diesa_j | Today in History

Today is Saturday, Dec. 13, the 348th day of 2008. There are 18 days left in the year.

On Dec. 13, 1862, Union forces suffered a major defeat to the Confederates in the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg (Va.).

On this date:

In 1642, Dutch navigator Abel Tasman sighted present-day New Zealand.

In 1769, Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, received its charter.

In 1835, Phillips Brooks, the American Episcopal bishop who wrote the words to "O Little Town of Bethlehem," was born in Boston.

In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson arrived in France, becoming the first chief executive to visit Europe while in office.

In 1928, George Gershwin's musical work "An American in Paris" had its premiere, at Carnegie Hall in New York.

In 1944, during World War II, the U.S. cruiser Nashville was badly damaged in a Japanese kamikaze attack that claimed more than 130 lives.

In 1978, the Philadelphia Mint began stamping the Susan B. Anthony dollar, which went into circulation in July 1979.

In 1981, authorities in Poland imposed martial law in a crackdown on the Solidarity labor movement. (Martial law formally ended in 1983.)

In 1994, an American Eagle commuter plane crashed short of Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina, killing 15 of the 20 people on board.

In 1996, the U.N. Security Council chose Kofi Annan of Ghana to become the world body's seventh secretary-general.

Ten years ago: With a grave impeachment threat looming, President Bill Clinton told a news conference in Jerusalem he would not resign, and insisted he did not commit perjury. Voters in Puerto Rico rejected U.S. statehood.

Five years ago: Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole under a farmhouse in Adwar, Iraq, near his hometown of Tikrit. A summit to forge a European Union constitution collapsed in Brussels, Belgium. Oklahoma quarterback Jason White won the Heisman Trophy. Former Sen. William V. Roth Jr., R-Del., creator of Roth IRA accounts, died in Washington at age 82.

One year ago: Democratic presidential hopefuls meeting in Johnston, Iowa, called for higher taxes on the highest-paid Americans and on big corporations in an unusually cordial debate. Shareholders of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, approved a takeover by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Major League Baseball's Mitchell Report was released, identifying 85 names to differing degrees in connection with the alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Thought for Today: "My theory is to enjoy life, but the practice is against it." — Charles Lamb, English essayist (1775-1834).