicist and first secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, born.
17	1807	202nd	John Greenleaf Whittier, U.S. poet and abolitionist, founder of the Liberal Party, born.
17	1862	147th	Ulysses S. Grant expels the Jews from his Department when he learns that friends of his father's are cotton speculators.
18	1892	117th	Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Ballet" is first performed, by the Russian Imperial Ballet.
18	1956	53rd	Japan is admitted to the United Nations.
18	1886	123rd	The Battle of Verdun, in France, ends.
18	1886	123rd	Ty Cobb, U.S. baseball star and first man elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, is born.
18	1862	147th	At the Battle of Lexington, Nathan Forrest, ordered by Bragg to cut Union supplies, routs Robert Ingersoll's forces in Union territory.
19	1941	68th	Hitler takes charge of the German army.
19	1842	167th	Hawaii's sovereign independence is recognized by the U.S.
19	1817	192nd	James J. Archer, Confederate brigadier general captured at Gettysburg and imprisoned on Johnson's Island, Ohio, is born
19	1777	232nd	Gen. Washington leads his army of 11,000 to Valley Forge for the winter, during which nearly 3,000 troops die.
19	1732	277th	Benjamin Franklin begins publishing "Poor Richard's Almanack."
19	1776	233rd	Anglo-American political theorist Thomas Paine publishes "American Crisis", which says: "These are the times that try men's souls."
20	1862	147th	In a raid on Holly Springs, MS, Van Dorn attacks Union supply lines in order to thwart Grant's efforts to capture Vicksburg.
20	1881	128th	Branch Rickey, the U.S. baseball executive who will hire the first black players, is born.
21	1811	198th	Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, is born.
21	1861	148th	President Lincoln signs into law a Navy medal, the Medal of Valor.
21	1861	148th	The Trent Affair escalates during the Civil War and England nearly goes to war with the U.S.
22	1807	202nd	Jefferson's Embargo Act, designed to force peace between Britain and France as well as keep the US out of their war, is passed.
22	1941	68th	British Prime Minister Churchill arrives in Washington to confer with Pres. Franklin Roosevelt at the Arcadia Conference.
23	1921	88th	Pres. Warren Harding frees socialist Eugene Debs and other political prisoners.
23	1862	147th	Confederate president Jefferson Davis declares Union Gen. Butler a felon for harassing the women of New Orleans.
24	1972	37th	Comedian Bob Hope gives his last show to entertain U.S. troops in Vietnam.
24	1822	187th	Matthew Arnold, British poet and essayist, born.
24	1871	138th	Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Aida" premieres in Cairo, Egypt, for the opening of the Suez Canal.
24	1851	158th	The Library of Congress is ravaged by fire, two thirds of its collection destroyed.
25	1821	188th	Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, is born in Oxford, Massachusetts.
25	1991	18th	Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announces his resignation.
25	1926	83rd	Hirohito becomes emperor of Japan.
25	1776	233rd	General Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River to surprise the Hessian forces in New Jersey.
25	336	1673rd	The first known Christmas celebrated on Dec. 25, in Rome, is set on the birthday of the sun god, Mithras.
25	1862	147th	Lt. Elisha Rhodes, one of the most famous Civil War diarists, writes in his journal, "I should like to be home this Christmas night."
25	1977	32nd	Charlie Chaplin, English-born comedian, actor, director and producer, dies at age 88.
26	1791	218th	Charles Babbage, British mathematician and inventor, born.
26	1941	68th	Winston Churchill is the first British prime minister to address the U.S. Congress.
26	1972	37th	Harry S. Truman, 33rd U.S. president, dies.
26	1837	172nd	Admiral George Dewey, U.S. naval commander, is born.
26	1776	233rd	The British suffer a major defeat at the Battle of Trenton during the Revolutionary War.
26	1492	517th	Columbus establishes the first Spanish settlement in the Americas, on the island of Haiti.
26	1861	148th	Mason and Slidell are freed from their Boston jail, in exchange for Union prisoners of war, in the Trent Affair
27	1822	187th	Louis Pasteur, French scientist who developed pasteurization as well as a rabies vaccination, is born.
27	1831	178th	Naturalist Charles Darwin sets out from England for a 5-year survey of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans aboard the HMS Beagle.
28	1856	153rd	Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the U.S., is born in Staunton, VA.
28	1832	177th	John Calhoun becomes the first US vice president to resign, due to differences with Pres. Andrew Jackson.
29	1837	172nd	Canadian militiamen destroy the Caroline, a US steamboat docked at Buffalo, NY.
29	1986	23rd	Former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dies at age 92.
29	1851	158th	The first U.S. branch of the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) is established in Boston.
29	1607	402nd	Chief Powhatan spares John Smith's life because of the pleas of his daughter, Pocahontas.
29	1862	147th	At Chickasaw Bluffs, 6,000 Confederates defeat 37,000 Union troops, thwarting Union Gen. Sherman's attempt to take Vicksburg.
30	1922	87th	Lenin proclaims the establishment of the USSR.
30	1862	147th	The Union ironclad USS Monitor sinks off Cape Hatteras.
30	1916	93rd	Grigory Rasputin, Russian mystic and favorite of Czar Nicholas II, is murdered by a group of Russian nobles.
30	1816	193rd	Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and novelist Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin marry
31	1897	112nd	Brooklyn's last day as a separate entity from New York City, before becoming a borough.
31	1946	63rd	President Harry S. Truman declares World War II officially over.
31	1961	48th	America's Marshall Plan ends, after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid since 1948.
31	1781	228th	America's first modern bank, the Bank of North America, opens in Philadelphia, as conceptualized by Robert Morris
31	1862	147th	At the Battle of Stones River, Rosecrans and Bragg begin a fight in the bitter cold that will last 3 days before a Union victory.
31	1862	147th	At Parker's Crossroads, Nathan Forrest barely escapes capture but his raid forces Grant to give up on capturing Vicksburg.