December 5th, 2008

Today in History

1992:
Kent Conrad of North Dakota resigns his seat in the United States Senate and is sworn into the other seat from North Dakota, becoming the only US Senator ever to have held two seats on the same day.

1955:
The trade unions American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations decide to merge and form the AFL-CIO.

1941:
The nonfiction book Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck is published (Steinbeck used knowledge gained writing this book to develop the marine biologist character Doc in Cannery Row).

1776:
At the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, the Phi Beta Kappa is founded as the first scholastic fraternity in the United States.

1492:
Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic).