In 1862, Union forces led by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside launched failed frontal assaults against entrenched Confederate soldiers during the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg; the soundly defeated Northern troops withdrew two days later after suffering heavy casualties.

In 1937, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japanese soldiers captured the Chinese city of Nanjing and began what would be a weekslong massacre of an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 citizens, war prisoners and soldiers.

In 1996, the U.N. Security Council chose Kofi Annan of Ghana to become the world body’s seventh secretary-general.

In 2000, Republican George W. Bush claimed the presidency a day after the U.S. Supreme Court shut down further recounts of disputed ballots in Florida; Democrat Al Gore conceded, deliverin

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