In 1785, the American Continental Navy fleet was organized, consisting of two frigates, two brigs and three schooners. Sailors were paid $8 a month.

In 1864, after his Civil War march across Georgia, Union Gen. William T. Sherman sent U.S. President Abraham Lincoln this message: I beg to present you as a Christmas present the city of Savannah.

In 1894, French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason by a military court-martial on flimsy evidence in a highly irregular trial and sentenced to life in prison for his alleged crime of passing military secrets to the Germans.

In 1944, ordered to surrender by Nazi troops who had his unit trapped during the Battle of the Bulge, Gen. Anthony McAuliffe of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division replied with one word: Nuts!

In 1956, the first gorilla to be born in captivity arrived into the world at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio.

In 1971, the U.N. General Assembly chose Austrian diplomat Kurt Waldheim to lead the United Nations.

In 1972, 5,000 people died when a series of earthquakes left the Nicaraguan capital of Managua in ruins.

In 1984, subway vigilante Bernard Goetz shot four would-be hold-up men on a New York City subway. He ended up serving eight months in prison for carrying an illegal weapon but was cleared of assault and attempted murder charges.

In 1986, political dissident and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, were allowed to return to Moscow after seven years of internal exile.

In 1989, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, the last hard-line communist holdout against East Bloc reforms, fell from power in the face of massive demonstrations

In 1992, all 158 people aboard a Libyan Boeing 727 died when the jetliner crashed, apparently following an in-flight collision with a military plane.

In 1993, the daughter of Cuban President Fidel Castro was granted political asylum in the United States.

Also in 1993, South Africa's Parliament gave a strong endorsement to an interim constitution that ended centuries of white-minority rule.

In 1994, Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned after seven months in office, following corruption charges against him.

In 2001, American Airlines passengers and attendants overpowered a man trying to light a match to detonate powerful explosives hidden in his sneakers on a flight from Paris to Miami.

In 2004, 13 U.S. soldiers and nine others were killed in a suicide bomber attack on a U.S. military dining hall near Mosul, Iraq.

In 2005, Wal-Mart was ordered to pay more than 100,000 California employees $172 million for depriving them of breaks to eat.

In 2006, rape charges against three former members of the Duke University lacrosse team were dropped after the alleged victim said she couldn't be sure she had been raped.

In 2007, the U.S. Air Force reported finding major structural flaws in eight models of its F-15 fighter jets, grounding some U.S. air defense capabilities.

In 2008, a federal jury in New Jersey convicted five Muslim men of plotting to attack soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., a plot prosecutors say was inspired by al-Qaida. The defendants were acquitted of attempted murder.

In 2010, the U.S. Senate voted to ratify New START, a nuclear arms control treaty with Russia.

Also in 2010, the U.S. Congress passed a $4.3 billion health bill for rescue workers involved in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New York.

In 2011, the U.S. Justice Department rejected South Carolina's photo-requiring voter-identification law, saying it discriminated against minorities. A dozen states passed a similar law this year.

Copyright 2012 by United Press International