On This Day, Dec. 11: Apollo 17 lands on moon

Dec. 11 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1816, Indiana joined the United States as its 19th state.

In 1936, Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson. His brother succeeded to the throne as King George VI.

In 1941, four days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.

In 1946, UNICEF was established.

In 1951, Joe DiMaggio announced his retirement from baseball.

In 1964, Ernesto "Che" Guevara addressed the United Nations General Assembly.

In 1972, Apollo 17 landed on the moon. It was the final Apollo lunar landing. Ron Evans was the command module pilot and Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt walked on the surface during the mission. Cernan was the last to re-enter their lunar module -- the last man on the moon.

In 1984, a nativity scene was displayed near the White House for the first time since courts ordered it removed in 1973.

In 1994, up to 40,000 Russian troops invaded Chechnya, a semi-autonomous Republic on Russia's border with Georgia, to put down a secessionist rebellion.

In 1995, two Japanese cult members admitted they released toxic sarin gas in Tokyo subway trains that killed 12 people in March.

In 2001, the United States filed its first charges in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, accusing Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, of conspiring with others to carry out the assault.

In 2004, Vienna doctors treating the mystery illness of Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko determined he was poisoned with dioxin while campaigning for president.

In 2006, Jewish groups worldwide expressed anger as Iran opened a two-day conference in Tehran to determine if the Holocaust was reality or myth.

In 2008, Bernard Madoff, an investment manager, was arrested and charged with defrauding clients of up to $50 billion in what may have been the largest swindle in Wall Street history. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission officials said he ran a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. In June 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

In 2010, police said Mark Madoff, the 46-year-old eldest son of convicted multibillion-dollar Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff, hanged himself in his New York apartment on the second anniversary of his father's arrest.

In 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued emergency use authorization for Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine, the first given approval in the United States.

In 2022, U.S. and Scottish authorities announced the arrest of Abu Agila Mohammad Masud, who was suspected of making the bomb that exploded on board and caused the crash of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, over Lockerbie, Scotland. The blast killed a combined 270 people on board and on the ground.