Respect for Marriage Act signed into law – Chicago Tribune

Today is Saturday, December 13, the 347th day of the year 2025. There are 18 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On December 13, 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Respect in Marriage Act, which provides federal recognition and protection for same-sex and interracial marriages, calling it “a blow against hate in all its forms.”

Also on this date:

In 1862, Union forces led by Major General Ambrose Burnside launched failed frontal assaults against entrenched Confederate soldiers during the Battle of Fredericksburg during the Civil War; the defeated northern troops withdrew two days later after suffering heavy losses.

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

In 1996, the UN Security Council selected Kofi Annan of Ghana to become the world organization’s seventh secretary-general.

In 2000, Republican George W. Bush claimed the presidency a day after the United States Supreme Court halted the recount of disputed ballots in Florida; Democrat Al Gore conceded, appealing for national unity.

In 2001, the Pentagon released a videotape of Osama bin Laden in which the al-Qaeda leader claimed that the death and destruction caused by the September 11 attacks exceeded his “most optimistic” expectations.

In 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole under a farm in Adwar, Iraq, near his hometown of Tikrit.

In 2014, thousands of protesters marched in New York, Washington and other U.S. cities to call attention to the killing of unarmed black men by white police officers.