This Day…

1865  Fort Fisher falls  On this day in 1865, Fort Fisher in North Carolina falls to Union forces, and Wilmington, North Carolina, the Confederacy’s most important blockade-running port, is closed.

1838 Joseph Smith abandons Ohio.   After his Mormon bank fails in the Panic of 1837, Joseph Smith flees Kirtland, Ohio, to avoid arrest and heads for Missouri to rebuild his religious community.

1877 Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain (Montana Territory).

1939 – Amelia Earhart Amelia Earhart is declared officially dead. No remains are ever found and circumstances of her disappearance are forever shrouded in mystery.

1861 Delaware rejects secession  On this day in 1861, just two weeks after South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, the state of Delaware rejects a similar proposal.

1863 Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln to free slaves in US confederate states

1890 U.S. Army massacres Indians at Wounded Knee

1777 – The new United States celebrates its first national day of thanksgiving on Thursday, December 18, 1777, commemorating the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga after the surrender of General John Burgoyne and 5,000 British troops in October 1777.

December 15, 1890 – Sioux leader Sitting Bull (native name Tatanka-yatanka) was killed in a skirmish with U.S. soldiers along the Grand River in South Dakota as his warriors tried to prevent his arrest.