On this day, Dec. 14 ...
2012: A gunman with a semi-automatic rifle kills 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., then commits suicide as police arrive.
Also on this day:
1799: George Washington, the first president of the United States, dies at his Mount Vernon, Va., home at age 67.
1819: Alabama joins the Union as the 22nd state.
1911: Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team become the first men to reach the South Pole, beating out a British expedition led by Robert F. Scott.
1916: President Woodrow Wilson vetoes an immigration measure aimed at preventing “undesirables” and anyone born in the “Asiatic Barred Zone” from entering the U.S. (Congress would override Wilson’s veto in Feb. 1917.)