Dec. 29 history: Texas joins US

Dec. 29 history

In 1778, British Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell and his force of between 2,500 and 3,600 troops, which included the 71st Highland regiment, New York Loyalists, and Hessian mercenaries, launch a surprise attack on American forces defending Savannah, Georgia, during the Revolutionary War. 

In 1845, Texas enters the Union. Six months after the congress of the Republic of Texas accepts U.S. annexation, Texas is admitted into the United States as the 28th state. 

In 1890, in one of the final chapters of America’s long Indian wars, the U.S. Cavalry kills 146 Sioux at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.

In 1908, a major earthquake followed by a tsunami devastated the Italian city of Messina, killing at least 70,000 people. 

In 1912, San Francisco’s Municipal Railway began operations with Mayor James Rolph Jr. at the controls of Streetcar No. 1 as 50,000 spectators looked on.

In 1940, London suffers its most devastating air raid when Germans firebomb the city. Hundreds of fires caused by the exploding bombs engulfed areas of London, but firefighters showed a valiant indifference to the bombs falling around them and saved much of the city from destruction. The next day, a newspaper photo of St. Paul’s Cathedral standing undamaged amid the smoke and flames seemed to symbolize the capital’s unconquerable spirit during the Battle of Britain.

In 1945, Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.

In 1972, Kim Il Sung, the premier of North Korea, was named the country’s president under a new constitution.

In 1973, the Endangered Species Act was signed into law by President Richard Nixon. 

In 1981, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American “test-tube” baby, was born in Norfolk, Virginia.

In 2007, Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest as the country’s army tried to quell a frenzy of rioting in the wake of her assassination. 

In 2012, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning Americans from adopting Russian children.

In 2014, the U.S. war in Afghanistan, fought for 13 bloody years and still raging, came to a formal end with a quiet flag-lowering ceremony in Kabul that marked the transition of the fighting from U.S.-led combat troops to the country’s own security forces. 

In 2016, film star Debbie Reynolds, who lit up the screen in “Singin’ in the Rain” and other Hollywood classics, died at age 84, a day after losing her daughter, Carrie Fisher, who was 60.

In 2017, Rose Marie, who began her career in show business as a child in the 1920s and co-starred on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” in the 1960s, died at her Los Angeles-area home at the age of 94.

In 2021, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid died at his Nevada home of complications from pancreatic cancer; the Democrat was 82. 

In 2021, Hall of Fame football coach and broadcaster John Madden died at 85.

In 2022, New Orleans music legend Walter “Wolfman” Washington, a cornerstone of the city’s musical nightlife for decades, died at age 79. (History.com 12/29/23)