Today in History.....December 14

On this day in …

* 1927......My Mom was born!!!!

* 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, beating out an expedition led by Robert F.
Scott

* 1939, the Soviet Union was dropped from the League of Nations

* 1945, Josef Kramer, known as "the beast of Belsen," and 10 others were hanged in Hameln for crimes committed at the Belsen and Auschwitz Nazi concentration camps

* 1962, the U.S. space probe Mariner 2 approached Venus, transmitting information about the planet

* 1967, first time DNA created in a test tube

* 1975, six South Moluccan extremists surrendered after holding 23 hostages for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen

* 1988, America agrees to talk to PLO (the first time in 13 years)

* 1990, Right to Die case permits Nancy Cruzan to have her feeding tube removed; she dies 12 days later

* 1995, Presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia signed the Bosnian peace treaty in Paris. ALSO: AIDS patient Jeff Getty received the first-ever bone-marrow transplant from a baboon (however, the experimental procedure at a San Francisco hospital was criticized by animal rights activists. The transplant failed, but Getty survived)

* 2000, President-elect George W. Bush conferred by phone with congressional leaders of both parties and planned a goodwill tour of Washington, D.C.; he also received a flood of congratulatory calls from world leaders on his first full day as president-elect. ALSO:
U.S. businessman Edward Pope was pardoned and released by Russia after being convicted of espionage. The Federal Trade Commission unanimously approved the $111 billion merger of America Online and Time Warner.