Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Dec. 14. It was on this date in 1998 that a federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced Democratic Party donor Johnny Chung to five years' probation on charges that included $20,000 in illegal gifts to the Clinton-Gore campaign. The Democratic Party had returned nearly $400,000 in gifts from Chung that were of dubious legality. Advertisement From the seventh century onward, the South Pole had been the object of many expeditions. But on this date in 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first person to reach the South Pole. He was accompanied by four companions and 52 sled dogs. All returned to camp safely. Next to visit the South Pole was a party led by Capt. Robert Scott --- all of whom died during the return trip. Their frozen bodies were found 11 months later. Chile's military dictatorship ended on this date in 1989, when opposition candidate Patricio Aylwin easily won the South American country's first democratic presidential election since the 1973 coup that brought military leader Augusto Pinochet to power. Pinochet had been defeated in a national plebiscite on eight more years of his rule, crippling his regime and prompting the election. Advertisement George Washington, "father of our country" and the first president of the United States, died at his Mount Vernon home in Virginia on this date in 1799. He was 67. Andrei Sakharov -- father of the Soviet H-bomb, dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner for defending human rights -- died at age 68 on this date in 1989. With an eye to the planned visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul II in early 1998, President Fidel Castro announced on this date in 1997 that Christmas would be an official holiday in the Caribbean island nation for the first time since 1968. Communists are supposed to be atheists, although many, many Cubans are still Catholics --- and Castro apparently wanted to look good for the Vatican. We now return you to the present, already in progress.
