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Today is Wednesday, Dec. 10, the 345th day of 2008. There are 21 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

Fifty years ago, on Dec. 10, 1958, National Airlines opened the era of U.S. domestic jet passenger service as it began flights between New York and Miami using Boeing 707s leased from Pan Am.

On this date:

In 1520, Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict demanding that he recant, or face excommunication.

In 1817, Mississippi was admitted as the 20th state.

In 1869, women were granted the right to vote in the Wyoming Territory.

In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for helping mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War.

In 1931, Jane Addams became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (the co-recipient was Nicholas Murray Butler).

In 1948, the U.N. General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

In 1950, Ralph J. Bunche was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the first black American to receive the award.

In 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. received his Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1967, singer Otis Redding, 26, and six others were killed in the crash of their plane in Lake Monona, Wis.

In 1978, movie director Edward D. Wood Jr. ("Plan 9 From Outer Space") died in North Hollywood, Calif., at age 54.

December 13

1642  New Zealand was discovered by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman.

1918  President Wilson arrived in France, becoming the first U.S. President to visit Europe while in office.

1978  The U.S. Mint began stamping the Susan B. Anthony dollar, the first U.S. coin honoring a woman.

1981  The Polish government imposed martial law in an attempt to crush the Solidarity movement.

1989  South African President F.W. de Klerk met with Nelson Mandela for the first time.

1996  Kofi Annan of Ghana chosen to become U.N. Secretary General.

2000  George W. Bush accepted Presidency 36 days after election;  Al Gore, Jr. conceded.

2003  American forces captured Saddam Hussein who was hiding in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit.

December 15

1791  The Bill of Rights took effect upon Virginia's ratification of it.

1890  Sioux Indian chief Sitting Bull was killed by Native American police.

1916  The French defeated the Germans at the Battle of Verdun.

1939  The movie Gone with the Wind premiered in Atlanta, Georgia.

1944  Bandleader Glenn Miller disappeared in a plane crash over the English Channel.

1961  Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death by an Israeli Court for organizing the deportation of Jews to concentration camps.

1964  Canada adopted its national flag, a red maple leaf on a white background.

1966  Animated - cartoon pioneer and producer Walt Disney died in Los Angeles.

1989  A demonstration that turned into a popular uprising in Romania began the downfall of Nicolae Ceausescu.

December 17

1777  France recognized American independence.

1903  Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first flight in a heavier - than - air plane at Kitty Hawk, NC

1944  The U.S. Army announced the end of its policy of holding Japanese Americans in internment camps, allowing the "evacuees" to return home.

1969  The U.S. Air Force ended its Project "Blue Book" and concluded that there was no evidence of extraterrestrial activity behind UFO sightings.

1992  North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)  by U.S, Canada, and Mexico.

December 19

1732  Benjamin Franklin began publishing Poor Richard's Almanac.

1776  Thomas Paine first published his first American essay, in which he wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls."

1843  Charles Dickens published "A Christmas Carol".

1946  War broke out in Indochina when Ho Chi Minh attacked the French.

1972  Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, Britain and China signed an accord returning Hong Kong to Chinese Sovereignty, on July 1, 1997.

1998  Bill Clinton impeached on two counts by the House of Representatives.

2003  Muammar al - Qaddafi of Libya announced that his country would discontinue development of weapons of mass destruction.

December 21

1620  The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts.

1891  The first basketball game, invented in Springfield College in Massachusetts by James E. Naismith was played.

1898  Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium.

1913  The first crossword puzzle was printed in the New York World.

1937  Disney's Snow White, the first feature length and sound cartoon, premiered.

1970  Elvis Presley met with President Richard Nixon in the White House.

1988  A terrorist bomb exploded aboard a PanAm Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.

1991  Eleven of the former Soviet Republics form the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1995  Palestinians took over the control of the city of  Bethlehem.

December 23

1783  George Washington resigned as commander - in - chief of the U.S. Army.

1788  Maryland voted to cede a 100 square mile area for the District of Columbia.

1823  The poem, "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" (T'was the Night Before Christmas) writtten by Clement C. Moore or by Major Henry Llivingston, Jr., was published in the Troy Sentinel in New York.

