A Blast from the Past

Today is Dec. 28.

On this date in 2001, President George W. Bush granted permanent normal trade status to China, reversing a 20-year policy of using access to U.S. markets as an annual enticement to China to expand freedoms. Congress previously approved the move over the objections of human rights activists. China in return promised to open markets more fully to u.s. goods.

The first U.S. vice president to resign did so on this date in 1832. John Calhoun had served as vice president to two American presidents, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. However, he found himself increasingly in disagreement with Jackson and decided to step down instead. Calhoun would spend much of the rest of his political life as a U.S. senator for South Carolina.

It was on this date in 1950 that advancing Chinese troops crossed the 38th Parallel -- dividing line between North and South Korea -- to help the communist North Koreans fight American-led United Nations forces.

The ancient town of Messina, Sicily, was partially destroyed on this date in 1908 by an earthquake. Nearly 80,000 people were killed in the disaster.

On this date in 1895, French film pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière showed the first commercial motion pictures, unveiling their Cinématographe at a Paris café. About 30 people paid to see short films showing scenes from ordinary French life, including the feeding of a baby, a game of cards, street activity, a working blacksmith, and soldiers marching. One of the films, which showed the head-on arrival of a train, caused many patrons to flee in terror.

This was a bad time to be a chicken in Hong Kong. It was on this date in 1997 that officials in Hong Kong announced that all chickens in the territory would be killed in an attempt to eradicate carriers of the avian flu, which had killed several people.

And it was on this date in 1732 that the Pennsylvania Gazette carried the first known advertisement for the first issue of "Poor Richard's Almanack," by Richard Saunders (Benjamin Franklin). America's most famous almanac was published through the year 1758 and has been imitated many times since.

We now return you to the present, already in progress.