On This Day: December 18 On Dec. 18, 1957, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first civilian nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States, went online. On Dec. 18, 1888, Robert Moses, the American public servant who supervised the construction of many New York landmarks, including the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Shea Stadium , was born. Following his death on July 29, 1981, his obituary appeared in The Times. 1787 New Jersey became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. 1886 Baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb was born in Narrows, Ga. 1892 Peter Tchaikovskys The Nutcracker Suite premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia. 1915 President Woodrow Wilson, widowed the year before, married Edith Bolling Galt. 1944 The Supreme Court upheld the wartime relocation of Japanese-Americans. 1957 The first nuclear facility in the United States to generate electricity, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, went online. 1958 The worlds first communications satellite was launched by the United States aboard an Atlas rocket. 1969 Britains Parliament abolished the death penalty for murder. 1972 The United States began the heaviest bombing of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. 1987 Ivan F. Boesky was sentenced to three years in prison for plotting Wall Streets biggest insider-trading scandal. 2003 A judge in Seattle sentenced confessed Green River killer Gary Ridgeway to 48 consecutive life terms. 2003 A jury in Chesapeake, Va., convicted teenager Lee Boyd Malvo of two counts of murder in the Washington-area sniper shootings. (He was later sentenced to life in prison without parole.) 2008 A U.N. court in Tanzania convicted former Rwandan army Col. Theoneste Bagosora of genocide and crimes against humanity for masterminding the killings of more than half a million people in a 100-day slaughter in 1994. 2009 Reality TV stars Jon and Kate Gosselin, parents of eight children, divorced.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 12:42:41 +0000