On this date in history:

In 1777, Gen. George Washington and the Continental Army began a winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pa.

In 1958, the U.S. satellite Atlas transmitted the first radio voice broadcast from space, a 58-word recorded Christmas greeting from President Dwight Eisenhower.

In 1972, the splashdown of Apollo 17 ended the United States' manned moon exploration program.

In 1984, the prime ministers of Britain and China signed an agreement to return Hong Kong to China in 1997.

In 1998, Bill Clinton became the second U.S. president to be impeached (Andrew Johnson was the first) by the House of Representatives, which approved articles charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice. (Like Johnson, he was acquitted by the Senate.)

In 2002, South Korea elected Roh Moo-hyun as its president.

In 2006, a Libyan court sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a doctor to death for deliberately infecting 426 children with HIV.

In 2007, conservative Lee Myung-bak won the South Korea presidential election -- on his birthday.

In 2008, Mark Felt, an FBI official who became known as The Washington Post journalists' shadowy source Deep Throat in the Watergate scandal, died at the age of 95.

In 2009, Irish Catholic Bishop Donald Murray resigned after bring criticized in a report that accused the church of covering up priests' alleged sexual abuse of Dublin children.

In 2011, North Korea announced that leader Kim Jong Il, 69, had died (two days earlier). Kim, son of the founder of the communist country, had been in power since 1994. He was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Un.

In 2012, Britain announced it would begin a gradual withdrawal of its forces in Afghanistan in April 2013.

In 2013, Target, confirming a security breach, said criminals stole credit and debit card information millions of people who shopped in its stores in the post-Thanksgiving period.

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