Today in HistoryToday is Friday, December 22, the 356th day of 2006. There are nine days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1864, during the US Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman sent a message to President Lincoln: “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.”

In 1894, French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggered worldwide charges of anti-Semitism. (Dreyfus was eventually vindicated.)

In 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, US Brigadier Anthony McAuliffe rejected the generous surrender terms to his surrounded 101st Airborne Division, offered by a German general, writing only “Nuts!” as his formal reply.

In 1988, South Africa, Cuba and Angola signed a US-mediated pact at a UN ceremony to bring independence to Namibia, the former German colony ruled by Pretoria since the First World War.

In 1989, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, the last of Eastern Europe’s hard-line Communist rulers, was toppled from power in a popular uprising.

In 1990, Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity movement that helped to topple communism in Poland, was sworn in as the country’s president.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“A thousand probabilities do not make one fact.” — Italian proverb.