Today in History.....December 12

On this day in …

* Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S.
Constitution

* 1897, "The Katzenjammer Kids," the pioneering comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks, made its debut in the New York Journal

* 1913, authorities in Florence, Italy, announced that the Mona Lisa, stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1911, had been recovered"

* 1925, the first motel, the Motel Inn, opened in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

* 1937, a Japanese aircraft sank the U.S. gunboat Panay on China's Yangtze River. (Japan apologized, and paid $2.2 million in
reparations.)

* 1975, Sara Jane Moore pleaded guilty to a charge of trying to kill President Ford in San Francisco the previous September

* 1995, by three votes, the Senate killed a constitutional amendment that would have given Congress authority to outlaw flag burning and other forms of desecration against Old Glory

* 2000, a divided U.S. Supreme Court reversed a state court decision for recounts in Florida's contested election, transforming George W.
Bush into the president-elect

* 2004, practitioners of that "religion of peace" blew up an Israeli base, killing five soldiers