Today’s highlight

On Dec. 16, 1944, the World War II Battle of the Bulge began as German forces launched a surprise attack against Allied forces through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxembourg. (The Allies were eventually able to turn the Germans back.)

On this date

1653: Oliver Cromwell became lord protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.

1773: The Boston Tea Party took place as American colonists boarded a British ship and dumped more than 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest tea taxes.

1907: 16 U.S. Navy battleships, which came to be known as the “Great White Fleet,” set sail on a 14-month round-the-world voyage to demonstrate American sea power.

1950: President Harry S. Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight “world conquest by Communist imperialism.”

1960: 134 people were killed when a United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation collided over New York City.

1991: The U.N. General Assembly rescinded its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism by a vote of 111-25.

2000: President-elect George W. Bush selected Colin Powell to become the first African-American secretary of state.