December 15 · This Day in America
The Constitution had been ratified, but it almost wasn't. Several states signed on only because they were promised the government would be made to spell out, in writing, what it could never do to a person. Congress sent twelve amendments to the states. On December 15, 1791, Virginia becomes the tenth state to ratify, the last vote needed, and ten of them become the supreme law of the land. Speech. Worship. The press. The right to assemble, to be left alone, to face your accuser, to not be made to convict yourself. The first word of the first one is "Congress" — and what follows is the word "no." It is a list, written by people who had just won a revolution, of the things power is forbidden to do to the people it serves. Two centuries of American argument have been, in large part, arguments about exactly what these words mean. That argument is the freedom.
Source: prologue.blogs.archives.gov
Also on this day · 1944
The most popular bandleader in America had traded the stage for a uniform, leading a fifty-piece Army Air Force band that played for soldiers near the front. On a fog-bound December afternoon he climbs into a small plane bound for Paris to set up a broadcast. The plane vanishes over the English Channel. No wreckage, no certain answer, ever. He is still officially missing in action. The records play on; the man flew into the weather and stayed there.
Source: www.pbs.org