This Day in History: Dec. 15

On this day, Dec. 15 ...

1791: The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, goes into effect following ratification by Virginia.

Also on this day:

• 1890: Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull and 11 other tribe members are killed in Grand River, South Dakota, during a confrontation with Indian police.
• 1938: Groundbreaking for the Jefferson Memorial takes place in Washington, D.C. with President Franklin D. Roosevelt taking part in the ceremony.
• 1944: A single-engine plane carrying bandleader Glenn Miller, a major in the U.S. Army Air Forces, disappears over the English Channel while en route to Paris.
• 1960: Teflon-coated skillets first go on sale at Macy’s flagship store in New York City.
• 1961: Former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann is sentenced to death by an Israeli court for crimes against humanity. (Eichmann would be hanged 5 1/2 months later.)
• 1965: Two U.S. manned spacecraft, Gemini 6A and Gemini 7, maneuver toward each other while in orbit, at one point coming as close as one foot.
• 1967: The Silver Bridge between Gallipolis, Ohio, and Point Pleasant, West Va. collapsed into the Ohio River, killing 46 people.
• 1978: President Jimmy Carter announces he would grant diplomatic recognition to Communist China on New Year’s Day and sever official relations with Taiwan.
• 1989: A popular uprising begins in Romania that results in the downfall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
• 1995: European Union leaders meeting in Madrid, Spain, choose “euro” as the name of the new single European currency.
• 2000: The controversial Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine is closed for good.
• 2001: A 50-foot tall section of steel -- the last standing piece of the World Trade Center’s facade -- is brought down in New York.
• 2008: President-elect Barack Obama says a review by his own lawyer showed he’d had no direct contact with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (blah-GOY’-uh-vich) about the appointment of a Senate replacement, and that transition aides “did nothing inappropriate.” Illinois lawmakers take the first steps toward removing Blagojevich, a Democrat, from office.
• 2013: Nelson Mandela is laid to rest in his childhood hometown, ending a 10-day mourning period for South Africa’s first black president.

• 2019: Former FBI Director James Comey admits on "Fox News Sunday" that the recently released Justice Department Inspector General’s report on the launch of the FBI’s Russia investigation and their use of the surveillance process showed that he was "overconfident" when he defended his former agency's use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).