This Day In History Dec. 18th

On this day in 1865, by proclamation of the U.S. secretary of state, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing slavery, officially entered into force, having been ratified by the requisite states on December 6.

1997: Kim Dae Jung was elected president of South Korea, the first opposition leader in that country's history to win that position.
1917: German General Erich Ludendorff ordered the consolidation of the country's leading motion-picture studios to form UFA (Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft).
1912: The discovery of fossil remains of Piltdown man, an extinct human species, was announced at a meeting of the Geological Society of London, but the remains were later proved to be a fraud.
1886: American baseball player Ty Cobb, an excellent hitter and base runner, was born in Narrows, Georgia.
1787: New Jersey became the third state admitted to the United States when it ratified the U.S. Constitution.
1737: Famed Italian violin maker Antonio Stradivari died in Cremona.