By Annabella Ramirez
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
The Treaty of Ghent (8 Stat. 218) was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. It took effect in February 1815. Both sides signed it on December 24, 1814, in the city of Ghent, United Netherlands (now in Belgium). The treaty restored relations between the two parties to status quo ante bellum by restoring the pre-war borders of June 1812. Both sides were eager to end the war. It ended when the treaty arrived in Washington and was immediately ratified unanimously by the United States Senate and exchanged with British officials the next day.
The treaty was approved by the British Parliament and signed into law by the Prince Regent (the future King George IV) on December 30, 1814. It took a month for news of the treaty to reach the United States, during which American forces under Andrew Jackson won the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815. U.S. President James Madison signed the treaty and exchanged final ratified copies with the British ambassador on February 17, 1815.
The treaty began more than two centuries of peaceful relations between the United States and the United Kingdom despite a few tense moments, such as the Aroostook War in 1838–39, the Pig War in 1859, and the Trent Affair in 1861.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Born
- Kit Carson (frontiersman) –
- Eliza Cook (poet) –
- Charles Wakefield Cadman (composer) –
- Juan Ramon Jimenez (poet) –
- Ava Gardner (actress) –
- Mary Higgins Clark (author) –
- Robert Joffrey (dancer) –
- Ricky Martin (singer) –
- Ryan Seacrest (television host) –
- Pepper (Bolivian gray titi monkey) –
Died
- Peter Lawford (actor) –
- Michael Vale (actor) –
- Cheetah (chimpanzee sidekick in the Tarzan movies of the early 1930s) –
- Charles Durning (actor) –
- Jack Klugman (actor) –
Events
- Treaty of Ghent signed between the U.S. and Great Britain, ending the War of 1812 –
- Stille Nacht (Silent Night) first performed, Oberndorf, Austria –
- Clement Moore’s “A Visit From St. Nicholas” likely written –
- The Eggnog Riot began at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York –
- First great fire of San Francisco –
- Two-thirds of the collection of the Library of Congress (35,000 volumes) and a portion of the Capitol were destroyed by fire –
- Canadian-born Reginald A. Fessenden sent the first extended radio broadcast from Brant Rock, Massachusetts –
- O Holy Night was played on the world’s first radio program broadcast, from Brant Rock, Massachusetts –
- Unofficial Christmas truce began in areas of the Western Front during World War I –
- CONAD (later, NORAD) began to track Santa Claus –
- Catcher Jason Varitek was named captain of the Boston Red Sox –
Weather
- Chicago set a record low temperature of -23 degrees F –
- In Fairfield, Montana, the temperature dropped from 63 degrees F at noontime to a chilly 21 degrees below zero F at midnight –
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