Today’s highlight

On Dec. 14, 2020, the largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history began with health workers getting shots on the same day the nation’s COVID-19 death toll hit 300,000.

On this date

1799: The first president of the United States, George Washington, died at his Mount Vernon, Virginia, home at age 67.

1819: Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state.

1861: Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, died at Windsor Castle at age 42.

1911: Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (ROH’-ahl AH’-mun-suhn) and his team became the first men to reach the South Pole, beating out a British expedition led by Robert F. Scott.

1939: The Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland.

1961: A school bus was hit by a passenger train at a crossing near Greeley, Colorado, killing 20 students.

1964: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, ruled that Congress was within its authority to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against racial discrimination by private businesses (in this case, a motel that refused to cater to Blacks).

1981: Israel annexed the Golan Heights, which it had seized from Syria in 1967.