The 344th day of 2024 is today, Monday, December 9. The year has twenty-two days remaining.
Today in the past:
Scientists declared the worldwide eradication of smallpox, which killed an estimated 300 million people throughout the 20th century, on December 9, 1979.
Additionally, on this date: The first animated television program starring characters from Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic strip, “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” debuted on CBS in 1965.
Lech Wałęsa (lek vah-WEN’-sah), the founder of Solidarity, won Poland’s first free presidential election since 1926 in 1990.
When the first U.S. Marines landed on a Somali beach before dawn in 1992 as part of Operation Restore Hope, hundreds of media were waiting for them.
Rod Blagojevich, the governor of Illinois, was arrested in 2008 on corruption accusations, including trying to make money by taking President-elect Barack Obama’s seat in the U.S. Senate.
