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Saturday, December 20, 1997

  • Today's Events
  • On Horizon
  • On This Day
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  • Holidays & more
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  • "The jurors need time to take care of their families, so that's okay. We can wait. We've waited almost three years."

    -- -- Jannie Coverdale", grandmother of two OKC bombing victims, on the jury deliberating Terry Nichols' fate.





    Today's events


  • The Progress M-37 cargo ship is to launch from Kazakhstan on its way to the Mir space station.

  • A countdown clock for the handover of the Portuguese colony of Macau back to China will be set up in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

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    On the horizon


  • On Sunday, December 21, presidential elections are held in Lithuania.

  • On Monday, December 22, the Progress M-37 cargo ship is scheduled to dock with the Mir space station.

  • On Tuesday, December 23, the National Menorah will be lit in Washington, D.C.

  • On Wednesday, December 24, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah begins.

  • On Thursday, December 25, much of the world celebrates Christmas.

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    On this day


  • In 1046, by the Synod at Sutri in Italy, King Henry III dismissed Pope Gregory VI and four days later Clement II was elected as pope.

  • In 1560, the first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland took place.

  • In 1699, Peter the Great announced a reorganization of the Russian calendar, decreeing that the New Year would begin on January 1 and not September 1.

  • In 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the American Union; it was not readmitted until 1868.

  • In 1914, in World War I, the first battle of Champagne began with the French attacking German machinegun positions.

  • In 1945, Karl Renner was elected first president of the new Second Austrian republic.

  • In 1970, in Poland, Communist leader Wladyslaw Gomulka resigned after riots and was replaced by Edward Gierek.

  • In 1971, Pakistani President Mohammad Yahya Khan resigned and handed power to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

  • In 1973, in Spain, General Franco's prime minister and right-hand man, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, was assassinated as he rode through a Madrid street.

  • In 1979, Kim Jae-kyu, head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, was sentenced to death for the assassination of President Park Chung-hee in Seoul.

  • In 1981, Romuald Spasowski, Polish ambassador in Washington, was granted political asylum in the United States.

  • In 1989, the United States invaded Panama and installed a new government but initially failed in its key objective of seizing strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega.

  • In 1990, Russian Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, a key figure in five years of Soviet reform that helped end the Cold War, resigned.

  • In 1995, NATO took over peacekeeping from the U.N. in Yugoslavia and moved quickly to sweep away key roadblocks in Sarajevo.

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    Newslink


    Tired of the same old sugar cookie recipe for the holidays? Check out World in Your Kitchen's Favorite Holiday Recipes and try your hand at Christmas Lizzies and Cranmellow Cheesecake.


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    Holidays and more


  • Actress Jenny Agutter is 45.

  • Psychic Uri Geller is 51.

  • Actor John Hillerman is 65.

  • Actor Mark Keyloun is 37.

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    Sources: Associated Press,
    Chase's Calendar of Events 1997, J.P. Morgan



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