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.
U.S. Congress
2002: U.S. Sen. Trent Lott resigns as Senate Republican leader two weeks after igniting a political firestorm with racially charged remarks at Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party regarding Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign. Thurmond had run as a Dixiecrat on an explicit States' Rights platform that challenged the Civil Rights Movement and called for the preservation of racial segregation.
