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HISTORICAL FACTS FROM DECEMBER 25-31
December 25, 1066..........William the Conqueror was crowned King of England after he had invaded England from France, defeated and killed King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, then marched on London.
December 26, 2004..........An estimated 230,000 were killed and 1.5 million left homeless when a magnitude 9.3 earthquake on the seafloor of the Indian Ocean set off a series of giant tsunami waves that smashed into the shorelines of a dozen countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India and Somalia.
December 27, 1996...........A genocide trial began concerning the killing of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. In 1994, a bloody civil war had broken out between the two main ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi. After the Hutu army seized power it had waged a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Tutsi population.
December 28, 1832...........John C. Calhoun became the first American ever to resign the office of vice-president. He served under Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson and resigned after a series of political disagreements with President Jackson. He went on to become a U.S. Senator from South Carolina.
December 29, 1890............Members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry massacred more than 200 Native Americans (Sioux) men, women, and children at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota.
December 30, 1803............The Stars & Stripes flag was raised over New Orleans as the United States took formal possession of the territory of Louisiana, an area of 885,000 square miles, nearly doubling the size of the U.S. The territory had been purchased from France for approximately $15 million dollars.
December 31, 1781..............The first bank in the U.S., the Bank of North America, received its charter from the Confederation Congress. It opened on January 7, 1782 in Philadelphia.
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1. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!
