December 22 ...

In 1775 a Continental naval fleet was organized in the rebellious American colonies. In 1807 the US Congress passed the Embargo Act, designed to force peace between Britain and France by cutting off all trade with Europe. In 1864 during the Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman sent a message to President Lincoln from Georgia, which read, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah." In 1894 French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggered worldwide charges of anti-Semitism. Dreyfus was eventually vindicated. In 1895 German physicist Wilhelm Rontgen made the first X-ray, of his wife's hand. In 1941 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington fifteen days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor for a wartime conference with President Roosevelt. In 1944 during the World War II Battle of the Bulge, US Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe reportedly replied "Nuts!" when the Germans demanded that the Americans surrender. In 1956 the last British and French forces evacuated Egypt. In 1989 Romania's hard-line Communist ruler, Nicolae Ceausescu, was overthrown in a popular uprising. In 1990 Lech Walesa was sworn in as Poland's first popularly elected president. In 1991 the body of Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, an American hostage murdered by his captors, was found along a highway in Lebanon. In 2001 thirty Afghans, including two women, were sworn in as part of the new interim government in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai was the head of the post-Taliban government. Also on this day, Richard C. Reid, a passenger on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, tried to ignite explosives in his shoes, but was subdued by flight attendants and fellow passengers.