Dec. 22 (UPI) — On this date in history:
In 1785, the American Continental Navy fleet was organized, consisting of two frigates, two brigs and three schooners. Sailors were paid $8 a month.
In 1894, French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason by a military court-martial on flimsy evidence in a highly irregular trial and sentenced to life in prison for his alleged crime of passing military secrets to the Germans. Dreyfus was released from prison in 1899 and officially exonerated in 1906.
In 1944, ordered to surrender by Nazi troops who had his unit trapped south of Bastogne, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge, Gen. Anthony McAuliffe of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division replied with one word: “Nuts!”
In 1984, “subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz shot and injured four would-be holdup men on a New York City subway. He served eight months in prison for carrying an illegal weapon but was cleared of assault and attempted murder charges.
On December 22, 2001, American Airlines passengers and attendants overpowered a man — Richard Reid — trying to light a match to detonate powerful explosives hidden in his sneakers on a flight from Paris to Miami. File Photo courtesy of the FBI
In 1986, political dissident and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, were allowed to return to Moscow after seven years of internal exile.
Yelena Bonner, wife of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, waves goodbye as she passes an American flag at Boston’s Logan Airport on May 24, 1986. File Photo by Jim Bourg/UPI
This long exposure shows the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and the safe return of the first stage of the rocket at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on December 21, 2015. File Photo courtesy of SpaceX
In 1989, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, the last hard-line communist holdout against East Bloc reforms, fell from power in the face of massive demonstrations.
In 1992, all 157 people aboard Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 1103 died when the jetliner crashed, apparently following an in-flight collision with a military plane.
On December 22, 1984, “subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz shot and injured four would-be holdup men on a New York City subway. File Photo by Monika Graff/UPI
In 2001, American Airlines passengers and attendants overpowered a man, Richard Reid, trying to light a match to detonate powerful explosives hidden in his sneakers on a flight from Paris to Miami. As a result of the incident, U.S. airports began requiring passengers to remove their…
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