1620 – The Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England. The ship arrived at Provincetown, MA, on November 21st and then at Plymouth, MA, on December 26th. There were 102 passengers on board.

1893 – The “Cherokee Strip” in Oklahoma was swarmed by hundreds of thousands of settlers.

1990 – An eight-minute videotape of an address by U.S. President George H.W. Bush was shown on Iraqi television. The message warned that action of Saddam Hussein could plunge them into a war “against the world.”

1994 – Exxon Corporation was ordered by federal jury to pay $5 billion in punitive damages to the people harmed by the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.

1994 – Two astronauts from the space shuttle Discovery went on the first untethered spacewalk in 10 years.