Today is Monday, Dec. 6, the 340th day of 2010. There are 25 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On Dec. 6, 1960, nearly 9 million acres of Alaska were set aside as an Arctic National Wildlife Range by order of Interior Secretary Fred Seaton. (In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed an act doubling the size of the range and renaming it the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.)

On this date

In 1790, Congress moved to Philadelphia from New York.

In 1884, Army engineers completed construction of the Washington Monument by setting an aluminum capstone atop the obelisk.

In 1889, Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, died in New Orleans.

In 1907, the worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, W.Va.

In 1917, some 2,000 people died when an explosives-laden French cargo ship collided with a Norwegian vessel at the harbor in Halifax, Nova Scotia, setting off a blast that devastated the city.

In 1922, the Irish Free State came into being under terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

In 1947, Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Harry S. Truman.

In 1957, America’s first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit failed as Vanguard TV3 rose about 4 feet off a Cape Canaveral launch pad before crashing down and exploding.

In 1969, a free concert by The Rolling Stones at the Altamont Speedway in Alameda County, Calif., was marred by the deaths of four people, including one who was stabbed by a Hells Angel.

In 1989, 14 women were shot to death at the University of Montreal’s school of engineering by a man who then took his own life.

Ten years ago

Florida Republican leaders announced the Legislature would convene in special session to appoint its own slate of electors in the state’s contested presidential race; Democrats denounced the idea. U.S. businessman Edmond Pope was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment by a Moscow court for espionage; however, Pope was pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and released eight days after his sentencing. Actor Werner Klemperer died in New York at age 80.

Five years ago

Two women detonated explosives in a classroom filled with students at Baghdad’s police academy, killing 27 people. An Iranian military transport plane crashed in a Tehran suburb as it was trying to make an emergency landing, killing at least 115 people, including 21 on the ground. Sami Al-Arian, a former Florida professor accused of helping lead a terrorist group that carried out suicide bombings against Israel, was acquitted on nearly half the charges against him by a federal court jury in Tampa, Fla.; the jury deadlocked on the other charges.

Today’s Birthdays

Jazz musician Dave Brubeck is 90. Pro Football Hall of Famer Andy Robustelli is 85. Actor Patrick Bauchau is 72. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is 65. Actress JoBeth Williams is 62. Actor Tom Hulce is 57. Actor Kin Shriner is 57. Actor Wil Shriner is 57. Rock musician Peter Buck (R.E.M.) is 54. Writer-director Judd Apatow is 43. Rock musician Ulf “Buddha” Ekberg (Ace of Base) is 40. Writer-director Craig Brewer is 39. Actress Colleen Haskell is 34. Actress Lindsay Price is 34. Christian rock musician Jacob Chesnut (Rush of Fools) is 21.

Thought for Today

“Each and every one of us has one obligation, during the bewildered days of our pilgrimage here: the saving of his own soul, and secondarily and incidentally thereby affecting for good such other souls as come under our influence.”

— Kathleen Norris, American author (1880-1960)