1913  President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the Federal Reserve System.

1947  The transistor was unveiled by American physicists John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William Shockley.

1948  Hideko Tojo and six other Japanese war leaders were executed.

1986  Dick Yutan and Jeana Yeager completed the first non-stop, around the world without refueling aboard the experimental airplane Voyager.

December 25                                                    Merry Christmas Everyone!

1066  William the Conqueror was crowned King of England.

1776  George Washington crossed the Delaware River and surprised the Hessians.

1868  President Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to all persons involved in the Southern Rebellion that resulted in the Civil War.

1926  Hirohito became Emperor of Japan.

1977 British film actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin died in Switzerland at age 88.

1989  Former Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were executed.

1991  President Mikhail Gorbachav resigned following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

December 27

1831  Darwin began his voyage aboard the HMS Beagle.

1900  Prohibitionist Carry Nation smashed her first saloon.

1932  Radio City Music Hall in New York City opened.

1945  The World Bank was created with an agreement signed by 28 nations.

1949  The Netherland transferred sovereignty to Indonesia after more than 300 years of Dutch rule.

1979  The Soviet Union took control of Afghanistan, installing politician Barak Karmal as President.

1996  Rwanda's first genocide trial opened for the 1994 slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis.

2001  President Bush permanently normalized trade relations with China.

2001  The U.S. announced plans to hold Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

December 29

1170  Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered by four knights acting under the orders of Henry II.

1845  Texas became the 28th state of the United States.

1851  The first Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) opened in Boston.

1890  The last major battle of the Indian Wars, at Wounded Knee Creek, took place with hundeds of Indian men, women, and children massacred.

1937  The Constitution of Ireland, changing the Irish Free State into Eire, went into effect.

1940  During World War II, Germany began dropping incendiary bombs on England.

1989  Vaclav Havel was elected President of Czechoslovakia.

1996  A peace agreement was signed, ending 36 years of conflict in Guatemala.

December 31

1879  Thomas Edison gave the first public demonstration of an electric incandescent lamp.

1938  The first breath test for drivers, "drunkometer", was introduced in Indianapolis.

1946  President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.

1961  The Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid.

1963  Central African Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland were formally dissolved.

1964  The Al-Fatah guerillas of Yasser Arafat launched their first terrorist raid on Israel.

1987  Robert Mugabe sworn in as Zimbabwe's President.

January 2

1492  Muhammed XI, the leader of the last Arab stronghold in Spain, surrendered to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I.

1788  Georgia was admitted to the Union as the 4th state.

1839  Louis Jacques Mande Daquerre took the first photograph of the moon.

1905  The Russo-Japanese War ended.

1923  The African-American town of Rosewood, FL was burned by a whilte mob.

1935  The Bruno R. Hauptmann trial began for the kidnap and murder of the Lindbergh baby.

1959  The first spacecraft to fly by the moon and also to orbit the sun, Mechta (Luna I) was launched by the USSR.

1944  Rudolph Giuliani is inaugurated as New York City's mayor.

Thanks for noticing the error. 

It was in 1994 that he was inaugurated as Mayor of New York City.

1885   Dr. William W. Grant of Davenport, Iowa, performed what is thought to be the first appendectomy.

1896  Utah was admitted as 45th state of the United States.

1904  In Gonzales v. Williams, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Puerto Rico are not aliens and can enter the U.S. freely.

1948  Burma (Myanmar) gained independence from Great Britain.

1951  During the Korean War, North Korean and Communist Chinese forces captured the city of Seoul.

1965  President Johnson outlined his "Great Society" in his State of the Union address.

1999  Former wrestler Jesse Ventura was sworn in as Minnesota's governor.

1999  The U.S. Mint began distributing the 50.State Quarters.

2007  California Democrat Nancy Pelosi becomes the first U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives.

January 6

1540  King Henry the VIII of England married his 4th wife, Anne of Cleves.

1759  George Washington married Martha Custis.

1838  Samuel Morse gave the first public demonstration of the telegraph.

1912  New Mexico became the 47th state in the United States.

1919  Former President Theodore Roosevelt died in Oyster Bay, NY.

1987  University of California first witness the birth of a galaxy that contained 1 billion stars.

1994  Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan clubbed on leg by men including husband of rival skater Tonya Harding.