Today in History, December 15th
On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified. Plus the death of Sitting Bull and the formal end of the U.S. mission in Iraq.
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December 15 is best known as the day in 1791 when the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, became law. The date also saw the death of Lakota leader Sitting Bull in 1890 and the official end of the U.S. war in Iraq in 2011.
The big story: The Bill of Rights Is Ratified (1791)
The Constitution that came out of Philadelphia in 1787 set up a government, but it said little about what that government could not do to its citizens. Critics such as George Mason, who had written Virginia’s Declaration of Rights in 1776, objected loudly. Many of them agreed to support the Constitution only on the promise that amendments protecting basic rights would follow quickly. In September 1789, the first Congress sent 12 proposed amendments to the states. On December 15, 1791, Virginia approved them, which supplied the last ratification needed to make ten of them part of the Constitution. Those ten, covering freedom of speech, religion and the press, the right to a jury trial and more, became known as the Bill of Rights. Of the two that fell short, one dealt with how seats in the House are apportioned. The other, on congressional pay raises, sat unfinished for two centuries until it was finally ratified in 1992 as the 27th Amendment.
More events on December 15
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1890 | Lakota leader Sitting Bull was shot and killed by Indian police sent to arrest him at his cabin on the Standing Rock reservation in present-day South Dakota. |
| 1917 | Russia’s new Bolshevik government reached an armistice with the Central Powers, taking Russia out of the fighting in World War I. |
| 1944 | Bandleader Glenn Miller’s small plane vanished over the English Channel on a flight from England to France. No wreckage was ever found. |
| 1961 | An Israeli court in Jerusalem sentenced Nazi official Adolf Eichmann to death after convicting him on all 15 charges for his role in the Holocaust. |
| 1973 | The American Psychiatric Association issued a resolution ending its classification of homosexuality as a mental illness and removed it from its diagnostic manual. |
| 1978 | President Jimmy Carter announced that the U.S. would formally recognize the People’s Republic of China and end official relations with Taiwan, starting January 1, 1979. |
| 2001 | The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened to visitors after more than a decade of stabilization work that reduced its tilt by roughly 16 to 17 inches. |
| 2011 | A ceremony in Baghdad formally marked the end of the U.S. military mission in Iraq, which began with the 2003 invasion. |
Born on December 15
- 37: Nero, Roman emperor, born in Antium.
- 1832: Gustave Eiffel, French engineer whose tower became the symbol of Paris.
- 1944: Chico Mendes, Brazilian rubber tapper, union leader and defender of the Amazon rainforest.
Sources
- Bill of Rights is finally ratified, History.com
- Sitting Bull killed by Indian police, History.com
- Russia reaches armistice with the Central Powers, History.com
- Glenn Miller disappears over the English Channel, History.com
- Architect of the Holocaust sentenced to die, History.com
- The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses, History.com
- United States announces that it will recognize communist China, History.com
- Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens, History.com
- United States declares end to Iraq War, History.com
- Chico Mendes, Britannica
I believe all history should be preserved and remembered – great blog.