December 18: Facts & Historical Events On This Day

Argentina managed to snatch victory away from France at the last second in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final.

The US House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump for abuse of power (230 votes to 197) and obstruction of Congress (229 votes to 198).

A powerful meteor exploded over the Bering Sea.

The meteor that exploded in a huge fireball went unnoticed for months. Once it was discovered from military satellites, findings showed that the blast had ten times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Gunmen killed six health workers in Pakistan.

These workers were dispensing polio vaccinations when they were shot and killed, along with others who were wounded. It was suspected that they were attacked due to misconceptions that the vaccinations were a campaign of a Western conspiracy against Muslims.

James Cameron’s “Avatar” was released in the US. It became the highest-grossing film of all time at the time.

The Two Towers, the second of the Lord of the Rings films, was released in theaters.

It made $62 million in its opening weekend and $926 million worldwide.

The film “The Color Purple,” based on the novel by Alice Walker, directed by Steven Spielberg, premiered in New York.

Astronomer Richard Walker discovered Saturn’s moon, Epimetheus.

The Pink Panther film premiered, directed by Blake Edwards with a theme by Henry Mancini.

Project SCORE, the world’s first communications satellite, was launched into orbit.

The Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment (SCORE) satellite was the first satellite built for the purpose of communications. Its launch aboard an Atlas rocket was the first time the rocket was used to launch a payload successfully.

The first panda arrived in the US from China.

Sun-Lin became the first giant panda to arrive in the US after Ruth Harkness, the wife of a deceased panda lover, made it her mission to bring a panda home in honor of her husband. She personally caught the panda in the mountains of China and smuggled it to San Francisco, claiming to Chinese officials that it was a small dog.

The modern state of Qatar was founded with Jassim Bin Mohammad Al Thani as its leader.

New Jersey became the third state to ratify the US constitution.

Kublai Khan founded the Yuan dynasty when he renamed his Mongol Empire “Yuan.”

Kublai was the fifth emperor of the Mongol Empire and the first to shift attention more towards China than other regions. Within a decade, Kublai became the Emperor of all China after wresting control from the Song Dynasty.