On this day: December 20

POSTED: 10:21 PM PST Dec 19, 2012    UPDATED: 11:00 PM PST Dec 19, 2012 

The Louisiana Purchase is completed, South Carolina secedes from the U.S., Edison demonstrates his incandescent light, Elvis gets drafted, and the U.S. invades Panama, all on this day.

OTD December 20 - John Steinbeck
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Public domain

1968: American writer John Steinbeck, the Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of novels such as "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Of Mice and Men," dies of heart disease and congestive heart failure at the age of 66 in New York City.

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