Elvis Presley is drafted

December 20, 1957

ON this day, rock-and-roll star Elvis Presley received his draft notice for the United States Army.

Presley had become world’s first bona fide rock-and-roll star by the end of 1956. The following year, at the peak of his career, Presley received his draft notice for a two-year stint in the army. And for the next 18 months, he served in Company D, 32nd Tank Battalion, 3rd Armour Corps in Friedberg, Germany, where he attained the rank of sergeant. Presley was widely praised for not seeking to avoid the draft or serve domestically, thus was seen as a model for all young Americans.

Apart from that, when he got his polio shot from an army doctor on national TV, vaccine rates among the American population shoot from two per cent to 85 per cent by the time of his discharge on March 2, 1960.

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December 21, 1913

ON this day, the first known modern-day crossword puzzle was created by a journalist named Arthur Wynne from Liverpool, England. This crossword appeared in a Sunday newspaper, the New York World.

However, it is believed that the first crosswords appeared in England during the 19th century. They were of an elementary kind, apparently derived from the word square, a group of words arranged so the letters read alike vertically and horizontally, and printed in children’s puzzle books and various periodicals.

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December 23, 1986

THIS day, after nine days and four minutes in the sky, the experimental aircraft Voyager lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California, completing the first nonstop flight around the globe on one load of fuel.

Voyager was piloted by Americans Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager. It was made mostly of plastic and stiffened paper and carried more than three times its weight in fuel when it took off from Edwards Air Force Base. By the time it returned, after flying 25,012 miles around the planet, it had just five gallons of fuel left in its remaining operational fuel tank.

Voyager is on permanent display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.