This day in history

[December 13, 2010]  (AP)  Today is Monday, Dec. 13, the 347th day of 2010. There are 18 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

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

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 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole under a farmhouse in Adwar, Iraq, near his hometown of Tikrit.

Ten years ago: Republican George W. Bush claimed the presidency a day after the U.S. Supreme Court shut down further recounts of disputed ballots in Florida; Democrat Al Gore conceded, delivering a call for national unity. Seven inmates made a daring escape from a maximum security prison in Kenedy, Texas. (Six of the "Texas 7" were later recaptured; one killed himself; the others were sentenced to death for killing a Dallas-area police officer during a robbery. One of the six, Michael Rodriguez, dropped his appeals and was executed in 2008.) President Bill Clinton ended his last presidential visit to Northern Ireland.

Five years ago: Crips gang co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams, whose supporters argued had redeemed himself inside prison, was executed in California for killing four people in robberies. Iraqis living abroad began voting in the country's parliamentary elections. American Red Cross President Marsha Evans announced her resignation.

One year ago: The Senate passed, 57-35, a $1.1 trillion spending bill with increased budgets for vast areas of the federal government, including health, education, law enforcement and veterans' programs. An attacker hurled a statuette at Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, striking him in the face and leaving the stunned 73-year-old leader with a broken nose and two broken teeth. (The attacker, Massimo Tartaglia, was later found unfit to stand trial.) Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson died in Belmont, Mass. at age 94.

Today's birthdays: Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz is 90. Actor-comedian Dick Van Dyke is 85. Actor Christopher Plummer is 81. Country singer Buck White is 80. Music/film producer Lou Adler is 77. Movie producer Richard Zanuck is 76. Singer John Davidson is 69. Actress Kathy Garver (TV: "Family Affair") is 65. Singer Ted Nugent is 62. Rock musician Jeff "Skunk" Baxter is 62. Country musician Ron Getman is 62. Actor Robert Lindsay is 61. Country singer-musician Randy Owen is 61. Actress Wendie Malick is 60. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is 60. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is 57. Country singer John Anderson is 56. Singer-songwriter Steve Forbert is 56. Singer-actor Morris Day is 54. Actor Steve Buscemi (boo-SEH'-mee) is 53. Actor Johnny Whitaker is 51. Actor-comedian Jamie Foxx is 43. Actor Bart Johnson is 40. TV personality Debbie Matenopoulos is 36. Rock singer-musician Thomas Delonge is 35. Actor James Kyson Lee is 35. Actress Chelsea Hertford is 29. Rock singer Amy Lee (Evanescence) is 29. Country singer Taylor Swift is 21.

Thought for today: "To know how to say what others only know how to think is what makes men poets or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think makes men martyrs or reformers -- or both." -- Elizabeth Charles, British writer (1828-1896)

[Associated Press]

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