SANDY KOZEL

George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799)

Mount Vernon Estate seen from the Potomac River.

Statue of George Washington, State
Capitol, Richmond, Virginia.

Roger Eugene Maris (September 10, 1934 – December 14, 1985)

Roger Maris was an professional baseball player who played four seasons
in the minor leagues and twelve seasons in the major leagues. He played
right field on four Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, from 1957 through
1968 and set the MLB record for home runs during the 1961 season with
61, breaking Babe Ruth‘s single-season record of 60 home runs in 1927.

Roger Maris was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1983 and
died at age 51 at M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, Texas.

Roger Maris plaque in Yankee Stadium’s Monument Park.

October 2, 1961 cover of Sports Illustrated magazine
featuring Roger Maris hitting one of his late-season,
record home runs.

Maris organized the annual Roger Maris
Celebrity Golf Tournament to raise money
for cancer research and treatment.  

(Fox News) – A rare piece of American history is up for sale, just in time for Christmas.

An original letter written and signed by President Abraham Lincoln in the
middle of the Civil War was recently discovered among a collection of family heirlooms belonging to the direct descendants of Mary Todd Lincoln.

Written four days before Christmas in 1863, it requests that Mrs. Lincoln’s
first cousin and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Craig, be allowed to safely return
to their cotton plantation in Arkansas, which was by then in Union territory.

“[I]t is my wish,” Lincoln writes “that they be permitted to do so, and that the
United States military forces in that vicinity will not molest them or allow them
to be molested, when within their power to prevent, as long as the said Mr. and
Mrs. Craig shall demean themselves as peaceful and loyal citizens to the United States.”

The letter was handed down from generation to generation, until it ultimately
ended up in the care of a descendant now living in the Midwest.     

It was recently acquired directly from that descendant by the Raab Collection,
and is now for sale for $60,000.

“Finding something from Abraham Lincoln that is still in the hands of the family
of the recipient is increasingly rare,” says Nathan Raab, the vice president of the Raab Collection. “Something of this importance and connection to Lincoln’s
family is very uncommon.”

And he would certainly know. The Raab collection has worked on the sale and preservation of many important historical documents, and with the families of
their authors, including Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant and Ronald
Reagan among others.

   
    
    
    
 
ED DONAHUE

On this day in 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the recount
ordered by the Florida Supreme Court in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election was unconstitutional. U.S. Vice President Al Gore (below) 
conceded the election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush the next
day.

President-elect George W. Bush (left) meets with Vice President Al
Gore following the election.

CAMILLE BOHANNON

Kirk Douglas (Issur Danielovitch) is 102 years old today.

Legendary movie actor Kirk Douglas starred in 20,000 Leagues Under the
Sea (1954), Paths of  Glory (1957), Gunfight at the O.K Corral (1957), and
Spartacus (1960). Kirk Douglas became a legend on the silver screen,
receiving the Academy Honorary Award in 1996. He was a successful
competitive wrestler while in college and served in the U.S. Navy.

1956

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs
a declaration of war.