PHOTOS: This Week in History in Photos
A look at this week in history in photos.
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Dec. 17, 1903: Orville Wright, lying at the controls on the lower wing, pilots the Wright Flyer on the first powered flight by a heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk, N.C. In the moments before going airborne, his brother, Wilbur Wright, watching right, guided and steadied the plane as it accelerated along the starting rail at left.
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Dec. 17, 1973: Firefighters inspect the foam-covered engine and split tail of an Iberia DC10 airliner that crash-landed at Logan International Airport in Boston. There were no reports of deaths among the 167 people aboard including the crew. Ronald Brinn of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which has jurisdiction over the airport, said the left main landing gear hit the approach lights of the runway.
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Dec. 17, 1975: University of Pennsylvania archaeologist-anthropologist Allan Mann searches the Betsy Ross grave site in Philadelphia. The remains of Betsy Ross were scheduled to be removed from the cemetery and placed in the garden of her former home in Philadelphia.
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Dec. 16, 1960: Rescue workers go through the remains of a DC-8 airplane that crashed in Brooklyn, New York. The plane collided with a TWA Constellation over Miller Field in Staten Island and the DC-8 hurtled and crashed in Brooklyn. The death toll was 135, including 128 passengers.
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Dec. 15, 1973: Former actress Gail Harris arrives in a police car with her son John Paul Getty III at police headquarters in Rome. Getty, the teenage grandson of the U.S. oil tycoon, was finally released after six months by his Italian kidnappers. At one point the kidnappers cut off his ear and mailed it to further their demand for the $750,000 ransom.
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Dec. 15, 1967: A workman signals a crane as it removes wreckage from the Silver Bridge, which connected connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio. The collapse of the bridge into the Ohio River killed 46 people.
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Dec. 14, 1977: The wreckage of a chartered airliner lies at the end of a runway off Evansville's Dress Regional Airport in Indiana atop a ridge over a railroad track. Wreckage and luggage catapulted down the embankment. The 29 victims were loaded into a box car for removal from the scene. The plane was carrying the University of Evansville basketball team, who died in the crash.
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Dec. 14, 1961: The shattered remains of a school bus that collided with a train rest in Greeley, Colorado. Twenty children were killed in the accident.
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Dec. 14, 2012: Parents leave a staging area after being reunited with their children following a shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people. Twenty of the victims were children between six and seven years old. It was the worst elementary school shooting in the country's history.
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Infantrymen of the first army plod through the snow in Krinkelter woods in Belgium, Dec. 13, 1944 as they advance to contact the enemy during action. (AP Photo)
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Dec. 13, 1956: Jackie Robinson, a Brooklyn Dodgers star since breaking the Major League color barrier in 1947, is shown with his wife, Rachel, and their four-year-old son, Jackie Jr., in their home in Stamford, Conn. Robinson, 37, holds a banner for the rival New York Giants baseball club to which he was traded for relief pitcher Dick Littlefield and $35,000 in cash. Robinson retired the following January, voiding the trade.
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Dec. 13, 1981: People crowd the entrance of the Solidarity headquarters in Warsaw, Poland, waiting for news about a curfew. Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law to crush a 16-month Solidarity upheaval against communist repression. The government jailed 10,000 opposition activists. Dozens were killed in clashes with police during ensuing strikes and protests.
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Dec. 13-15, 1862: Taken by Matthew Brady during the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, this is the first photograph of the U.S. Army in combat. The battle was a victory for the Confederate troops under Gen. Robert E. Lee.
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Dec. 13, 2007: Former Sen. George Mitchell, right, delivers his remarks at the beginning of a New York news conference, about his report on the illegal use of steroids in baseball. His report implicated 89 Major League players, including at least one from all 30 teams. Among those implicated were several well-known players such as Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Miguel Tejada, and Éric Gagné.
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Dec. 13, 1978: A police car is parked beside a stolen black van discovered in front of 595 E. 95th St. in Brooklyn, N.Y., as forensics experts examine the vehicle, believed used in a morning robbery at Kennedy Airport. On Dec. 11, 1978, half a dozen masked robbers raided the Lufthansa Airlines cargo building at the airport in New York, making off with more than $5 million in cash and almost $1 million in jewelry. Only a portion of the stolen money was ever recovered.
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Dec. 12, 1988: Rescue workers climb over the roofs of trains to reach the injured after three trains collided in rush hour near Clapham Junction in south London, England. Thirty-five people died and 500 were injured.
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Edward VIII, former King of England, now Duke of Windsor, and his bride, Bessie Wallis Warfield Simpson are seen following the civil and religious ceremonies at the Chateau de Cande, near Tours, France, June 3, 1937. (AP Photo/BIPPA)
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Dec. 11, 1992: Plastic garbage bags and other refuse float along 14th Street at the height of the the Great Nor'easter of December 1992 that sent the waters of the East River surging into the streets. The weather system of snow, sleet, rain and high winds struck Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and West Virginia. The highest recorded winds from the winter storm were 80 miles per hour gusts at Cape May, New Jersey, with sustained winds of 20-30 mph. The storm nearly paralyzed portions of New York City.