President Richard Nixon met Elvis Presley in the Oval Office
on December 21, 1970, a famously strange meeting initiated
by Elvis, who wanted to offer his services in the war on drugs
and asked Nixon for a federal narcotics badge, which Nixon
granted, giving the world one of the most requested photos
in U.S. National Archives history.

Elvis showing off his cuff links to the president.

Elvis presented Nixon with signed photographs of his family.

On December 19, 1777, commander of the Continental Army
George Washington, the future first president of the United
States, lead his beleaguered troops into winter quarters at
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Things could hardly have looked bleaker for Washington
and the Continental Army as 1777 came to a close.

No one knew better than Washington that the army was on
the brink of collapse—in fact, he had defied Congress’
demand that he launch a mid-winter attack against the
British at Philadelphia and instead fell back to Valley
Forge to rest and refit his troops.

SANDY KOZEL

                
ED DANAHUE    
 

At a news conference, President Richard Nixon said that the
Vietnam War is coming to a “conclusion as a result of the
plan that we have instituted.”

Nixon had announced at a conference in Midway in June that
the United States would be following a new program he termed “Vietnamization.”