TODAY IN HISTORY

DECEMBER 15

1791: Virginia ratifies the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, bringing the Bill of Rights into effect. Virginia's own Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason, formed much of the basis for the federal Constitution’s guarantees of individual liberties.

1890: Sioux leader Sitting Bull is killed by Indian police at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in present-day South Dakota. Sitting Bull had been put under arrest by Indian Service agent James McLaughlin, who was wary of the chief’s fierce resistance to the U.S. government’s designs on the Native American lands in the Great Plains.

1944: Popular American bandleader and trombonist Glenn Miller and his band disappear somewhere over the English Channel en route to a Christmas concert in Paris, never to be seen again. Best-selling musician Miller had joined the U.S. Army in 1942 and had performed hundreds of times for Allied troops stationed around the world, in order to boost morale.


1975:Pink Floyd releases Wish You Were Here

1965: Gemini 6 achieves the first space rendezvous, with Gemini 7.

1891:James Naismith invents basketball